Messapian (also known as Messapic) is an extinct Indo-European language of South-eastern Italy, once spoken in the regions of Apulia and Calabria. It was spoken by the three Iapygian tribes of the region: the Messapians, the Daunii and the Peucetii. Apulia is a region of Italy (called Puglia in Italian), bordering on Molise to the north-west, Campania to the south-west, Basilicata to the south, the Adriatic Sea to the east and the Ionian Sea to the south-east. ... An extinct language (also called a dead language) is a language which no longer has any native speakers. ... (2nd century BC - 1st century BC - 1st century - other centuries) The 1st century BC starts on January 1, 100 BC and ends on December 31, 1 BC. An alternative name for this century is the last century BC. (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium AD) Events The Roman... Current distribution of Human Language Families Most languages are known to belong to language families. ... The Indo-European languages comprise a family of several hundred related languages and dialects [1], including most of the major languages of Europe, as well as many spoken in the Indian subcontinent (South Asia), the Iranian plateau (Southwest Asia), and Central Asia. ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. ... ISO 639-3 is in process of development as an international standard for language codes. ... For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words see here. ... Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone meaning sound, voice) is the study of sounds and the human voice. ... Unicode is an industry standard designed to allow text and symbols from all of the writing systems of the world to be consistently represented and manipulated by computers. ... This chart shows concisely the most common way in which the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is applied to represent the English language. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... The Indo-European languages comprise a family of several hundred related languages and dialects [1], including most of the major languages of Europe, as well as many spoken in the Indian subcontinent (South Asia), the Iranian plateau (Southwest Asia), and Central Asia. ... This article is about the Italian region. ... Calabria (Latin: Bruttium or Brutium), is a region in southern Italy which occupies the toe of the Italian peninsula south of Naples. ... The Messapii were an ancient tribe that inhabited, in historical times, the south-eastern peninsula or heel of Italy, known variously in ancient times as Calabria, Messapia and Iapygia. ... The Peucetii (or Poedicli, according to Strabo[1] were a tribe who were living in Apulia in the country behind Barion (Latin Barium, modern Bari). ...

The language, a centum language, has been preserved in about 260 inscriptions dating from the 6th to the 1st century BC. Centum is the collective name for the branches of Indo-European in which the so-called Satem shift, the change of palato-velar *k^, *g^, *g^h into fricatives or affricates, did not take place, and the palato-velar consonants merged with plain velars (*k, *g, *gh). ... (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium) The 6th century BC started on January 1, 600 BC and ended on December 31, 501 BC. // Monument 1, an Olmec colossal head at La Venta The 5th and 6th centuries BC were a time of empires, but more importantly, a time... (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium) The 1st century BC started on January 1, 100 BC and ended on December 31, 1 BC. An alternative name for this century is the last century BC. The AD/BC notation does not use a year zero. ...

There is a hypothesis that Messapian was an Illyrian language. The Illyrian languages were spoken mainly on the other side of the Adriatic Sea. The link between Messapian and Illyrian is based mostly on personal names found on tomb inscriptions and on classical references, since hardly any traces of the Illyrian language are left. The Illyrian languages are a group of Indo-European languages that were spoken in the western part of the Balkans in pre-Roman times. ... A satellite image of the Adriatic Sea. ...

The Messapian language became extinct after the Roman Empire conquered the region and assimilated the inhabitants. This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...

Inscriptions

Few if any Messapic inscriptions have been definitely deciphered.

From the Vaste inscription (Corpus Inscriptionum Messapicarum 149):

klohi zis thotoria marta pido vastei basta veinan aran in daranthoa vasti staboos xohedonas daxtassi vaanetos inthi trigonoxo a staboos xohetthihi dazimaihi beiliihi inthi rexxorixoa kazareihi xohetthihi toeihithi dazohonnihi inthi vastima daxtas kratheheihi inthi ardannoa poxxonnihi a imarnaihi

For this Messapic inscription, a translation is given from Cornell University: Cornell redirects here. ...

klauhi Zis

Dekias Artahias

Thautouri andirahho

daus apistathi vinaihi

Hear Zeus,

Dekias Artahias

to the infernal Thaotor

set up (the rest untranslated)

