Aequian is an extinct Italic language presumed spoken by the people the Romans termed

Aequi 300px, Location of the Aequi (Equi) in central Italy, 5th century BC. The Aequi were an Italic tribe on a stretch of the Apennine Mountains to the east of Latium in central Italy who appear in the early history of ancient Rome. After a long stru ...

and Aequicoli living in the

Alban hills The Alban Hills () are the caldera remains of a quiescent volcanic complex in Italy, located southeast of Rome and about north of Anzio. The high Monte Cavo forms a highly visible peak in the centre of the caldera, but the highest point is ...

of northeast

Latium Latium ( , ; ) is the region of central western Italy in which the city of Rome was founded and grew to be the capital city of the Roman Empire. Definition Latium was originally a small triangle of fertile, volcanic soil (Old Latium) on whic ...

and the central

Apennines The Apennines or Apennine Mountains ( ; or Ἀπέννινον ὄρος; or – a singular with plural meaning; )Latin ''Apenninus'' (Greek or ) has the form of an adjective, which would be segmented ''Apenn-inus'', often used with nouns s ...

east of them during the early and middle

Roman Republic The Roman Republic ( ) was the era of Ancient Rome, classical Roman civilisation beginning with Overthrow of the Roman monarchy, the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom (traditionally dated to 509 BC) and ending in 27 BC with the establis ...

; that is, approximately from the 5th to the 3rd century BC, when they were defeated by the armies of Rome and were subsequently Romanized. As the area was heavily colonized by Latin speakers from Rome, most of the inscriptions from there are in Latin. Two undated inscriptions appear to be in a different dialect, termed Aequian by the scholars with the presumption that in fact they represent the language of the entire pre-Roman tribe. Not enough text survives to deduce any more than that it belonged to the Italic branch of the

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...

language family.

Corpus

Aequian is scantily documented by two inscriptions. Conway's publication of Italic inscriptions adds a gloss, several place names and several dozen personal names, but it does not distinguish which of these are certainly

endonym An endonym (also known as autonym ) is a common, name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate them ...

s and which are Latin

exonyms An endonym (also known as autonym ) is a common, name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate them ...

in use by the Latin-speaking population. It is possible that they would have been the same in both cases, but such a hypothesis remains unproven. The Inscription of

Alba Fucens Alba Fucens was an ancient Italic people, Italic town located at elevation at the base of Monte Velino, approximately north of Avezzano, Abruzzo, central Italy. Its ruins can be found in the ''comune'' of Massa d'Albe. The city is largely vis ...

is a bronze plate inscribed with . Conway reconstructs the first word as , a

dative case In grammar, the dative case ( abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob a drink". In this examp ...

. Baldi translates the text into Latin as , two datives, and into English as "To the (god named) Alban Father." The second document is the Inscription of Cliternia (Capradosso) in

Petrella Salto Petrella Salto () is a (municipality) in the Province of Rieti, in the Italian region of Latium. It is located about northeast of Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy ...

, an inscribed stone in a spring dissociated from context by nature (it rolled down a hill). CIL IX, 4171, according to . The text is: : : which is a notice stating that the road is private, passage by permission of Titus Umbrenus, son of Gaius, but beasts of burden are forbidden.

Notes

Bibliography

* {{Italic languages Italic languages Languages of ancient Italy Languages attested from the 5th century BC Languages extinct in the 3rd century BC Extinct languages of Europe