Distribution and origins

Origins of the Italic languages

The Italic languages must have been brought from the original area of the Indo-European languages, perhaps in eastern parts of central Europe, when their speakers crossed the Alps. This is attested to by a stratum of very old place-names of non-Indo-European origin—e.g., Tarracina (modern Terracina), Capua—that covers not only the Apennine Peninsula but also Greece and Anatolia. This stratum is ascribed to a “Mediterranean” language believed to have dominated large parts of the ancient world before the arrival of the Indo-European peoples. Nothing is known about the date, the path, and the circumstances of the above-mentioned immigration, and none of the many attempts to combine archaeological evidence with linguistic prehistory has led to convincing results. Thus, the only resources available for studying the Italic languages are exclusively linguistic methods of comparative philology.

Phonology

Many of the phonetic processes that make the attested Italic languages differ from the reconstructed Indo-European language seem to have occurred relatively late in time. The only one that can confidently be placed outside of Italy—that is, before the immigration over the Alps—is the change to ss in combinations of d (dental occlusive, or dental stop) + t. This is a feature common to Celtic, Germanic, and the Italic languages. For example, Latin visus comes from the older, reconstructed form *wissos ‘seen’; this is cognate with High German gi-wiss ‘surely known’ and Old Irish ro-fess ‘is known,’ all of these forms deriving from an Indo-European term *wid-to-s, with d + t. (An asterisk [*] before a word means that it is not attested but reconstructed.)

The development of the Indo-European labiovelar stop k^w is more complex. (A labiovelar stop is a sound pronounced with simultaneous articulation—movement—of the lips and the velum, the soft palate.) From this sound there has resulted a qu in Latin, p in Osco-Umbrian and South Picene, c in Irish, and p in Brythonic Celtic; e.g., Latin quis ‘who(ever)’ is cognate with Oscan pis and Umbrian pis (similarly South Picene pim ‘whom[ever]’ or ‘which[ever]’), these forms deriving from Indo-European *k^wis; and Irish cia is related to Welsh pwy, ‘who,’ derived from Indo-European *k^wei. Some scholars have tried to trace this development back to an Italo-Celtic unity, but the change of Brythonic k^w to p is surely later than the dropping of the p in Common Celtic. It is sounder, therefore, to assume independent processes in the different languages.

Other features developed in Italy itself—e.g., the use of the voiceless dental spirant (fricative) f that is shared with Etruscan and is lacking in marginal districts of Venetic. In all Italic languages this f sound replaced the Indo-European voiced aspirated sounds (represented as bh, dh, g^wh) in initial position. Examples of the use of f in Italic are as follows: Latin frater ‘brother’ = Umbrian frater, from Indo-European *bhrātēr; Latin facio ‘I do, make’ is related to Oscan fakiiad ‘he should do’ and Venetic fagsto ‘he made,’ based on an Indo-European stem *dhə-k-. A more recent common process in Latin and Osco-Umbrian is the use of the full system of five short vowels in initial syllables only; short vowels of noninitial syllables in Latin became less open—e.g., facio ‘I do, make,’ but in-ficio, the compound of in + facio. In Osco-Umbrian these vowels tend to be lost completely—e.g., Umbrian benust ‘he will have come,’ but Oscan cebnust ‘he will have come near.’ Some differences between Latin and Osco-Umbrian/South Picene probably arose during the last centuries bce—e.g., Osco-Umbrian/South Picene ō changed to u (Oscan dúnúm, South Picene dúnoí, Latin dōnum ‘gift’), ē became i (Oscan ligud, Latin lēge ‘law’ in the ablative singular; South Picene spolítiú, Latin Spolētium [name of a town in Umbria, modern Spoleto]), and final ā developed into o (viú [ú in the Oscan national alphabet = o], Latin via ‘way’). Indo-European voiced aspirated sounds (bh, dh, g^wh) in internal position probably first became voiced spirants (e.g., sounds such as v) in all Italic languages and, later, voiced stops in Latin and Venetic and the voiceless spirant f in Osco-Umbrian, South Picene, and Faliscan. Examples of these changes (for Indo-European dh) are the voiced stop b in Latin liberi ‘(free) children’ and Venetic louderobos ‘children’ (in the dative plural) versus the voiceless spirant f in Oscan loufro- ‘free’ and Faliscan loferta ‘freed woman.’ Examples for Indo-European bh are Oscan tfei, Umbrian tefe, South Picene tefeí versus Latin tibi ‘to/for you.’

Morphology

In contrast to the phonology, which shows so many correlations among the Italic languages, there are few definite connections between these tongues in their grammars. A characteristic innovation is the extension of the ablative singular case from o-stems and pronouns, where it occurred originally, to other declension classes: Latin praidad ‘with the plunder,’ later praeda, meretod ‘by merit,’ Oscan toutad ‘by the people,’ slaagid ‘of the border,’ South Picene arítih (-h represents earlier -d) ‘with skill.’ Many of the morphological features common to Osco-Umbrian, South Picene, and Latin are shared by other Indo-European languages; that is, they are not Italic in a specific sense. For example, the a-subjunctive—e.g., Latin faciat ‘may he do’ and Oscan fakiiad—is also Celtic; passive endings in -r—e.g., Oscan vincter and Latin vincitur ‘he is conquered,’ South Picene qolofítúr ‘he honours/supports’ or ‘honour/support is shown to’—are found in Celtic, Hittite, and Tocharian as well. More important are the discrepancies. For example, the genitive singular of o-stems shows -ī in Latin, Faliscan, and Venetic and in the Celtic languages, but -eis in Osco-Umbrian and South Picene; the nominative plural of the same class is marked by -oi in early Latin, Celtic, and Greek but by -ōs in Osco-Umbrian, South Picene, Germanic, Sanskrit, and other languages. In addition, the perfect stems of secondary verbs (verbs derived from nouns or from other verbs) are formed by -u- or -v- in Latin, by -t(t)- in Oscan, by -s- in Venetic, and by a variety of formants in Umbrian—e.g., Latin donavit ‘he has given’ = Oscan duunated = Venetic donasto, Umbrian combifiansiust ‘he will have announced’ (with formant -nky-).