Italic languages

Approximate distribution of languages in Iron Age Italy during the sixth century BC.

The Italic subfamily is a member of the Indo-European language family. It includes the Romance languages derived from Latin (Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Romanian, etc.), and a number of extinct languages of the Italian Peninsula, including Umbrian, Oscan, and Latin.

Phonetic changes

A partial list of regular phonetic changes from Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Italic:

• Palatovelars merge with plain velars
  • kʲ > k
  • ɡʲʱ > ɡʱ
  • ɡʲ > ɡ
• Voiced labiovelars unround or lenite
  • ɡʱʷ > ɡʱ
  • ɡʷ > ɡ or w
• Voiced aspirates become first unvoiced, then fricativize
  • bʱ > pʰ > ɸ > f
  • dʱ > tʰ > θ
  • ɡʱ > kʰ > x
• s > θ before r; unchanged elsewhere
• p > kʷ before kʷ in following syllable (e.g. Latin quinque 'five' from PIE *penkʷe); unchanged elsewhere
• Resonants and remaining stops (m n l r w b d ɡ p t k kʷ) unchanged

Further changes occurred during the evolution of the individual Italic languages, such as f > b between vowels and θ > f in Latin.

Branches

The Italic family has two known branches:

• Sabellic, including:
  • Oscan, which was spoken in the south-central region of the Italian Peninsula
  • Umbrian group, including:
    • Umbrian (not to be confused with the modern Umbrian dialect of Italian), which was spoken in the north-central region
    • Volscian
    • Aequian
    • Marsian, the language of the Marsi
  • South Picene, in east-central Italy
• Latino-Faliscan, including:
  • Faliscan, which was spoken in the area around Falerii Veteres (modern Civita Castellana) north of the city of Rome and possibly Sardinia
  • Latin, which was spoken in west-central Italy. The Roman conquests eventually spread it throughout the peninsula and beyond in the Roman Empire.
    • Romance languages, the descendants of Latin (see List of Romance languages)

The ancient Venetic language, as revealed by its inscriptions (including complete sentences), was also closely related to the Italic languages and is sometimes even classified as Italic. However, since it also shares similarities with other Western Indo-European branches (particularly Germanic), some linguists prefer to consider it an independent Indo-European language.

The Italic languages are first attested in writing from Umbrian and Faliscan inscriptions dating to the 7th century BC. The alphabets used are based on the Old Italic alphabet, which is itself based on the Greek alphabet. The Italic languages themselves show minor influence from the Etruscan and somewhat more from the Ancient Greek languages.

As Rome extended its political dominion over the whole of the Italian Peninsula, Latin became dominant over the other Italic languages, which ceased to be spoken perhaps sometime in the 1st century AD. From so-called Vulgar Latin the Romance languages emerged.

See also

• Language families and languages
• Italo-Celtic

References

• Ernst Pulgram: Tongues of Italy, Prehistory and History
• Rix, Helmut (2004). Ausgliederung und Aufgliederung der italischen Sprachen. Languages in Prehistoric Europe. ISBN 3-8253-1449-9

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