Alpine
Alpine may refer to any mountainous region. It may also refer to:
Places Europe
* Alps, a European mountain range
** Alpine states, which overlap with the European range
Australia
* Alpine, New South Wales, a Northern Village
* Alpine National Pa ...
Celtic language
The Celtic languages ( usually , but sometimes ) are a group of related languages descended from Proto-Celtic. They form a branch of the Indo-European language family. The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edward ...
LinguistList: Lepontic /ref>John T. Koch (ed.) ''Celtic culture: a historical encyclopedia'' ABC-CLIO (2005) that was spoken in parts of
Rhaetia
Raetia ( ; ; also spelled Rhaetia) was a province of the Roman Empire, named after the Rhaetian people. It bordered on the west with the country of the Helvetii, on the east with Noricum, on the north with Vindelicia, on the south-west with Tr ...
and
Cisalpine Gaul
Cisalpine Gaul ( la, Gallia Cisalpina, also called ''Gallia Citerior'' or ''Gallia Togata'') was the part of Italy inhabited by Celts (Gauls) during the 4th and 3rd centuries BC.
After its conquest by the Roman Republic in the 200s BC it was con ...
(now
Northern Italy
Northern Italy ( it, Italia settentrionale, it, Nord Italia, label=none, it, Alta Italia, label=none or just it, Nord, label=none) is a geographical and cultural region in the northern part of Italy. It consists of eight administrative regions ...
) between 550 and 100 BC. Lepontic is attested in inscriptions found in an area centered on
Lugano
Lugano (, , ; lmo, label=Ticinese dialect, Ticinese, Lugan ) is a city and municipality in Switzerland, part of the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino. It is the largest city of both Ticino and the Italian-speaking southern Switzerland. Luga ...
,
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
, and including the
Lake Como
Lake Como ( it, Lago di Como , ; lmo, label=Western Lombard, Lagh de Còmm , ''Cómm'' or ''Cùmm'' ), also known as Lario (; after the la, Larius Lacus), is a lake of glacial origin in Lombardy, Italy. It has an area of , making it the thir ...
and
Lake Maggiore
Lake Maggiore (, ; it, Lago Maggiore ; lmo, label=Western Lombard, Lagh Maggior; pms, Lagh Magior; literally 'Greater Lake') or Verbano (; la, Lacus Verbanus) is a large lake located on the south side of the Alps. It is the second largest la ...
areas of
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
.
While some recent scholarship (e.g. Eska 1998) has tended to consider Lepontic simply as an early outlying form of
Gaulish
Gaulish was an ancient Celtic languages, Celtic language spoken in parts of Continental Europe before and during the period of the Roman Empire. In the narrow sense, Gaulish was the language of the Celts of Gaul (now France, Luxembourg, Belgium ...
and closely akin to other, later attestations of Gaulish in Italy (
Cisalpine Gaulish
The Celtic Cisalpine Gaulish inscriptions are frequently combined with the Lepontic inscriptions under the term ''Celtic language remains in northern Italy''. While it is possible that the Lepontii were autochthonous to Northern Italy since the ...
), some scholars (notably Lejeune 1971) continue to view it as a distinct
Continental Celtic
The Continental Celtic languages are the now-extinct group of the Celtic languages that were spoken on the continent of Europe and in central Anatolia, as distinguished from the Insular Celtic languages of the British Isles and Brittany. ''Contine ...
language. In this latter view, the earlier inscriptions found within a 50 km radius of
Lugano
Lugano (, , ; lmo, label=Ticinese dialect, Ticinese, Lugan ) is a city and municipality in Switzerland, part of the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino. It is the largest city of both Ticino and the Italian-speaking southern Switzerland. Luga ...
are considered Lepontic, while the later ones, to the immediate south of this area, are considered Cisalpine Gaulish.
Lepontic was assimilated first by Gaulish, with the settlement of Gallic tribes north of the
River Po
The Po ( , ; la, Padus or ; Ancient Ligurian: or ) is the longest river in Italy. It flows eastward across northern Italy starting from the Cottian Alps. The river's length is either or , if the Maira, a right bank tributary, is included. Th ...
, and then by
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, after the
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic ( la, Res publica Romana ) was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Kin ...
gained control over Gallia Cisalpina during the late 2nd and 1st century BC.
Classification
Some scholars view (e.g. Lejeune 1971, Koch 2008) Lepontic as a distinct Continental Celtic language. Other scholars (e.g. Evans 1992, Solinas 1995, Eska 1996, McCone 1996, Matasovic 2009) consider it as an early form of Cisalpine Gaulish (or Cisalpine Celtic) and thus a dialect of Gaulish. An earlier view, prevalent for most of the 20th century and until about 1970, regarded Lepontic as a "para-Celtic" western
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, Dutch ...
language, akin to but not part of Celtic, possibly related to Ligurian (Whatmough 1933 and Pisani 1964). However, Ligurian itself has been considered akin to, but not descended from, Common Celtic, see Kruta 1991 and Stifter 2008.
