South Picene language

Last updated
South Picene
Old Sabellic
Native to Picenum
Region Marche, Italy
Eraattested 6th–4th century BC [1]
Picene alphabets
Language codes
ISO 639-3 spx
spx
Glottolog sout2618
Iron Age Italy.svg
Ethnolinguistic map of Italy in the Iron Age, before the Roman expansion and conquest of Italy
South Picene country in Teramo. Castagneto(Teramo).JPG
South Picene country in Teramo.

South Picene (also known as Paleo-Sabellic, Mid-Adriatic or Eastern Italic) [2] 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 (and their dialects), [3] 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.

Contents

Corpus

The corpus of South Picene inscriptions consists of 19 inscriptions on stone or bronze dating from as early as the 6th century BC to as late as the 4th century BC. [4] The dating is estimated according to the features of the letters and in some cases the archaeological context. As the known history of the Picentes does not begin until their subjugation by Rome in the 3rd century, the inscriptions open an earlier window onto their culture as far back as the late Roman Kingdom. Most are stelai or cippi of sandstone or limestone in whole or fragmentary condition sculpted for funerary contexts, but some are monumental statues.

On a typical gravestone is the representation of the face or figure of the deceased with the inscription in a spiral around it or under it reading in a clockwise direction, or boustrophedon, or vertically. [5] Stones have been found at Ascoli Piceno, Chieti, Teramo, Fano, Loro Piceno, Cures, the Abruzzi between the Tronto and the Aterno-Pescara, and Castel di Ieri and Crecchio south of the Aterno-Pescara. [6] To them are added inscriptions on a bronze bracelet in central Abruzzi and two 4th-century BC helmets from Bologna in the Po Valley and Bari on the southeastern coast. [7]

A complete inventory is as follows: [4]

Phonology

For consonants South Picene had: [8]

Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Plosive voiceless p p t t k k q
voiced b b d d ɡ k
Fricative f : s s h h
Nasal m m n n
Liquid r r l l
Approximant w v u ú j i

In cases where there is a choice of grapheme the context determines which one applies. For the glides, v and u were used for word-initial /w/ and ú for intervocalic /w/ or in other special contexts. The table above omits special contexts.

Alphabet

The south Picene alphabet, known from the 6th century BC, is most like the southern Etruscan alphabet in that it uses q for /k/ and k for /g/. It is:

a b g d e v h i í k l m n o p q r s t u ú f *

. is a reduced o and : is a reduced 8, used for /f/. [9]

Grammar

An outline of South Picene grammar, comprising both its inflectional morphology and its syntax, is provided in Zamponi (2021).

Inflectional morphology

South Picene, like other Italic languages, is a fusional language that encodes multiple layers of grammatical information simultaneously in a given inflected form and/or ending.

Noun declension

South Picene nouns decline for two grammatical numbers (singular and plural) and six attested cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative, locative).

Nouns in South Picene possess an innate grammatical gender; adjectives must agree with their modified nouns in gender. Masculine and feminine adjective gender agreement is attested; neuter agreement is not. [10]

Nouns are also divided into separate declension classes, which determine which endings for case and number they take. The declension classes are as follows:

  • ā-stems, corresponding to the Latin first declension;
  • o-stems, equivalent to the Latin second declension;
  • u-stems, equivalent to the Latin fourth declension and only attested once in manus "hands" (ablative plural);
  • i-stems;
  • consonant stems; in Latin, they are grouped together with the i-stems to form the third declension.

Zamponi also presumes that a counterpart to the Latin fifth declension also existed in South Picene, but no such noun is attested.

The attested declensional endings for nouns include:

South Picene declensions
ā-stemso-stemsi-stemsconsonant stems
SingularPluralSingularPluralSingularPluralSingularPlural
Nominative-a ?-s-ús??
Accusative-am-as-úm??-em-f
Genitive-as-asom-es-úm-es-iom?
Dative?-úí
-oh
??-eíh?
Ablative-ah??-ih??
Locative-aih?-en
-ín
?-eí?-en?

