Volscian was a Sabellic Italic language, which was spoken by the

Volsci The Volsci (, , ) were an Italic tribe, well known in the history of the first century of the Roman Republic. At the time they inhabited the partly hilly, partly marshy district of the south of Latium, bounded by the Aurunci and Samnites on the ...

and closely related to Oscan and Umbrian.

Overview

Volscian is attested in an inscription found in

Velitrae Velletri (; la, Velitrae; xvo, Velester) is an Italian ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Rome, approximately 40 km to the southeast of the city centre, located in the Alban Hills, in the region of Lazio, central Italy. Neighbouring co ...

(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'').Baldi, Phillip. ''The Foundations of Latin''. New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 2002. pp. 140-142. 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 The Iguvine Tablets, also known as the Eugubian Tablets or Eugubine Tables, are a series of seven bronze tablets from ancient Iguvium (modern Gubbio), Italy, written in the ancient Italic language Umbrian. The earliest tablets, written in the nati ...

. It shows on the one hand the labialization of the original velar ''q'' (Volscian ''pis'' =

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 ...

''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 changed all the diphthongs into simple vowels (Volscian ''se'' parallel to Oscan ''svai''; Volscian ''deue'',

Old Latin Old Latin, also known as Early Latin or Archaic Latin (Classical la, prīsca Latīnitās, lit=ancient Latinity), was the Latin language in the period before 75 BC, i.e. before the age of Classical Latin. It descends from a common Proto-Italic ...

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 The Osci (also called Oscans, Opici, Opsci, Obsci, Opicans) were an Italic people of Campania and Latium adiectum before and during Roman times. They spoke the Oscan language, also spoken by the Samnites of Southern Italy. Although the lang ...

Aurunci The Aurunci were an Italic tribe that lived in southern Italy from around the 1st millennium BC. They were eventually defeated by Rome and subsumed into the Roman Republic during the second half of the 4th century BC. Identity Aurunci is the n ...

Hernici The Hernici were an Italic tribe of ancient Italy, whose territory was in Latium between the Fucine Lake and the Sacco River (''Trerus''), bounded by the Volsci on the south, and by the Aequi and the Marsi on the north. For many years of the ear ...

, Marruci,

Falisci Falisci ( grc, Φαλίσκοι, ''Phaliskoi'') is the ancient Roman exonym for an Italic tribe who lived in what is now northern Lazio, on the Etruscan side of the Tiber River. They spoke an Italic language, Faliscan, closely akin to Latin. ...

; with these were no doubt associated the original inhabitants of Aricia and of Sidicinum, of Vescia among the Aurunci, and of

Labici Labici or Labicum or Lavicum ( la, Lăbīcī or ) was an ancient city of Latium, in what is now central Italy, lying in the territory of the modern Monte Compatri, about 20 km SE from Rome, on the northern slopes of the Alban Hills. Exact loca ...

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 The Etruscan civilization () was developed by a people of Etruria in List of ancient peoples of Italy, ancient Italy with a common language and culture who formed a federation of city-states. After conquering adjacent lands, its territory cover ...

'' 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 (see

Sabini The Sabines (; lat, Sabini; it, Sabini, all exonyms) were an Italic people who lived in the central Apennine Mountains of the ancient Italian Peninsula, also inhabiting Latium north of the Anio before the founding of Rome. The Sabines divide ...

). 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 Aricini, the ancient inhabitants of Aricia, the form of the name ranking them with the Sidicini, Marrucini, etc., as one of the communities belonging probably to the earlier or Volscian stratum of population on the west side of Italy, who were abso ...

, 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 The Ligures (singular Ligur; Italian: liguri; English: Ligurians) were an ancient people after whom Liguria, a region of present-day north-western Italy, is named. Ancient Liguria corresponded more or less to the current Italian regi ...

, 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, who, 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'' (''

Aeneis The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the R ...

'' 10.184), we have the ''Ustica cubans'' of Horace (''Odes'' 1.17.1), the ''Hernici'' in the

Trerus Valley The Sacco is a river of central Italy, a right tributary of the Liri. It flows between the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital and the province of Frosinone in Lazio. Territory The river originates from the Prenestini Mountains, formed by the c ...

, ''

Satricum Satricum (modern Le Ferriere), an ancient town of Latium vetus, lay on the right bank of the Astura river some SE of Rome in a low-lying region south of the Alban Hills, at the NW border of the Pontine Marshes. It was directly accessible from Ro ...

'' and ''Glanica'' in the Pontine Marshes.

References

Sources

*For the text and fuller account of the Volscian inscription, and for other records of the dialect, see R. S. Conway, ''The Italic Dialects'', pp. 267 sqq. *

Overview

References

Sources

Further reading