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Old Italic Script
The Old Italic scripts are a family of similar 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 currently used by English and many other languages of the world. The runic alphabets used in northern Europe are believed to have been separately derived from one of these alphabets by the 2nd century AD. Origins The Old Italic alphabets clearly derive from the Phoenician alphabet, although the precise chain of cultural transmission is unknown. Some scholars argue that the Etruscan alphabet was imported from the Euboean Greek colonies of Cumae and Ischia (Pithekoūsai) in the Gulf of Naples in the 8th century BC; this Euboean alphabet is also called 'Cumaean' (after Cumae), or 'Chalcidian' (after its metropolis Chalcis). The Cumaean hypothesis is supported by th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phoenician Alphabet
The Phoenician alphabet is an alphabet (more specifically, an abjad) known in modern times from the Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found across the Mediterranean region. The name comes from the Phoenician civilization. The Phoenician alphabet is also called the Early Linear script (in a Semitic context, not connected to Minoan writing systems), because it is an early development of the Proto- or Old Canaanite or Proto-Sinaitic script, into a linear, purely alphabetic script, also marking the transfer from a multi-directional writing system, where a variety of writing directions occurred, to a regulated horizontal, right-to-left script. Its immediate predecessor, the Proto-Canaanite, Old Canaanite or Proto-Sinaitic script, used in the final stages of the Late Bronze Age, first in either Egypt or Canaan and then in the Syro-Hittite kingdoms, is the oldest fully matured alphabet, and it was derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs. The Phoenician alphabet was used to write ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chalcis
Chalcis ( ; Ancient Greek & Katharevousa: , ) or Chalkida, also spelled Halkida (Modern Greek: , ), is the chief town of the island of Euboea or Evia in Greece, situated on the Euripus Strait at its narrowest point. The name is preserved from antiquity and is derived from the Greek χαλκός (copper, bronze), though there is no trace of any mines in the area. In the Late Middle Ages, it was known as Negropont(e), an Italian name that has also been applied to the entire island of Euboea. History Ancient Greece The earliest recorded mention of Chalcis is in the Iliad, where it is mentioned in the same line as its rival Eretria. It is also documented that the ships set for the Trojan War gathered at Aulis, the south bank of the strait near the city. Chamber tombs at Trypa and Vromousa dated to the Mycenaean period were excavated by Papavasiliou in 1910. In the 8th and 7th centuries BC, colonists from Chalcis founded thirty townships on the peninsula of Chalcidice an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhaetic
Rhaetic or Raetic (), also known as Rhaetian, was a language spoken in the ancient region of Rhaetia in the eastern Alps in pre-Roman and Roman times. It is documented by around 280 texts dated from the 5th up until the 1st century BC, which were found through northern Italy, southern Germany, eastern Switzerland, Slovenia and western Austria, in two variants of the Old Italic scripts. Rhaetic is largely accepted as being closely related to Etruscan. The ancient Rhaetic language is not to be confused with the modern Romance languages of the same Alpine region, known as Rhaeto-Romance. Classification The German linguist Helmut Rix proposed in 1998 that Rhaetic, along with Etruscan, was a member of a language family he called Tyrrhenian, and which was possibly influenced by neighboring Indo-European languages. Robert S. P. Beekes likewise does not consider it Indo-European. Howard Hayes Scullard (1967), on the contrary, suggested it to be an Indo-European language, with l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Venetic Language
Venetic is an extinct Indo-European language, usually classified into the Italic subgroup, that was spoken by the Veneti people in ancient times in northeast Italy (Veneto and Friuli) and part of modern Slovenia, between the Po Delta and the southern fringe of the Alps. The language is attested by over 300 short inscriptions dating from the 6th to the 1st century BCE. Its speakers are identified with the ancient people called '' Veneti'' by the Romans and ''Enetoi'' by the Greeks. It became extinct around the 1st century when the local inhabitants assimilated into the Roman sphere. Inscriptions dedicating offerings to Reitia are one of the chief sources of knowledge of the Venetic language. Linguistic classification Venetic is a centum language. The inscriptions use a variety of the Northern Italic alphabet, similar to the Etruscan alphabet. The exact relationship of Venetic to other Indo-European languages is still being investigated, but the ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cisalpine Celtic
The Cisalpine Celtic languages of northern Italy include the Lepontic language and the Cisalpine Gaulish language. ''Transalpine Celtic'' refers to Celtic languages on the other side of the Alps (from Rome) such as Transalpine Gaulish. See also * Lepontic language * Gaulish language * Ligurian (ancient language) * Continental Celtic languages The Continental Celtic languages are the now-extinct group of the Celtic languages that were spoken on the continent of Europe and in central Anatolia, as distinguished from the Insular Celtic languages of the British Isles and Brittany. ''Conti ... References {{DEFAULTSORT:Cisalpine Celtic Continental Celtic languages Languages of ancient Italy Extinct Celtic languages ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Po Valley
The Po Valley, Po Plain, Plain of the Po, or Padan Plain ( it, Pianura Padana , or ''Val Padana'') is a major geographical feature of Northern Italy. It extends approximately in an east-west direction, with an area of including its Venetic extension not actually related to the Po river basin; it runs from the Western Alps to the Adriatic Sea. The flatlands of Veneto and Friuli are often considered apart since they do not drain into the Po, but they effectively combine into an unbroken plain, making it the largest in Southern Europe. It has a population of 17 million, or a third of Italy's total population. The plain is the surface of an in-filled system of ancient canyons (the "Apennine Foredeep") extending from the Apennines in the south to the Alps in the north, including the northern Adriatic. In addition to the Po and its affluents, the contemporary surface may be considered to include the Savio, Lamone and Reno to the south, and the Adige, Brenta, Piave and Tagliam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sabines
The Sabines (; lat, Sabini; it, Sabini, all exonyms) 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. The Sabines divided into two populations just after the founding of Rome, which is described by Roman legend. The division, however it came about, is not legendary. The population closer to Rome transplanted itself to the new city and united with the preexisting citizenry, beginning a new heritage that descended from the Sabines but was also Latinized. The second population remained a mountain tribal state, coming finally to war against Rome for its independence along with all the other Italic tribes. Afterwards, it became assimilated into the Roman Republic. Language There is little record of the Sabine language; however, there are some glosses by ancient commentators, and one or two inscriptions have been tentatively identified as Sabine. There are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Latins
The Latins were originally an Italic tribe in ancient central Italy from Latium. As Roman power and colonization spread Latin culture during the Roman Republic. Latins culturally "Romanized" or "Latinized" the rest of Italy, and the word Latin ceased to mean a particular people or ethnicity, acquiring a more legal and cultural sense. As the Roman Empire spread to include Spain, Portugal, France, and Romania, these joined Italy in becoming "Latin" and remain so to the present day. In the late 15th–16th centuries, a millennium after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, with a number of maritime discoveries, first Portugal, then Spain and then France began to build world empires, in the Americas, Sub-Saharas and the East Indies. In consequence of the Mexican-American War and the ultimate loss of California to the United States, by the mid-19th century, the former American colonies of these Latin European nations, became known as ''Latin America'' and this region's inhabitants as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Faliscans
Falisci ( grc, Φαλίσκοι, ''Phaliskoi'') is the ancient Roman exonym for an Italic tribe who lived in what is now northern Lazio, on the Etruscan side of the Tiber River. They spoke an Italic language, Faliscan, closely akin to Latin. Originally a sovereign state, politically and socially they supported the Etruscans, joining the Etruscan League. This conviction and affiliation led to their ultimate near destruction and total subjugation by Rome. Only one instance of their own endonym has been found to date: an inscription from Falerii Novi from the late 2nd century AD refers to the ''falesce quei in Sardinia sunt'', "the Faliscans who are in Sardinia", where ''falesce'' is the nominative plural case. An Etruscan inscription calls them the ''feluskeś''. The Latin cannot be far different from the original name. The -sc- suffix is "distinctive of the Italic ethnonyms". Geography The Falisci resided in a region called by the Romans the ''Ager Faliscus'', "Faliscan Country" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Umbrians
The Umbri were an Italic people of ancient Italy. A region called Umbria still exists and is now occupied by Italian speakers. It is somewhat smaller than the ancient Umbria. Most ancient Umbrian cities were settled in the 9th-4th centuries BC on easily defensible hilltops. Umbria was bordered by the Tiber and Nar rivers and included the Apennine slopes on the Adriatic. The ancient Umbrian language is a branch of a group called Oscan-Umbrian, which is related to the Latino-Faliscan languages. Origins They are also called ''Ombrii'' in some Roman sources. Ancient Roman writers thought the Umbri to be of Gaulish origin; wrote that they were descended from an ancient Gaulish tribe. Plutarch wrote that the name might be a different way of writing the name of the Celto-Germanic , which loosely means "King of the . Livy suggested that the , another Gaulish tribe, might be connected; their Celtic name ''Isombres'' could possibly mean "Lower Umbrians," or inhabitants of the country b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Villanovan Culture
The Villanovan culture (c. 900–700 BC), regarded as the earliest phase of the Etruscan civilization, was the earliest Iron Age culture of Italy. It directly followed the Bronze Age Proto-Villanovan culture which branched off from the Urnfield culture of Central Europe. The name derives from the locality of Villanova, a fraction of the municipality of Castenaso in the Metropolitan City of Bologna where, between 1853 and 1855, Giovanni Gozzadini found the remains of a necropolis, bringing to light 193 tombs, of which there were 179 cremations and 14 inhumations. The Villanovans introduced iron-working to the Italian Peninsula. They practiced cremation and buried the ashes of their dead in pottery urns of distinctive double-cone shape. History The name ''Villanovan'' of the early phases of the Etruscan civilization comes from the site of the first archaeological finds relating to this advanced culture, which were remnants of a cemetery found near ''Villanova'' (Castenaso, 12 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
