| Volscian | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Latium |
| Region | Italy |
| Era | 3rd century BCElinglist |
Indo-European
| |
| Old Italic alphabet | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | xvo |
xvo | |
| Glottolog | vols1237 [1] |
 Location of the Volsci. | |
Volscian was a Sabellic Italic language, which was spoken by the Volsci and closely related to Oscan and Umbrian.
Volscian is attested in an inscription found in Velitrae (Velletri), dating probably from early in the 3rd century BC; it is cut upon a small bronze plate (now in the Naples Museum), which must have once been fixed to some votive object, dedicated to the god Declunus (or the goddess Decluna). [2] [3] The language of this inscription is clear enough to show the very marked peculiarities that rank it close to the language of the Iguvine Tables. It shows on the one hand the labialization of the original velar q (Volscian pis = Latin quis), and on the other hand it palatalizes the guttural c before a following i (Volscian facia Latin faciat). Like Umbrian also, but unlike Latin and Oscan, it has changed all the diphthongs into simple vowels (Volscian se parallel to Oscan svai; Volscian deue, Old Latin and Oscan deiuai or deiuoi). This phenomenon of what might have been taken for a piece of Umbrian text appearing in a district remote from Umbria and hemmed in by Latins on the north and Oscan-speaking Samnites on the south is a most curious feature in the geographical distribution of the Italic dialects, and is clearly the result of some complex historical movements. [4]
In seeking for an explanation we may perhaps trust, at least in part, the evidence of the ethnicon itself: the name Volsci belongs to what may be called the -co- group of tribal names in the centre, and mainly on the west coast, of Italy, all of whom were subdued by the Romans before the end of the 4th century BC; and many of whom were conquered by the Samnites about a century or more earlier. They are, from south to north, Osci, Aurunci, Hernici, Marruci, Falisci; with these were no doubt associated the original inhabitants of Aricia and of Sidicinum, of Vescia among the Aurunci, and of Labici close to Hernican territory. [4]
The same formative element appears in the adjective Mons Massicus, and the names Glanica and Marica belonging to the Auruncan district, with Graviscae in south Etruria, and a few other names in central Italy (see "I due strati nella popolazione Indo-Europea dell'Italia Antica," in the Atti del Congresso Internazionale di Scienze Storiche, Rome, 1903, p. 17). With these names must clearly be judged the forms Etrusci and Tusci, although these forms must not be regarded as anything but the names given to the Etruscans by the folk among whom they settled. Now the historical fortune of these tribes is reflected in several of their names (see Sabini). The Samnite and Roman conquerors tended to impose the form of their own ethnicon, namely the suffix -no-, upon the tribes they conquered; hence the Marruci became the Marrucini, the Sarici became Aricini, and it seems at least probable that the forms Sidicini, Carecini, and others of this shape are the results of this same process. [4]
The conclusion suggested is that these -co- tribes occupied the centre and west coast of Italy at the time of the Etruscan invasion; whereas the -no- tribes only reached this part of Italy, or at least only became dominant there, long after the Etruscans had settled in the Peninsula. [4]
It remains, therefore, to ask whether any information can be had about the language of this primitive -co- folk, and whether they can be identified as the authors of any of the various archaeological strata now recognized on Italian soil. If the conclusions suggested under Sabini may be accepted as sound we should expect to find the Volsci speaking a language similar to that of the Ligures, whose fondness for the suffix -sco- has been noticed, and identical with that spoken by the plebeians of Rome, and that this branch of Indo-European was among those that preserved the original Indo-European Velars from the labialization that befell them in the speech of the Samnites. The language of the inscription of Velitrae offers at first sight a difficulty from this point of view, in the conversion it shows of q to p, but the ethnicon of Velitrae is Veliternus, and the people are called on the inscription itself Velestrom (genitive plural); so nothing prevents assuming there was a settlement of Sabines among the Volscian hills, with their language, to some extent, (e.g., in the diphthongs and palatals) corrupted by the speech around them, just as was the case with the Sabine language of the Iguvini, whose very name became Iguvinates, the suffix -ti- being much more frequent among the -co- tribes than among the Sabines. [4]
The name Volsci itself is significant not merely in its suffix; the older Volusci clearly contains the word meaning marsh identical with Gr. helos, since the change of *velos- to *volus- is phonetically regular in Latin. The name Marica ("goddess of the salt-marshes") among the Aurunci appears also both on the coast of Picenum and among the Ligurians; and Stephanus of Byzantium identified the Osci with the Siculi, who, there is reason to suspect, were kinsmen of the Ligures. It is remarkable in how many marshy places this -co- or -ca- suffix is used. Besides the Aurunci and the dea Marica and the intempestaeque Graviscae ( Aeneis 10.184), we have the Ustica cubans of Horace (Odes 1.17.1), the Hernici in the Trerus Valley, Satricum and Glanica in the Pontine Marshes. [4]
The Italic languages form a branch of the Indo-European language family, whose earliest known members were spoken in the Italian Peninsula in the first millennium BC. The best known of them is 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.
The Sabines were an Italic people that lived in the central Apennine Mountains of ancient Italy, 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 also the namesake of the language group to which it belonged. As a member of the Italic languages, Oscan is therefore a sister language to Latin and Umbrian.
The Osci, were an Italic people of Campania and Latium adiectum during Roman times. They spoke the Oscan language, also spoken by the Samnites of Southern Italy. Although the language of the Samnites was called Oscan, the Samnites were never referred to as Osci, nor were the Osci called Samnites.
The Volsci were an Italic Osco-Umbrian tribe, well known in the history of the first century of the Roman Republic. At the time they inhabited the partly hilly, partly marshy district of the south of Latium, bounded by the Aurunci and Samnites on the south, the Hernici on the east, and stretching roughly from Norba and Cora in the north to Antium in the south. Rivals of Rome for several hundred years, their territories were taken over by and assimilated into the growing republic by 300 BCE. Rome's first emperor Augustus was of Volscian descent.
The Hernici were an Italic tribe of ancient Italy, whose territory was in Latium between the Fucine Lake and the Sacco River (Trerus), bounded by the Volsci on the south, and by the Aequi and the Marsi on the north.
The Paeligni or Peligni were an Italic tribe who lived in the Valle Peligna, in what is now Abruzzo, central Italy.
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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.
The Samnites were an ancient Italic people who lived in Samnium in south-central Italy. They became involved in several wars with the Roman Republic until the 1st century BC.
The Etruscan alphabet was the alphabet 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.
The Osco-Umbrian, Sabellic or Sabellian languages are a 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. They 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.
The Lucanians were an Italic tribe living in Lucania, in what is now southern Italy, who spoke an Oscan language, a member of the Italic languages. Today, the inhabitants of the Basilicata region are still called Lucani, and so their dialect.
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.
The socii or foederati were confederates of Rome and formed one of the three legal denominations in Roman Italy (Italia) along with the Roman citizens (Cives) and the Latini. The Latini, who were simultaneously special confederates and semi-citizens, should not be equated with the homonymous Italic people of which Rome was part. This tripartite organisation lasted from the Roman expansion in Italy to the Social War, when all peninsular inhabitants were awarded Roman citizenship.
The Campanians were an ancient Italic tribe, part of the Osci nation, speaking an Oscan language.
The Roman–Latin wars were a series of wars fought between ancient Rome and the Latins, from the earliest stages of the history of Rome until the final subjugation of the Latins to Rome in the aftermath of the Latin War.
The Roman–Volscian wars were a series of wars fought between the Roman Republic and the Volsci, an ancient Italic people. Volscian migration into southern Latium led to conflict with that region's old inhabitants, the Latins under leadership of Rome, the region's dominant city-state. By the late 5th century BC, the Volsci were increasingly on the defensive and by the end of the Samnite Wars had been incorporated into the Roman Republic. The ancient historians devoted considerable space to Volscian wars in their accounts of the early Roman Republic, but the historical accuracy of much of this material has been questioned by modern historians.
| Library resources about Volscian language |