The Falisci were an ancient Italian tribe. They were of Sabine origin or connections, but spoke an Italic language closely akin to Latin. They inhabited the town of Falerii, as well as a considerable tract of the surrounding country, probably reaching as far south as to include the small town of Capena. The tribe of the Sabines (Latin Sabini) was an Italic tribe of ancient Italy. ... The Italic subfamily is a member of the Centum branch of the Indo-European language family. ... Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... Falerii (now Cività Castellana), one of the twelve chief cities of Etruria, situated about one mile west of the ancient Via Flaminia, 32 miles north Rome. ... Capena is an ancient city near Rome, Italy. ...

At the beginning of the historical period, i.e. from the beginning of the 5th century BC, and no doubt earlier, the dominant element in the town was Etruscan; and all through the wars of the following centuries the town was counted a member, and sometimes a leading member, of the Etruscan league (cf. Livy iv. 23, V. 17, vii. 17). (6th century BC - 5th century BC - 4th century BC - other centuries) (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium AD) The 5th and 6th centuries BC are a period of philosophical brilliance among advanced civilizations. ... Map showing the extent of the Etruscan civilization and the twelve Etruscan League cities. ... Bust of Livy Titus Livius (around 59 BC - 17 AD), known as Livy in English, wrote a monumental history of Rome, Ab urbe condita, from its founding (traditionally dated to 753 BC). ...

In spite of the Etruscan domination, the Faliscans preserved many traces of their Italic origin, such as the worship of the deities Juno Quiritis (Ovid, Fasti, VI. 49) and Feronia (Livy xxvi. 11), the cult of Dis Soranus by the Hirpi or fire-leaping priests on Mount Soracte (Pliny, Nat. Hist. vii. 2, 19; Servius, ad Aen. xi. 785, 787), above all their language. Quiritis was a Sabine (pre-Roman) goddess of motherhood. ... Engraved frontispiece of George Sandyss 1632 London edition of Publius Ovidius Naso (Sulmona, March 20, 43 BC â€“ Tomis, now Constanta AD 17) Roman poet known to the English-speaking world as Ovid, wrote on topics of love, abandoned women, and mythological transformations. ... Fasti, a Latin word, refers to the Roman calendar and almanac; and especially, to a long, unfinished poem on the religious festivals of the Roman year and their mythological underpinnings, by the poet Ovid. ... In Roman mythology, Feronia was a fertility goddess who was revered in order to secure a good harvest. ... Bust of Livy Titus Livius (around 59 BC - 17 AD), known as Livy in English, wrote a monumental history of Rome, Ab urbe condita, from its founding (traditionally dated to 753 BC). ... Soracte, a mountain in the province of Rome, Italy. ... Pliny the Elder: an imaginative 19c portrait. ... Natural history is an umbrella term for what are now usually viewed as a number of distinct scientific disciplines. ... Maurus (or Marius) Servius Honoratius, Roman grammarian and commentator on Virgil, flourished at the end of the 4th century AD. He is one of the interlocutors in the Saturnalia of Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius, and allusions in that work and a letter from Quintus Aurelius Symmachus to Servius show that he...

Faliscan language

This is preserved for us in some 36 short inscriptions, dating from the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, and is written in a variety of the Old Italic alphabet derived from the Etruscan, and written from right to left, but showing some traces of the influence of the Latin alphabet. Its most characteristic signs are- 51 a, z, 'F', 51 r, Inscriptions are words or letters written, engraved, painted, or otherwise traced on a surface and can appear in contexts both small and monumental. ... Old Italic refers to a number of related historical alphabets used on the Italian peninsula which were used for some non-Indo-European languages (Etruscan and probably North Picene), various Indo-European languages belonging to the Italic branch (Faliscan and members of the Sabellian group, including Oscan, Umbrian, and South... An alphabet is a complete standardized set of letters — basic written symbols — each of which roughly represents a phoneme of a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it may have been in the past. ... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ...

As a specimen of the dialect may be quoted the words written round the edge of a picture on a patera, the genuineness of which is established by the fact that they were written before the glaze was put on: "foied vino pipafo, cra carefo," i.e. in Latin "hodie vinum bibam, cras carebo" (R. S. Conway, Italic Dialects, p. 312, b). This shows some of the phonetic characteristics of the Faliscan dialect, such as the following: The word patera has various meanings: A patera was a broad, shallow dish used for drinking, primarily in a ritual context such as a libation. ... Robert Seymour Conway (1864-1933) was a British classical scholar and comparative philologist. ...

1. The retention of medial f which in Latin became b;
2. The representation of an initial Indo-European gh by f (foied, contrast Latin hodie);
3. The palatalization of d+ consonant i into some sound denoted merely by i- the central sound of foied, from fo-dsid;
4. The loss of final s, at all events before certain following sounds (cra beside Latin cras);

Other characteristics, appearing elsewhere, are: Proto-Indo-European Indo-European studies Indo-European is originally a linguistic term, referring to the Indo-European language family. ... Palatalization means pronouncing a sound nearer to the hard palate, making it more like a palatal consonant; this is towards the front of the mouth for a velar or uvular consonant, but towards the back of the mouth for a front (e. ...

1. The retention of the velars (Fal. cuando = Latin quando; contrast Umbrian pan(n~u);)
2. The assimilation of some final consonants to the initial sound of the next word: "pretod de zenatuo sententiad" (Conway, lit. cit. 321), "praetor de senatus sententia" (zenatuo for senafuos, an archaic genitive).

For further details see Conway, ib. pp. 370 if., especially pp. 384-385, where the relation of the names Falisci, Falerli to the local hero Halaesus (e.g. Ovid, Fasti, iv. 73) is discussed, and where reason is given for thinking that the change of initial f (from an original bh or dh) into an initial h was a genuine mark of Faliscan dialect. Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum). ... In Greek mythology, Halaesus was Agamemnons teamster during the Trojan War. ... Engraved frontispiece of George Sandyss 1632 London edition of Publius Ovidius Naso (Sulmona, March 20, 43 BC â€“ Tomis, now Constanta AD 17) Roman poet known to the English-speaking world as Ovid, wrote on topics of love, abandoned women, and mythological transformations. ...

It seems probable that the dialect lasted on, though being gradually permeated with Latin, till at least 150 BC. Centuries: 3rd century BC - 2nd century BC - 1st century BC Decades: 200s BC 190s BC 180s BC 170s BC 160s BC - 150s BC - 140s BC 130s BC 120s BC 110s BC 100s BC Years: 155 BC 154 BC 153 BC 152 BC 151 BC - 150 BC - 149 BC 148 BC...

In addition to the remains found in the graves, which belong mainly to the period of Etruscan domination and give ample evidence of material prosperity and refinement, the earlier strata have yielded more primitive remains from the Italic epoch. A large number of inscriptions consisting mainly of proper names may be regarded as Etruscan rather than Faliscan, and they have been disregarded in the account of the dialect just given. It should perhaps be mentioned that there was a town Feronia in Sardinia, named probably after their native goddess by Faliscan settlers, from some of whom we have a votive inscription found at S Maria di Falleri. Sardinia (Sardegna in Italian, Sardigna, Sardinna or Sardinnia in the Sardinian language, Sardenya in Catalan), is the second largest island in the Mediterranean Sea (Sicily is the largest), between Italy, Spain and Tunisia, south of Corsica. ...

The National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia, Rome, holds Faliscan artifacts. The Villa Giulia stands in an area of Rome known as the Vigna Vechia (which was once against the city walls) lying on the slopes where Monte Parioli descends to the Tiber. ...

References

• This article incorporates text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, a publication in the public domain.