Here, klauhi probably means "hear" (<PIE *kleu-, "to hear"); Zis has been interpreted as the Messapic Zeus; Dekias is a first name (compare Latin Decius); Artahias is a patronym or nomen gentile with the Messapic genitive -as suffix; Thautori is inferred to be an infernal god because of its placement next to what appears to be an adjective, andirahho (perhaps from PIE *ndher-, "under"). This article is about the baked good, for other uses see Pie (disambiguation). ... The Statue of Zeus at Olympia Phidias created the 12-m (40-ft) tall statue of Zeus at Olympia about 435 BC. The statue was perhaps the most famous sculpture in Ancient Greece, imagined here in a 16th century engraving Zeus (in Greek: nominative: Zeús, genitive: Díos), is... Decius was a Roman praenomen. ... A patronymic is a personal name based on the name of ones father. ... In the naming convention used in ancient Rome, derived from that of the Etruscan civilization, the names of male patricians normally consist of three parts (tria nomina): the praenomen (given name), nomen gentile or gentilicium (name of the gens or clan) and cognomen (belonging to a family within the gens). ... The genitive case is a grammatical case that indicates a relationship, primarily one of possession, between the noun in the genitive case and another noun. ...

Another Messapic inscription from Galatina is dated to the 2nd century BC: Galatina is a town in the Italian province of Lecce in Apulia. ... (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium) The 2nd century BC started on January 1, 200 BC and ended on December 31, 101 BC. // Coin of Antiochus IV. Reverse shows Apollo seated on an omphalos. ...

klohi zis anthos thotorridas ana aprodita apa ogrebis

The separation of the last two elements is uncertain (apa, ogrebis, as shown here). Klohi (as klauhi in the preceding inscription) probably means "listen, hear". Zis may be the Messapic Zeus, as in the preceding inscription. Aprodita is a loanword from Greek Aphrodite. Anthos Thotorridas is a Messapic anthroponym, showing a personal name plus patronymic or nomen gentile in the genitive (-as). The Birth of Venus, (detail) by Sandro Botticelli, 1485 Aphrodite (Greek: Ἀφροδίτη, pronounced in English as and in Ancient Greek as ) was the Greek goddess of love, lust, beauty, and sexuality. ... An anthroponym (Gk. ...

The Messapian language is preserved in a scanty group of perhaps fifty inscriptions, of which only a few contain more than proper names, and in a few glosses in ancient writers collected by Mommsen (Unteritalische Dialekte, p. 70). Unluckily very few originals of the inscriptions are now in existence, though some few remain in the museum at Taranto. The only satisfactory transcripts are those given by: Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen (November 30, 1817–November 1, 1903) was a German classical scholar, jurist and historian, generally regarded as the greatest classicist of the 19th century. ...

1. Mommsen (loc. cit.)
2. John P Droop in the Annual of the British School at Athens (1905-1906), xli. 137, who includes, for purposes of comparison, as the reader should be warned, some specimens of the 'unfortunately numerous class of forged inscriptions.

A large number of the inscriptions collected by Gamurrini in the appendices to Fabretti's Corpus inscriptionum italicorum are forgeries, and the text of the rest is negligently reported. It is therefore safest to rely on the texts collected by Mommsen, cumbered though they are by the various readings given , to him by various, authorities. In spite, however, of these difficulties some facts of considerable importance have been established.

The inscriptions, so far as it is safe to judge from the copies of the older finds and from Droop's facsimiles of the newer, are all in the Tarentine-Ionic alphabet (with <no font for this character> for v and <no font for this character> for h). For limits of date 400-150 BC may be regarded as approximately probable; the two most important inscriptions--those of Bindisi and Vastemay perhaps be assigned provisionally to the 3rd century BC. Mommsen's first attempt at dealing with the inscriptions and the language attained solid, if not very numerous, results, chief of which were the genitival character of the endings -aihi and -ihi; and the conjunctional value of inthi (loc. cit. 79-84 sg(1). (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium) The 3rd century BC started on January 1, 300 BC and ended on December 31, 201 BC. // Events The Pyramid of the Moon, one of several monuments built in Teotihuacán Teotihuacán, Mexico begun The first two Punic Wars between Carthage... This page is a candidate to be moved to Wiktionary. ...

