Oscan language

Oscan is an extinct Indo-European language of southern Italy. The language is in the Osco-Umbrian or Sabellic branch of the Italic languages. Oscan is therefore a close relative of Umbrian and South Picene.
Oscan was spoken by a number of tribes, including the Samnites, the Lucani, the Aurunci, and the Sidicini. The latter two tribes were often grouped under the name "Osci". The Oscan group is part of the Osco-Umbrian or Sabellic family, and includes the Oscan language and three variants known only from inscriptions left by the Hernici, Marrucini and Paeligni, minor tribes of eastern central Italy. Adapted from the Etruscan alphabet, the Central Oscan alphabet was used to write Oscan in Campania and surrounding territories from the 5th century BCE until at least the 1st century CE.

Evidence

[Image:Osco diffusione.gif|290px|thumb|The Oscan language in the 5th century BCE|alt=]
Oscan is known from inscriptions dating as far back as the 5th century BCE. The most important Oscan inscriptions are the Tabula Bantina, the Oscan Tablet or Tabula Osca, and the Cippus Abellanus. In Apulia, there is evidence that ancient currency was inscribed in Oscan at Teanum Apulum. Oscan graffiti on the walls of Pompeii indicate its persistence in at least one urban environment well into the 1st century of the common era.
In total, as of 2017, there were 800 found Oscan texts, with a rapid expansion in recent decades. Oscan was written in various scripts depending on time period and location, including the "native" Oscan script, the South Oscan script which was based on Greek, and the ultimately prevailing Roman Oscan script.

Demise

In coastal zones of Southern Italy, Oscan is thought to have survived three centuries of bilingualism with Greek between 400 and 100 BCE, making it "an unusual case of stable societal bilingualism" wherein neither language became dominant or caused the death of the other; however, over the course of the Roman period, both Oscan and Greek were progressively effaced from Southern Italy, excepting the controversial possibility of Griko representing a continuation of ancient dialects of Greek.
Oscan's usage declined following the Social War. Graffiti in towns across the Oscan speech area indicate it remained in colloquial usage. One piece of evidence that supports the colloquial usage of the language is the presence of Oscan graffiti on walls of Pompeii that were reconstructed after the earthquake of 62 CE, which must therefore have been written between 62 and 79 CE. Other scholars argue that this is not strong evidence for the survival of Oscan as an official language in the area, given the disappearance of public inscriptions in Oscan after Roman colonization. It is possible that both languages existed simultaneously under different conditions, in which Latin was given political, religious, and administrative importance while Oscan was considered a "low" language. This phenomenon is referred to as diglossia with bilingualism. Some Oscan graffiti exists from the 1st century CE, but it is rare to find evidence from Italy of Latin-speaking Roman citizens representing themselves as having non–Latin-speaking ancestors.

General characteristics

Oscan speakers came into close contact with the Latium population. Early Latin texts have been discovered near major Oscan settlements. For example, the Garigliano Bowl was found close to Minturnae, less than 40 kilometers from Capua, which was once a large Oscan settlement. Oscan had much in common with Latin, though there are also many striking differences, and many common word-groups in Latin were absent or represented by entirely different forms. For example, Latin volo, velle, volui, and other such forms from the Proto-Indo-European root *welh₁- were represented by words derived from *gʰer- : Oscan herest he shall want, as opposed to Latin volent. Latin locus was absent and represented by the hapax slaagid, which Italian linguist Alberto Manco has linked to a surviving local toponym.
In phonology too, Oscan exhibited a number of clear differences from Latin: thus, Oscan 'p' in place of Latin 'qu' ; 'b' in place of Latin 'v'; medial 'f' in contrast to Latin 'b' or 'd'.
Oscan is considered to be the most conservative of all the known Italic languages, and among attested Indo-European languages it is rivaled only by Greek in the retention of the inherited vowel system with the diphthongs intact.

Writing system

Alphabet

Oscan was originally written in a specific "Oscan alphabet", one of the Old Italic scripts derived from the Etruscan alphabet. Later inscriptions are written in the Greek and Latin alphabets.

