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Volscian was a Sabellic Italic language, which was spoken by the Volsci and closely related to
Oscan 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. Oscan was spoken by a number of tribes, including t ...
and Umbrian.


Overview

Volscian is attested in an inscription found in
Velitrae Velletri (; la, Velitrae; xvo, Velester) is an Italian '' comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Rome, approximately 40 km to the southeast of the city centre, located in the Alban Hills, in the region of Lazio, central Italy. Neighbouring com ...
(Velletri), dating probably from early in the 3rd century BC; it is cut upon a small bronze plate (now in the
Naples Museum The National Archaeological Museum of Naples ( it, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, italic=no, sometimes abbreviated to MANN) is an important Italian archaeological museum, particularly for ancient Roman remains. Its collection includes wor ...
), which must have once been fixed to some votive object, dedicated to the god ''Declunus'' (or the goddess ''Decluna'').Baldi, Phillip. ''The Foundations of Latin''. New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 2002. pp. 140-142. 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 The Iguvine Tablets, also known as the Eugubian Tablets or Eugubine Tables, are a series of seven bronze tablets from ancient Iguvium (modern Gubbio), Italy, written in the ancient Italic language Umbrian. The earliest tablets, written in the nat ...
. 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 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. Oscan was spoken by a number of tribes, including t ...
, 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. 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 The Osci (also called Oscans, Opici, Opsci, Obsci, Opicans) were an Italic people of Campania and Latium adiectum before and during Roman times. They spoke the Oscan language, also spoken by the Samnites of Southern Italy. Although the languag ...
,
Aurunci The Aurunci were an Italic tribe that lived in southern Italy from around the 1st millennium BC. They were eventually defeated by Rome and subsumed into the Roman Republic during the second half of the 4th century BC. Identity Aurunci is the n ...
, Hernici, Marruci,
Falisci 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. O ...
; with these were no doubt associated the original inhabitants of Aricia and of Sidicinum, of Vescia among the Aurunci, and of
Labici Labici or Labicum or Lavicum ( la, Lăbīcī or ) was an ancient city of Latium, in what is now central Italy, lying in the territory of the modern Monte Compatri, about 20 km SE from Rome, on the northern slopes of the Alban Hills. Exact loc ...
close to Hernican territory. 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 The Etruscan civilization () was developed by a people of Etruria in ancient Italy with a common language and culture who formed a federation of city-states. After conquering adjacent lands, its territory covered, at its greatest extent, roug ...
'' 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 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 divid ...
). 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 Aricini, the ancient inhabitants of Aricia, the form of the name ranking them with the Sidicini, Marrucini, etc., as one of the communities belonging probably to the earlier or Volscian stratum of population on the west side of Italy, who were ...
, and it seems at least probable that the forms Sidicini, Carecini, and others of this shape are the results of this same process. 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. 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. 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 The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of th ...
'' 10.184), we have the ''Ustica cubans'' of Horace (''Odes'' 1.17.1), the ''Hernici'' in the
Trerus Valley The Sacco is a river of central Italy, a right tributary of the Liri. It flows between the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital and the province of Frosinone in Lazio. Territory The river originates from the Prenestini Mountains, formed by t ...
, ''
Satricum Satricum (modern Le Ferriere), an ancient town of Latium vetus, lay on the right bank of the Astura river some SE of Rome in a low-lying region south of the Alban Hills, at the NW border of the Pontine Marshes. It was directly accessible from Ro ...
'' and ''Glanica'' in the Pontine Marshes.


References


Sources

*For the text and fuller account of the Volscian inscription, and for other records of the dialect, see
R. S. Conway Robert Seymour Conway, FBA (1864–1933) was a British classical scholar and comparative philologist. Born in Stoke Newington, he was the elder brother of Katharine St John Conway. He was Hulme Professor of Latin Literature, at Victoria Unive ...
, ''The Italic Dialects'', pp. 267 sqq. *


Further reading

*Coleman, Robert. 1986. "The central Italic languages in the period of Roman expansion." ''Transactions of the Philological Society'' 84 (1): 100–131. * Coarelli, Filippo. Roma, i Volsci e il Lazio antico. In: Crise et transformation des sociétés archaïques de l'Italie antique au Ve siècle av. JC. Actes de la table ronde de Rome (19-21 novembre 1987) Rome : École Française de Rome, 1990. pp. 135-154. (Publications de l'École française de Rome, 137) ww.persee.fr/doc/efr_0000-0000_1990_act_137_1_3901*Poultney, James. 1951. "Volscians and Umbrians." ''American Journal of Philology'' 72: 113–27. {{DEFAULTSORT:Volscian Language Osco-Umbrian languages Languages attested from the 3rd century BC Volsci