Syntax

Like in Latin, South Picene has rather free word order in terms of the position of the subject, object, and verb in a given sentence. For example:

(1)
A postverbal subject, preverbal object:

ma

very

kuprí

well

koram

commemorative.stone.ACC

opsút

make.PERF.3SG

aninis

Aninius.NOM

makupríkoramopsútaninis

very well commemorative.stone.ACC make.PERF.3SG Aninius.NOM

"Aninius made the commemorative stone very well"

(2)
A preverbal subject:

apaes

Appaeus.NOM

qupat

lie.3SG

esmín

here

apaesqupatesmín

Appaeus.NOM lie.3SG here

"Appaeus lies here"

(3)
A preverbal subject, postverbal object:

safinús

Sabines.NOM

estuf

here

eśelsit

erect.PRES.3PL

múfqlúm

monument.ACC

safinúsestufeśelsitmúfqlúm

Sabines.NOM here erect.PRES.3PL monument.ACC

"The Sabines erect a monument here"

Nevertheless, some principles of South Picene syntax can be drawn. Many of the examples in this section are taken from Zamponi (2021).

Verbal clauses

Adverbs usually precede the verb they modify. [11]

(1)

oftorim

stele.ACC

esmen

here

adstaeoms

set.up.PERF.1PL

oftorimesmenadstaeoms

stele.ACC here set.up.PERF.1PL

"we set up a stele here"

Copular clauses consist of the complement followed by the copular verb:

(2a)
With the copula esum proper:

a[l]sies

Alsius.GEN

esum

be.1SG

a[l]siesesum

Alsius.GEN be.1SG

"I am [property] of Alsius"

(2b)
With the copula-like verb kduíú "I am called":

uelaimes

Velaimus.GEN

staties

Statius.GEN

qora

commemorative.stone.NOM

kduíú

be.called.1SG

uelaimesstatiesqorakduíú

Velaimus.GEN Statius.GEN commemorative.stone.NOM be.called.1SG

"I am [called] the commemorative stone for Velaimus Statius"

Noun phrases

In South Picene, adjectives and genitive noun phrases usually precede the nouns they modify: [12]

(1)

kaúi-eis

Gaius-GEN

puql-oh

son-DAT

kaúi-eispuql-oh

Gaius-GEN son-DAT

"for the son of Gaius"

(2)

safin-úm

Sabines-GEN

nerf

men-ACC

safin-úmnerf

Sabines-GEN men-ACC

"the men of the Sabines"

(3)

Alínt-iom

Alentes-GEN

okr-eí

citadel-LOC

Alínt-iomokr-eí

Alentes-GEN citadel-LOC

"in the Alentes' citadel"

(4)

púmpúni-s

Pomponian-NOM.SG

nír

man.NOM.SG

púmpúni-snír

Pomponian-NOM.SG man.NOM.SG

"the Pomponian man"

(5)

safin-as

Sabine-GEN.SG

tút-as

community-GEN.SG

safin-astút-as

Sabine-GEN.SG community-GEN.SG

"the Sabine community"

Demonstratives also must occur before their associated noun.

(6)

esm-a-k

this-LOC.SG.F

toút-aih

community-LOC.SG

esm-a-ktoút-aih

this-LOC.SG.F community-LOC.SG

"in this community"

(7)

esm-í-k

this-LOC.SG

vepet-í[n]

tomb-LOC.SG

esm-í-kvepet-í[n]

this-LOC.SG tomb-LOC.SG

"in this tomb"

Sample text

Inscription Sp TE 2 on a gravestone from Bellante was studied by a linguist of Indo-European studies, Calvert Watkins, as an example of the earliest Italic poetry and as possibly a reflex of a Proto-Indo-European poetic form. [5] In the inscription given below colons are used to separate words; in the original inscription, three vertical dots are used ("the triple interpunct").

postin : viam : videtas : tetis : tokam : alies : esmen : vepses : vepeten
"Along the road you see the 'toga' of Titus Alius? buried? in this tomb." [13]

The translation of the questioned items is unclear. For toga Fortson suggests "covering."

Note the alliteration: viam and videtas; tetis and tokam; alies and esmen; vepses and vepeten. The possibility of this and the other inscriptions being stanzas of verse (strophes) was considered from the time of their discovery. Watkins called them "the South Picene strophe," which he defines as three lines of seven syllables each, comparing them to a strophe of the Rig Veda containing three lines of eight syllables each. [14] Moreover, each line ends "in a trisyllable." The lines of this inscription are:

postin viam videtas
tetis tokam alies
esmen vepses vepeten

The first line would be syllabified and read:

po-stin vi-am vi-de-tas

Related Research Articles

In grammar, the comitative case is a grammatical case that denotes accompaniment. In English, the preposition "with", in the sense of "in company with" or "together with", plays a substantially similar role. Other uses of "with", like in the meaning of "using" or "by means of", correspond to the instrumental case or related cases.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lycian language</span> Extinct Indo-European language of southwestern Anatolia

The Lycian language was the language of the ancient Lycians who occupied the Anatolian region known during the Iron Age as Lycia. Most texts date back to the fifth and fourth century BC. Two languages are known as Lycian: regular Lycian or Lycian A, and Lycian B or Milyan. Lycian became extinct around the beginning of the first century BC, replaced by the Ancient Greek language during the Hellenization of Anatolia. Lycian had its own alphabet, which was closely related to the Greek alphabet but included at least one character borrowed from Carian as well as characters proper to the language. The words were often separated by two points.