The "Etruscan" alphabet

The Osci probably adopted the archaic Etruscan alphabet during the 7th century BCE, but a recognizably Oscan variant of the alphabet is attested only from the 5th century BCE. At the beginning of the 3rd century BCE its sign inventory was extended over the classical Etruscan alphabet by the introduction of lowered variants of I and U, transcribed as Í and Ú. Ú came to be used to represent Oscan, while U was used for as well as historical long, which had undergone a sound shift in Oscan to become. Í was used to denote a higher-mid.
The Z of the native alphabet is pronounced. Doubling of vowels was used to denote length but a long I is written IÍ.

The "Greek" alphabet

Oscan written with the Greek alphabet was identical to the standard alphabet with the addition of two letters: one for the native alphabet's H:, and one for its V:. The letters η and ω do not indicate quantity. Sometimes, the clusters ηι and ωϝ denote the diphthongs and respectively while ει and oυ are saved to denote monophthongs and of the native alphabet. At other times, ει and oυ are used to denote diphthongs, in which case o denotes the sound.

The "Latin" alphabet

When written in the Latin alphabet, the Oscan Z does not represent but instead, which is not written differently from in the native alphabet.

Transliteration

When Oscan inscriptions are quoted, it is conventional to transliterate those in the "Oscan" alphabet into Latin boldface, those in the "Latin" alphabet into Latin italics, and those in the "Greek" alphabet into the modern Greek alphabet. Letters of all three alphabets are represented in lower case.

Phonology

Vowels

Vowels are regularly lengthened before ns and nct and possibly before nf and nx as well.
Anaptyxis, the development of a vowel between a liquid or nasal and another consonant, preceding or following, occurs frequently in Oscan; if the other consonant precedes, the new vowel is the same as the preceding vowel. If the other consonant follows, the new vowel is the same as the following vowel.

Monophthongs

A

Short a remains in most positions
Long ā remains in an initial or medial position. Final ā starts to sound similar to so that it is written ú or, rarely, u.

E

Short e "generally remains unchanged;" before a labial in a medial syllable, it becomes u or i, and before another vowel, e raises to higher-mid, written í.
Long ē similarly raises to higher-mid, the sound of written í or íí.

I

Short i becomes written í.
Long ī is spelt with i but when written with doubling as a mark of length with ií.

O

Short o remains mostly unchanged, written ú; before a final -m, o becomes more like u.
Long ō becomes denoted by u or uu.

U

Short u generally remains unchanged; after t, d, n, the sound becomes that of iu.
Long ū generally remains unchanged; it changed to an ī sound in monosyllables, and may have changed to an ī sound for final syllables.

Diphthongs

Oscan had the following diphthongs:
The sounds of diphthongs remain unchanged from the Proto-Indo-European origins.

Consonants

The consonant inventory of Oscan is as follows:

S

In Oscan, s between vowels did not undergo rhotacism as it did in Latin and Umbrian; but it was voiced, becoming the sound. However, between vowels, the original cluster rs developed either to a simple r with lengthening on the preceding vowel, or to a long rr, and at the end of a word, original rs becomes r just as in Latin. Unlike in Latin, the s is not dropped, either Oscan or Umbrian, from the consonant clusters sm, sn, sl: Umbrian `sesna "dinner," Oscan kersnu vs Latin cēna.

Morphology

Noun declension

Oscan nouns can have one of the seven cases: nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative and locative. Oscan nouns, like in Latin, are divided into multiple declension patterns.

First-declension nouns

The first declension in Oscan has three primary differences from Latin.

The ablative singular has the ending -ad as opposed to the -ā of Classical Latin, but agrees with Archaic Latin.
It retains the proto-italic genitive singular ending -ās, which was eventually replaced by -ae in Classical Latin, but is still present in archaizing forms.
Oscan also preserves the intervocalic -s in the genitive plural, which is likewise shared with Archaic Latin.