Referring to linguistic arguments as well as archaeological evidence, Schumacher even considers Lepontic a primary branch of Celtic, perhaps even the first language to diverge from Proto-Celtic. In any case, the Lepontic inscriptions are the earliest attestation of any form of Celtic.
Language
The alphabet
The alphabet of
Lugano
Lugano (, , ; lmo, label=Ticinese dialect, Ticinese, Lugan ) is a city and municipality in Switzerland, part of the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino. It is the largest city of both Ticino and the Italian-speaking southern Switzerland. Luga ...
, based on inscriptions found in northern Italy and
Canton Ticino
Ticino (), sometimes Tessin (), officially the Republic and Canton of Ticino or less formally the Canton of Ticino,, informally ''Canton Ticino'' ; lmo, Canton Tesin ; german: Kanton Tessin ; french: Canton du Tessin ; rm, Chantun dal Tessin . ...
, was used to record Lepontic inscriptions, among the oldest testimonies of any
Celtic language
The Celtic languages ( usually , but sometimes ) are a group of related languages descended from Proto-Celtic. They form a branch of the Indo-European language family. The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edward ...
, in use from the 7th to the 5th centuries BC. The alphabet has 18 letters, derived from the archaic Etruscan alphabet
The alphabet does not distinguish
voiced
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced.
The term, however, is used to refer ...
and unvoiced
occlusive
In phonetics, an occlusive, sometimes known as a stop, is a consonant sound produced by occluding (i.e. blocking) airflow in the vocal tract, but not necessarily in the nasal tract. The duration of the block is the ''occlusion'' of the consonan ...
s, i.e. P represents /b/ or /p/, T is for /t/ or /d/, and K for /g/ or /k/. Z is probably for /ts/. U /u/ and V /w/ are distinguished. Θ is probably for /t/ and X for /g/. There are claims of a related script discovered in
Glozel
The Glozel artifacts are a collection of over 3,000 artifacts, including clay tablets, sculptures and vases, some of which were inscribed, discovered from 1924 to 1930 in the vicinity of French hamlet of Glozel. Glozel () is part of the commun ...
.
Corpus
Lepontic is known from around 140 inscriptions written in the alphabet of
Lugano
Lugano (, , ; lmo, label=Ticinese dialect, Ticinese, Lugan ) is a city and municipality in Switzerland, part of the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino. It is the largest city of both Ticino and the Italian-speaking southern Switzerland. Luga ...
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 ...
. Similar scripts were used for writing the
Rhaetic
Rhaetic or Raetic (), also known as Rhaetian, was a language spoken in the ancient region of Rhaetia in the eastern Alps in pre-Roman and Roman times. It is documented by around 280 texts dated from the 5th up until the 1st century BC, which wer ...
and
Venetic
Venetic is an extinct Indo-European language, usually classified into the Italic subgroup, that was spoken by the Veneti people in ancient times in northeast Italy (Veneto and Friuli) and part of modern Slovenia, between the Po Delta and ...
runic alphabet
Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, and for specialised ...
s probably derive from a script belonging to this group.
The grouping of all inscriptions written in the alphabet of Lugano into a single language is disputed. Indeed, it was not uncommon in antiquity for a given alphabet to be used to write multiple languages. And, in fact, the alphabet of Lugano was used in the coinage of other Alpine tribes, such as the
Salassi
The Salassi or Salasses were a Gallic or Ligurian tribe dwelling in the upper valley of the Dora Baltea river, near present-day Aosta (Val d'Aosta), during the Iron Age and the Roman period.
Name
They are mentioned as ''dià Salassō̃n'' (δ ...
,
Salluvii
The Salyes or Salluvii (Greek: ) were an ancient Celto-Ligurian people dwelling between the Durance river and the Greek colony of Massalia during the Iron Age. Although earlier writers called them 'Ligurian', Strabo used the denomination 'Celto-lig ...
, and
Cavares
The Cavarī or Cavarēs (Gaulish: *''Cauaroi'', 'the heroes, champions, mighty men') were a Gallic tribe dwelling in the western part of modern Vaucluse, around the present-day cities of Avignon, Orange and Cavaillon, during the Roman period. The ...
(Whatmough 1933, Lejeune 1971).
While many of the later inscriptions clearly appear to be written in Cisalpine Gaulish, some, including all of the older ones, are said to be in an indigenous language distinct from Gaulish and known as Lepontic. Until the publication of Lejeune 1971, this Lepontic language was regarded as a pre-Celtic language, possibly related to Ligurian (Whatmough 1933, Pisani 1964). Following Lejeune 1971, the consensus view became that Lepontic should be classified as a Celtic language, albeit possibly as divergent as Celtiberian, and in any case quite distinct from Cisalpine Gaulish (Lejeune 1971, Kruta 1991, Stifter 2008). Some have gone further, considering Lepontic and Cisalpine Gaulish essentially one and the same (Eska 1998). However, an analysis of the geographic distribution of the inscriptions shows that the Cisalpine Gaulish inscriptions are later and from an area to the south of the earlier (Lepontic) inscriptions, with which they display significant differences as well as similarities.
