South Picene (also known as Paleo-Sabellic, Mid-Adriatic or Eastern Italic) is an extinct

Italic language 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 languages was Latin, the official languag ...

belonging to the

Sabellic 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 Ro ...

subfamily. It is apparently unrelated to the

North Picene language 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. The evidence for the language consists of four inscriptions dating from the 1st millennium ...

, which is not understood and therefore unclassified. South Picene texts were at first relatively inscrutable even though some words were clearly

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...

. 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), or the whole Sabellic linguistic area may be best regarded as a

linguistic continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated varie ...

. The paucity of evidence from most of the 'minor dialects' contributes to these difficulties.

Corpus

Iscrizioni_picene_-_Stele_di_Loro_Piceno_-_Museo_archeologico_nazionale_delle_Marche

Iscrizioni_picene_-_Stele_di_Mogliano_-_Museo_archeologico_nazionale_delle_Marche

Iscrizioni_picene_-_Stele_di_Servigliano_-_Museo_archeologico_nazionale_delle_Marche

The corpus of South Picene inscriptions consists of 23 inscriptions on stone or bronze dating from as early as the 6th century BC to as late as the 4th century BC. 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 The name Picentes or Picentini refers to the population of Picenum, on the northern Adriatic coastal plain of ancient Italy. Their endonym, if any, is not known for certain. There is linguistic evidence that the Picentini comprised two different ...

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 A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or occasionally stela (plural ''stelas'' or ''stelæ''), wh ...

cippi A (plural: ''cippi''; "pointed pole") is a low, round or rectangular pedestal set up by the Ancient Romans for purposes such as a milestone or a boundary post. They were also used for somewhat differing purposes by the Etruscans and Carthaginians ...

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 Boustrophedon is a style of writing in which alternate lines of writing are reversed, with letters also written in reverse, mirror-style. This is in contrast to modern European languages, where lines always begin on the same side, usually the le ...

, or vertically. Stones have been found at Ascoli Piceno,

Chieti Chieti (, ; , nap, label= Abruzzese, Chjïétë, ; gr, Θεάτη, Theátē; lat, Theate, ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Central Italy, east by northeast of Rome. It is the capital of the province of Chieti in the Abruzzo region. ...

, Teramo,

Fano Fano is a town and ''comune'' of the province of Pesaro and Urbino in the Marche region of Italy. It is a beach resort southeast of Pesaro, located where the '' Via Flaminia'' reaches the Adriatic Sea. It is the third city in the region by po ...

Loro Piceno Loro Piceno is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Macerata in the Italian region Marche, located about south of Ancona and about south of Macerata on a hill near the Fiastra stream. It is a medieval centre with a castle (''Castello ...

, Cures, the Abruzzi between the

Tronto The Tronto ( la, Truentus) is a long Italian river that arises at Monti della Laga and ends in the Adriatic Sea at Porto d'Ascoli, San Benedetto del Tronto. It traverses the Lazio, Marche, and Abruzzo regions of Italy. The source of the Tront ...

and the

Aterno-Pescara The Aterno-Pescara (ancient ''Aternus'' from the Greek ''Aternos'', ''Άτερνος'') is a river system in Abruzzo, eastern central Italy. The river is known as the Aterno near its source in the mountains, but takes the name Pescara, actually a ...

, and

Castel di Ieri Castel di Ieri is a '' comune'' and town in the Province of L'Aquila in the Abruzzo , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demo ...

and Crecchio south of the Aterno-Pescara. To them are added inscriptions on a bronze bracelet in central Abruzzi and two 4th-century BC helmets from

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language, Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 1 ...

in the Po Valley and Bari on the southeastern coast. A complete inventory is as follows: * the Cippus of Castignano (6th-century BC sandstone pyramid) * three stelai of

Penna Sant'Andrea Penna Sant'Andrea ( Abruzzese: ') is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Teramo in the Abruzzo region of south-eastern Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Eu ...

at Teramo (a whole and two fragmentary limestone

obelisk An obelisk (; from grc, ὀβελίσκος ; diminutive of ''obelos'', " spit, nail, pointed pillar") is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape or pyramidion at the top. Originally constructed by An ...

s of the 1st half of the 5th century BC) * the cover of the Campovalano

pyxis Pyxis is a small and faint constellation in the southern sky. Abbreviated from Pyxis Nautica, its name is Latin for a mariner's compass (contrasting with Circinus, which represents a draftsman's compasses). Pyxis was introduced by Nicolas-Lo ...

(7th to 6th centuries BC) * spiral bracelet of Chietino in Valle del Pescara (5th century BC) * the Cippus of Cures (limestone) * the Stele of

(sandstone) * the Stele of Mogliano (sandstone) * the Stele of Acquaviva * the Stele of Belmonte (jointed sandstone) * the Cippus of Falerone * the Stele of

Servigliano Servigliano is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Fermo in the Italian region Marche, located about south of Ancona and about north of Ascoli Piceno. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 2,349 and an area of .All demographic ...

(sandstone) * a fragment of inscribed sandstone at Belmonte * the Cippus of Sant'Omero (sandstone) * two stelai of Bellante (sandstone) * the Stele of Crecchio (sandstone) * two cippi of

(limestone, whole and fragmentary) * the Statue of Capestrano (limestone, life-size representation of king ''Nevio Pompuledio'', 2nd half of the 7th, 1st half of the 6th centuries BC) * the Helmet of

(bronze) * the Helmet of Apulia

Alphabet

The south Picene alphabet, known from the 6th century BC, is most like the southern

Etruscan alphabet 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 Etruscan alphabet derives from the Euboean alphabet u ...

in that it uses ''q'' for /k/ and ''k'' for /g/. It is: : is a reduced and is a reduced , used for .

Phonetics

For

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wi ...

s South Picene had: In cases where there is a choice of

grapheme In linguistics, a grapheme is the smallest functional unit of a writing system. The word ''grapheme'' is derived and the suffix ''-eme'' by analogy with ''phoneme'' and other names of emic units. The study of graphemes is called '' graphemi ...

the context determines which one applies. For the glides, and were used for word-initial /w/ and for intervocalic /w/ or in other special contexts. The list above omits special contexts.

Language sample

Inscription Sp TE 2 on a gravestone from Bellante was studied by a linguist of

Indo-European studies Indo-European studies is a field of linguistics and an interdisciplinary field of study dealing with Indo-European languages, both current and extinct. The goal of those engaged in these studies is to amass information about the hypothetical pro ...

Calvert Watkins Calvert Watkins ( /ˈwɒtkɪnz/; March 13, 1933 – March 20, 2013) was an American linguist and philologist, known for his book '' How to Kill a Dragon''. He was a professor of linguistics and the classics at Harvard University and after retirem ...

, as an example of the earliest Italic poetry and as possibly a reflex of a

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo- ...

poetic form. 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." The translation of the questioned items is unclear. For ''toga'' Fortson suggests "covering." Note the

alliteration Alliteration is the conspicuous repetition of initial consonant sounds of nearby words in a phrase, often used as a literary device. A familiar example is "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers". Alliteration is used poetically in various ...

: ''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. 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''

References

Bibliography