South Picene (also known as Paleo-Sabellic, Mid-Adriatic or Eastern Italic) is an extinct Italic language belonging to the Sabellic subfamily. It is apparently unrelated to the North Picene language, 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, ...

. 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 vari ...

. 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 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 The Roman Kingdom (also referred to as the Roman monarchy, or the regal period of ancient Rome) was the earliest period of Roman history when the city and its territory were ruled by kings. According to oral accounts, the Roman Kingdom began wi ...

. Most are stelai or cippi 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, Teramo, Fano, Loro Piceno, Cures, the Abruzzi between the Tronto and the Aterno-Pescara, and Castel di Ieri and

Crecchio Crecchio is a '' comune'' and village in the province of Chieti, part of the Abruzzo region in central Italy. The village preserves its medieval aspect and is dominated by its castle. Its main activities are agriculture and tourism, yet small fa ...

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 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 e ...

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 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 (7th to 6th centuries BC) * spiral bracelet of Chietino in Valle del Pescara (5th century BC) * the Cippus of Cures (limestone) * the Stele of Loro Piceno (sandstone) * the Stele of Mogliano (sandstone) * the Stele of Acquaviva * the Stele of Belmonte (jointed sandstone) * the Cippus of

Falerone Falerone is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Fermo, in the Italian region of the Marche, southeast of Urbisaglia. History Almost nothing is known of the ancient town (called ''Falerio'') except from inscriptions. From the remains of its bui ...

* the Stele of Servigliano (sandstone) * a fragment of inscribed sandstone at Belmonte * the Cippus of

Sant'Omero Sant'Omero ( Abruzzese: ') is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Teramo in the Abruzzo region of eastern Italy. Near the town is the 10th-century church of Santa Maria a Vico Santa Maria a Vico is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province ...

(sandstone) * two stelai of

Bellante Bellante may refer to: * Bellante, Abruzzo, Italy, a town ** Bellante Stazione, a frazione * Joseph F. Bellante Jr. (1932–2011), American educator and politician * Princess Bellante, a character in George Frideric Handel's first opera ''Almira ...

(sandstone) * the Stele of

(sandstone) * two cippi of Castel di Ieri (limestone, whole and fragmentary) * the Statue of

Capestrano Capestrano ( Abruzzese: ') is a ''comune'' and small town with 885 inhabitants (2017), in the Province of L'Aquila, Abruzzo, Italy. It is located in the Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga National Park. History Antiquity In the necropolis the statue ...

(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 ...

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 ...

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 ''graphemics' ...

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

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, 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 The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' ( ', from ' "praise" and ' "knowledge") is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canonical Hindu texts ('' śruti'') known as the Vedas. Only one ...

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