While the language is named after the tribe of the
Lepontii
The Lepontii were an ancient Celtic people occupying portions of Rhaetia (in modern Switzerland and Northern Italy) in the Alps during the late Bronze Age/Iron Age. Recent archeological excavations and their association with the Golasecca culture ...
, which occupied portions of ancient
Rhaetia
Raetia ( ; ; also spelled Rhaetia) was a province of the Roman Empire, named after the Rhaetian people. It bordered on the west with the country of the Helvetii, on the east with Noricum, on the north with Vindelicia, on the south-west with Tr ...
, specifically an
Alpine
Alpine may refer to any mountainous region. It may also refer to:
Places Europe
* Alps, a European mountain range
** Alpine states, which overlap with the European range
Australia
* Alpine, New South Wales, a Northern Village
* Alpine National Pa ...
area straddling modern
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
and
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
and bordering Cisalpine Gaul, the term is currently used by some Celticists (e.g. Eska 1998) to apply to all Celtic dialects of ancient Italy. This usage is disputed by those who continue to view the Lepontii as one of several indigenous pre-Roman tribes of the Alps, quite distinct from the
Gauls
The Gauls ( la, Galli; grc, Γαλάται, ''Galátai'') were a group of Celtic peoples of mainland Europe in the Iron Age and the Roman period (roughly 5th century BC to 5th century AD). Their homeland was known as Gaul (''Gallia''). They s ...
who invaded the plains of Northern Italy in historical times.
The older Lepontic inscriptions date back to before the 5th century BC, the item from Castelletto Ticino being dated at the 6th century BC and that from
Sesto Calende
Sesto Calende is a town and ''comune'' located in the province of Varese, in the Lombardy region of northern Italy.
It is at the southern tip of Lake Maggiore, where the Ticino River starts to flow towards the Po River. The main historical sight ...
possibly being from the 7th century BC (Prosdocimi, 1991). The people who made these inscriptions are nowadays identified with the
Golasecca culture
The Golasecca culture (9th - 4th century BC) was a Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age culture in northern Italy, whose type-site was excavated at Golasecca in the province of Varese, Lombardy, where, in the area of Monsorino at the beginning of the ...
, a Celtic culture in northern Italy (De Marinis 1991, Kruta 1991 and Stifter 2008). The extinction date for Lepontic is only inferred by the absence of later inscriptions.
See also
*
Cisalpine Celtic
The Cisalpine Celtic languages of northern Italy include the Lepontic language and the Cisalpine Gaulish language.
''Transalpine Celtic'' refers to Celtic languages on the other side of the Alps (from Rome) such as Transalpine Gaulish.
See also
...
* De Marinis, R.C. (1991). "I Celti Golasecchiani". In Multiple Authors, ''I Celti'', Bompiani.
* Eska, J. F. (1998) "The linguistic position of Lepontic" In ''Proceedings of the twenty-fourth annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society'' vol. 2, Special session on Indo-European subgrouping and internal relations (February 14, 1998), ed. B. K. Bergin, M. C. Plauché, and A. C. Bailey, 2–11.
Berkeley
Berkeley most often refers to:
*Berkeley, California, a city in the United States
**University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California
* George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher
Berkeley may also refer ...
: Berkeley Linguistics Society.
* Eska, J. F., and D. E. Evans. (1993). "Continental Celtic". In ''The Celtic Languages'', ed. M. J. Ball, 26–63.
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
: Routledge. .
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* Prosdocimi, A.L. (1991). "Lingua e scrittura dei primi Celti". In Multiple Authors, ''I Celti'', pp. 50–60, Bompiani.
* Tibiletti Bruno, M. G. (1978). "Ligure, leponzio e gallico". In ''Popoli e civiltà dell'Italia antica'' vi, ''Lingue e dialetti'', ed. A. L. Prosdocimi, 129–208.
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
: Biblioteca di Storia Patria.
* Tibiletti Bruno, M. G. (1981). "Le iscrizioni celtiche d'Italia". In ''I Celti d'Italia'', ed. E. Campanile, 157–207.
Pisa
Pisa ( , or ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for its leaning tower, the cit ...
: Giardini.
* Whatmough, J. (1933). ''The Prae-Italic Dialects of Italy'', vol. 2, "The Raetic, Lepontic, Gallic, East-Italic, Messapic and Sicel Inscriptions", Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press
*Stifter, D. 2020. ''Cisalpine Celtic. Language, Writing, Epigraphy''. Aelaw Booklet 8. Zaragoza: Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza.
*Stifter, D. 2020. Cisalpine Celtic , Palaeohispanica 20: 335-365.
External links
Leponticum'' by David Stifter, Martin Braun, Corinna Salomon, Michela Vignoli et al.,
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich histor ...