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Volscian |
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Volscian was a Sabellic Italic language, which was spoken by the Volsci and closely related to Oscan and Umbrian. It is attested
in an inscription found in Velitrae (Velletri), dating probably from early in the 3rd century BC; it is cut upon a small bronze
plate (now in the Naples Museum), which must have once been fixed to some votive object, dedicated to the god Declunus (or
the goddess Decluna). 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. 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, it has degraded 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, Aurunci, Hernici, Marruci,
Falisci; with these were no doubt associated the original inhabitants of Aricia and of Sidicinum, of Vescia among the Aurunci,
and of Labici 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 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. 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, 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, whom 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, we have the Ustica cubans of Horace (Odes 1.17.1), the Hernici in the Trerus Valley, Satricum and Glanica in the
Pomptine Marshes. |
Names (more)[en] Volscian language[fi] Volskin kieli [la] Lingua Volsca [pt] Língua volsca [zh] 沃尔西语 |
Language type : Ancient
Technical notes
This page is providing structured data for the language Volscian. |
ISO 639 CodesISO 639-3 : xvoLinked Data URIshttp://lexvo.org/id/iso639-3/xvohttp://dbpedia.org/resource/ISO_639:xvo More URIs at sameas.org SourcesAuthority documentation for ISO 639 identifier: xvoFreebase ISO 639-3 : xvo GeoNames.org Country Information Publications Office of the European Union Metadata Registry : Countries and Languages |