A cleft sentence is a complex sentence that has a meaning that could be expressed by a simple sentence. Clefts typically put a particular constituent into focus. In spoken language, this focusing is often accompanied by a special intonation.

Mbula is an Austronesian language spoken by around 2,500 people on Umboi Island and Sakar Island in the Morobe Province of Papua New Guinea. Its basic word order is subject–verb–object; it has a nominative–accusative case-marking strategy.

In linguistic typology, tripartite alignment is a type of morphosyntactic alignment in which the main argument ('subject') of an intransitive verb, the agent argument ('subject') of a transitive verb, and the patient argument of a transitive verb are each treated distinctly in the grammatical system of a language. This is in contrast with nominative-accusative and ergative-absolutive alignment languages, in which the argument of an intransitive verb patterns with either the agent argument of the transitive or with the patient argument of the transitive. Thus, whereas in English, "she" in "she runs" patterns with "she" in "she finds it", and an ergative language would pattern "she" in "she runs" with "her" in "he likes her", a tripartite language would treat the "she" in "she runs" as morphologically and/or syntactically distinct from either argument in "he likes her".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alyutor language</span> Chukotkan language of Kamchatka, Russia

Alyutor or Alutor is a language of Russia that belongs to the Chukotkan branch of the Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages, by the Alyutors. It is moribund, as only 25 speakers were reported in the 2010 Russian census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Osco-Umbrian languages</span> Group of Italic languages

The Osco-Umbrian, Sabellic or Sabellian languages are an extinct group of Italic languages, the Indo-European languages that were spoken in Central and Southern Italy by the Osco-Umbrians before being replaced by Latin, as the power of Ancient Rome expanded. Their written attestations developed from the middle of the 1st millennium BC to the early centuries of the 1st millennium AD. The languages are known almost exclusively from inscriptions, principally of Oscan and Umbrian, but there are also some Osco-Umbrian loanwords in Latin. Besides the two major branches of Oscan and Umbrian, South Picene may represent a third branch of Sabellic. The whole linguistic Sabellic area, however, might be considered a dialect continuum. Paucity of evidence from most of the "minor dialects" contributes to the difficulty of making these determinations.

Sidama or Sidaamu Afoo is an Afro-Asiatic language belonging to the Highland East Cushitic branch of the Cushitic family. It is spoken in parts of southern Ethiopia by the Sidama people, particularly in the densely populated Sidama National Regional State (SNRS). Sidaamu Afoo is the ethnic autonym for the language, while Sidaminya is its name in Amharic. It is not known to have any specific dialects. The word order is typically SOV. Sidaama has over 100,000 L2 speakers. The literacy rate for L1 speakers is 1%-5%, while for L2 speakers it is 20%. In terms of its writing, Sidaama used an Ethiopic script up until 1993, from which point forward it has used a Latin script.

Kambera, also known as East Sumbanese, is a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken in the eastern half of Sumba Island in the Lesser Sunda Islands, Indonesia. Kambera is a member of Bima-Sumba subgrouping within Central Malayo-Polynesian inside Malayo-Polynesian. The island of Sumba, located in Eastern Indonesia, has an area of 11,243.78 km2. The name Kambera comes from a traditional region which is close to the town of Waingapu in East Sumba Regency. Because of export trades which concentrated in Waingapu in the 19th century, the language of the Kambera region has become the bridging language in eastern Sumba.

German sentence structure is the structure to which the German language adheres. German is an OV (Object-Verb) language. Additionally, German, like all west Germanic languages except English, uses V2 word order, though only in independent clauses. In dependent clauses, the finite verb is placed last.