First declension nouns in Oscan are declined as follows:

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	-ú	-as
Vocative	?	?
Accusative	-am	-ass
Genitive	-as	-asúm
Dative	-aí	-aís
Ablative	-ad	-aís
Locative	-aí	-aís

Second-declension nouns

The second declension in Oscan has a few features that distinguish it from its Latin counterpart.

The nominative singular of masculines features the syncope of *-os to -s, leading to further phonetic and orthographic consequences.
The genitive singular -eís is taken from the i-stems.
The nominative plural -ús preserves the usual Indo-European nominative plural ending for animate thematic nouns, which Latin replaced with -ī < *-oi from pronominal declensions.

These nouns in Oscan are declined as follows:

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	-s -úm	-ús -ú
Vocative	-e	?
Accusative	-úm	-úss -ú
Genitive	-eís	-úm
Dative	-úí	-úís
Ablative	-úd	-úís
Locative	-eí	-úís

Third-declension nouns

Like in Latin, the third declension in Oscan is a merger of the i-stem nouns with the consonant-stem nouns.
These nouns in Oscan are declined as follows. Neuters are not attested.

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	-s	-s
Vocative	?	?
Accusative	-úm, -um	-s
Genitive	-eís	-úm
Dative	-eí	-is
Ablative	-úd	-is
Locative		-is

Verbal system

Verbs in Oscan are inflected for the following categories:

Present, future and future perfect forms in the active voice use the following set of personal endings:

	Singular	Plural
1st	-ō
2nd	-s
3rd	-t	-nt

Imperfect, perfect indicative and all tenses of the subjunctive in the active voice use a different set of endings:

	Singular	Plural
1st	-m
2nd	-s
3rd	-d	-ns

Passive endings are attested only for the 3rd person: singular -ter, plural -nter.
Perfect stems are derived from the present stem in different ways. Latin -vī- and -s- perfects are not attested in Oscan. Instead, Oscan uses its own set of forms, including reduplicated perfects such as deded 'gave', -tt- suffix as in prúfa-tt-ed 'approved', -k- suffix as in kella-k-ed 'collected, and -f- suffix as in aíkda-f-ed 'rebuilt'. Some verbs also use suppletive forms.
Other tenses are formed by suffixation:

Mood	Tense	Stem	Suffix	Example
Indicative	Imperfect	Present	-fā-	fu-fa-ns 'they were'
Indicative	Future	Present	-s-	deiua-s-t 'he will swear'
Indicative	Future perfect	Perfect	-us-	tríbarakatt-us-et 'they will have built'
Subjunctive	Present	Present	-ī-, -ā-	deiua-i-d 'let him swear'
Subjunctive	Imperfect	Present	-sē-	fu-sí-d 'should be'
Subjunctive	Perfect	Perfect	-ē-	tríbarakatt-í-ns 'should build'

The following non-finite forms are attested :

Form	Suffix	Example
Present active participle	-nt-	praese-nt-id 'being at hand'
Past participle	-to-	teremna-tu 'widened'
Present active infinitive	-om	tríbarakav-úm 'to build'
Present passive infinitive	-fi/''-fir	sakara-fír 'to be consecrated'
Gerundive	-nno-	úpsa-nna-m'' 'build'

Examples of Oscan texts

From the [Cippus Abellanus]

In Latin:
In English:

From [Tabula Bantina]

First paragraph

out of six paragraphs in total, lines 3-8 :
In Latin:
In English:
Notes: Oscan carn- “part, piece” is related to Latin carn- “meat”, from an Indo-European root *ker- meaning ‘cut’―apparently the Latin word originally meant ‘piece.’ Oscan tangin- "judgement, assent" is ultimately related to English 'think'.

Second paragraph

= lines 8-13. In this and the following paragraph, the assembly is being discussed in its judiciary function as a court of appeals:
In Latin:
In English:

Third Paragraph

= lines 13-18
In Latin:
In English:

The Testament of Vibius Adiranus

In Oscan:
In English: