The Italic languages form a branch of the Indo-European language family, whose earliest known members were spoken on the Italian Peninsula in the first millennium BC. The most important of the ancient Italic languages was Latin, the official language of ancient Rome, which conquered the other Italic peoples before the common era. The other Italic languages became extinct in the first centuries AD as their speakers were assimilated into the Roman Empire and shifted to some form of Latin. Between the third and eighth centuries AD, Vulgar Latin diversified into the Romance languages, which are the only Italic languages natively spoken today, while Literary Latin also survived.
The Old Italic scripts are a family of ancient writing systems used in the Italian Peninsula between about 700 and 100 BC, for various languages spoken in that time and place. The most notable member is the Etruscan alphabet, which was the immediate ancestor of the Latin alphabet used by more than 100 languages today, including English. The runic alphabets used in Northern Europe are believed to have been separately derived from one of these alphabets by the 2nd century AD.
The Sabines were an Italic people who lived in the central Apennine Mountains of the ancient Italian Peninsula, also inhabiting Latium north of the Anio before the founding of Rome.
Oscan is an extinct Indo-European language of southern Italy. The language is in the Osco-Umbrian or Sabellic branch of the Italic languages. Oscan is therefore a close relative of Umbrian and South Picene.
Umbrian is an extinct Italic language formerly spoken by the Umbri in the ancient Italian region of Umbria. Within the Italic languages it is closely related to the Oscan group and is therefore associated with it in the group of Osco-Umbrian languages, a term generally replaced by Sabellic in modern scholarship. Since that classification was first formulated, a number of other languages in ancient Italy were discovered to be more closely related to Umbrian. Therefore, a group, the Umbrian languages, was devised to contain them.
The Marsi were an Italic people of ancient Italy, whose chief centre was Marruvium, on the eastern shore of Lake Fucinus. The area in which they lived is now called Marsica. They originally spoke a language now termed Marsian which is attested by several inscriptions.
Vestini were an Italic tribe who occupied the area of the modern Abruzzo, included between the Gran Sasso and the northern bank of the Aterno river. Their main centres were Pitinum (near modern L'Aquila), Aufinum (Ofena), Peltuinum, Pinna (Penne) and Aternum (Pescara, shared with the Marrucini).
The Paeligni or Peligni were an Italic tribe who lived in the Valle Peligna, in what is now Abruzzo, central Italy.
The Marrucini were an Italic tribe that occupied a small strip of territory around the ancient Teate, on the east coast of Abruzzo, Italy, limited by the Aterno and Foro Rivers. Other Marrucinian centers included Ceio, Iterpromium, Civitas Danzica (Rapino), and the port of Aternum (Pescara), shared with the Vestini.
Samnium is a Latin exonym for a region of Southern Italy anciently inhabited by the Samnites. Their own endonyms were Safinim for the country and Safineis for the people. The language of these endonyms and of the population was the Oscan language. However, not all the Samnites spoke Oscan, and not all the Oscan-speakers lived in Samnium.
Venetic is an extinct Indo-European language, most commonly classified into the Italic subgroup, that was spoken by the Veneti people in ancient times in northeast Italy and part of modern Slovenia, between the Po Delta and the southern fringe of the Alps, associated with the Este culture.
The Etruscan alphabet was used by the Etruscans, an ancient civilization of central and northern Italy, to write their language, from about 700 BC to sometime around 100 AD.
Volscian was a Sabellic Italic language, which was spoken by the Volsci and closely related to Oscan and Umbrian.
The Latino-Faliscan or Latinian languages form a group of the Italic languages within the Indo-European family. They were spoken by the Latino-Faliscan people of Italy who lived there from the early 1st millennium BCE.
Sabellians is a collective ethnonym for a group of Italic peoples or tribes inhabiting central and southern Italy at the time of the rise of Rome. The name was first applied by Niebuhr and encompassed the Sabines, Marsi, Marrucini and Vestini. Pliny in one passage says the Samnites were also called Sabelli, and this is confirmed by Strabo. The term Sabellus is found also in Livy and other Latin writers, as an adjective form for Samnite, though never for the name of the nation; but it is frequently also used, especially by the poets, simply as an equivalent for the adjective Sabine.
South Picene is an extinct Italic language belonging to the Sabellic subfamily. It is apparently unrelated to the North Picene language, which is not understood and therefore unclassified. South Picene texts were at first relatively inscrutable even though some words were clearly Indo-European. The discovery in 1983 that two of the apparently redundant punctuation marks were in reality simplified letters led to an incremental improvement in their understanding and a first translation in 1985. Difficulties remain. It may represent a third branch of Sabellic, along with Oscan and Umbrian, or the whole Sabellic linguistic area may be best regarded as a linguistic continuum. The paucity of evidence from most of the 'minor dialects' contributes to these difficulties.
Vestinian is an extinct Italic language documented only in two surviving inscriptions of the Roman Republic. It is presumed to have been anciently spoken by the tribe of the Vestini, who occupied the region within current Abruzzo from Gran Sasso to the Adriatic Sea in east-central Italy during that time. Vestini is the Roman exonym for the people. Not enough of their presumed language survives to classify it beyond Italic. Vestinian is one of a number of scantily attested Italic languages spoken in small regions of the Apennines directly east of Rome called generally "the minor dialects". There is currently no agreement on their precise classification. However, de Vaan's consensus classification has it as Osco-Umbrian, closely related to Oscan.
Lydian script was used to write the Lydian language. Like other scripts of Anatolia in the Iron Age, the Lydian alphabet is based on the Phoenician alphabet. It is related to the East Greek alphabet, but it has unique features.
The Proto-Italic language is the ancestor of the Italic languages, most notably Latin and its descendants, the Romance languages. It is not directly attested in writing, but has been reconstructed to some degree through the comparative method. Proto-Italic descended from the earlier Proto-Indo-European language.
Pre-Samnite was an ancient language spoken in southern Campania, in Italy. The name Pre-Samnite refers to the fact that the language was spoken in early times in an area that was later colonized by Samnites, who spoke Oscan. Pre-Samnite is recorded in a few short inscriptions dating from around 500 BC. The language belongs to the Osco-Umbrian group of languages, and may be closely related to Oscan, but shows a number of archaic features which were lost from Oscan. However, the material is too scant to enable a precise determination of the relation of Pre-Samnite either to Oscan or to the other Sabellian languages.