In linguistic typology, the object–subject–verb (OSV) or object–agent–verb (OAV) word order is a structure where the object of a sentence precedes both the subject and the verb. Although this word order is rarely found as the default in most languages, it does occur as the unmarked or neutral order in a few Amazonian languages, including Xavante and Apurinã. In many other languages, OSV can be used in marked sentences to convey emphasis or focus, often as a stylistic device rather than a normative structure. OSV constructions appear in languages as diverse as Chinese, Finnish, and British Sign Language, typically to emphasize or topicalize the object. Examples of OSV structures can also be found in certain contexts within English, Hebrew, and other languages through the use of syntactic inversion for emphasis or rhetorical effect. The OSV order is also culturally recognizable through its use by the character Yoda in Star Wars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">North Picene language</span> Ancient language of the Italian Peninsula

North Picene, also known as North Picenian or Northern Picene, is a supposed ancient language, which may have been spoken in part of central-eastern Italy; alternatively the evidence for the language may be a hoax, with the language never having existed. The evidence for the language consists of four inscriptions apparently dating from the 1st millennium BC, three of them no more than small broken fragments. It is written in a form of the Old Italic alphabet. While its texts are easily transliterated, none of them have been translated so far. It is not possible to determine whether it is related to any other known language. Despite the use by modern scholars of a similar name, it does not appear that North Picene is closely related to South Picene, and they may not be related at all. The total number of words in the inscriptions is about 60. It is not even certain that the inscriptions are all in one language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">East Ambae language</span> Austronesian language spoken in Vanuatu

East Ambae is an Oceanic language spoken on Ambae, Vanuatu. The data in this article will concern itself with the Lolovoli dialect of the North-East Ambae language.

Cavineña is an indigenous language spoken on the Amazonian plains of northern Bolivia by over 1,000 Cavineño people. Although Cavineña is still spoken, it is an endangered language. Guillaume (2004) states that about 1200 people speak the language, out of a population of around 1700. Nearly all Cavineña are bilingual in Spanish.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wanano language</span> Tucanoan language spoken in Brazil and Colombia

Guanano (Wanano), or Piratapuyo, is a Tucanoan language spoken in the northwest part of Amazonas in Brazil and in Vaupés in Colombia. It is spoken by two peoples, the Wanano and the Piratapuyo. They do not intermarry, but their speech is 75% lexically similar.

Uyghur is a Turkic language spoken mostly in the west of China.

Buru or Buruese is a Malayo-Polynesian language of the Central Maluku branch. In 1991 it was spoken by approximately 45,000 Buru people who live on the Indonesian island of Buru. It is also preserved in the Buru communities on Ambon and some other Maluku Islands, as well as in the Indonesian capital Jakarta and in the Netherlands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Proto-Italic language</span> Ancestor of Latin and other Italic languages

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iatmul language</span> Ndu language spoken in Papua New Guinea

Iatmul is the language of the Iatmul people, spoken around the Sepik River in the East Sepik Province, northern Papua New Guinea. The Iatmul, however, do not refer to their language by the term Iatmul, but call it gepmakudi.

Longgu (Logu) is a Southeast Solomonic language of Guadalcanal, but originally from Malaita.

References

  1. South Picene at MultiTree on the Linguist List
  2. Farney, Gary D.; Bradley, Guy (2017). The Peoples of Ancient Italy. Walter de Gruyter. p. 582. ISBN   978-1-5015-0014-5.
  3. Rix, Helmut (2004). Sabellische Texte: Die Texte des Oskischen, Umbrischen und Südpikenischen. Heidelberg: Carl Winter University Press. p. 4ff.
  4. 1 2 Calvelli, Alberto. "Lingua e Scrittura". I Piceni (in Italian). antiqui. Retrieved 8 September 2010.
  5. 1 2 Watkins 1996 , p. 131
  6. Salmon, Edward Togo (1988). "The Iron Age: the Peoples of Italy". In Boardman, John; Hammond, NGL; Lewis, DM; et al. (eds.). The Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. IV: Persia, Greece and the Western Mediterranean c.525–479 BC. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 697.
  7. Stuart-Smith 2004 , p. 65
  8. Stuart-Smith 2004 , p. 69
  9. Stuart-Smith 2004 , p. 66
  10. Zamponi 2021, p. 28.
  11. Zamponi 2021, p. 55.
  12. Zamponi 2021, p. 51.
  13. Fortson, Benjamin W (2010). Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction. Blackwell textbooks in linguistics, 19 (2nd ed.). Chichester, U.K.; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. p. 301.
  14. Watkins 1996 , p. 132

Bibliography

Further reading