Since 1850 little progress has been made. The Norwegian scholar Alf Torp (1853–1916) in Indogermanische Forschungen (1895), V, 195, deals fully with the two inscriptions just mentioned, and practically sums up all that is either certain or probable in the conjectures of his predecessors. Hardly more than a few words can be said to have been separated and translated with certainty--kalatoras (masc. gen. sing.) "of a herald" (Written upon a herald's staff which was once in the Naples Museum); "aran" (acc: sing. fem.) "arable land"; mazzes, "greater" (neut. acc. sing.), the first two syllables of the Latin maiestas; while tepise (3rd sing. aorist indic.) "placed" or "offered"; and forms corresponding to the article (ta = Greek to) seem also reasonably probable. The word singular may refer to one of several concepts. ... In linguistics, many grammars have the concept of grammatical mood, which describes the relationship of a verb with reality and intent. ...

Some phonetic characteristics of the language may be regarded as quite certain:

1. the change of PIE short -ǒ- to -ǎ- (as in the last syllable of the genitive kalatoras)
2. of final -m to -n (as in aran)
3. of -ni- to -nn- (as in the Messapian praenomen Dazohonnes vs. the Illyrian praenomen Dazonius; the Messapian genitive Dazohonnihi vs. Illyrian genitive Dasonii, etc.)
4. of -ti- to -tth- (as in the Messapian praenomen Dazetthes vs. Illyrian Dazetius; the Messapian genitive Dazetthihi vs. the Illyrian genitive Dazetii; from a Dazet- stem common in Illyrian and Messapian)
5. of -si- to -ss- (as in Messapian Vallasso for Vallasio, a derivative from the shorter name Valla)
6. the loss of final d (as in tepise), and probably of final t (as in -des, perhaps meaning "set", from PIE *dhe-, "to set, put")
7. the change of voiced aspirates in Proto-Indo-European to plain voiced consonants: PIE *dh- or *-dh- to d- or -d- (Mes. anda <PIE *en-dha-<PIE *en-, "in"; compare Gr. entha) and PIE *bh- or *-bh- to b- or -b- (Mes. beran <PIE *bher-, "to bear")
8. -au- before (at least some) consonants becomes -ā-: Bāsta, from Bausta
9. the form penkaheh --which Torp very probably identifies with the Oscan stem pompaio--a derivative of the Proto-Indo-European numeral *penkwe-, "five".

If this last identification be correct it would show, that in Messapian (just as in Venetic and Ligurian) the original labiovelars (k^w, g^w, gh^w) were retained as gutturals and not converted into labials. The change of o to a is exceedingly interesting, being associated with the northern branches of Indo-European such as Gothic, Albanian and Lithuanian, and not appearing in any other southern dialect hitherto known. The Greek Aphrodite appears in the form Aprodita (dat. sing., fem.). The use of double consonants which has been already pointed out in the Messapian inscriptions has been very acutely connected by Deecke with the tradition that the same practice was introduced at Rome by the poet Ennius who came from the Messapian town Rudiae (Festus, p. 293 M). This article is about the baked good, for other uses see Pie (disambiguation). ... In the Roman naming convention used in ancient Rome, male names typically contain three proper nouns which are classified as praenomen (or given name), nomen gentile (or Gens name) and cognomen. ... The Illyrian languages are a group of Indo-European languages that were spoken in the western part of the Balkans in former times by ethnic groups identified as Illyrians: Delmatae, Pannoni, Illyrioi, Autariates, Taulanti (see List of Illyrian tribes). ... The Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) is the hypothetical common ancestor of the Indo-European languages. ... Denarius of Marsican Confederation with Oscan legend. ... Venetic is an extinct Indo-European language that was spoken in ancient times in the Veneto region of Italy, between the Po River delta and the southern fringe of the Alps. ... The Ligurian language was spoken in pre-Roman times and into the Roman era by an ancient people of north-western Italy and south-eastern France known as the Ligures. ... Because of technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ... The Birth of Venus, (detail) by Sandro Botticelli, 1485 Aphrodite (Greek: Ἀφροδίτη, pronounced in English as and in Ancient Greek as ) was the Greek goddess of love, lust, beauty, and sexuality. ... In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. ... Quintus Ennius (239 - 169 BC) was a writer during the period of the Roman Republic, and is often considered the father of Roman poetry. ...

The proper names in the inscriptions show the regular Italic system of gentile nomen preceded by a personal praenomen; and that some inscriptions show the interesting feature which appears in the Tables of Heraclea of a crest or coat of arms, such as a triangle or an anchor, peculiar to particular families. The same reappears in the Iovilae of Capua and Cumae. Capua is a city in the province of Caserta, (Campania, Italy) situated 25 km (16 mi) north of Napoli, on the northeastern edge of the Campanian plain. ... Cumae (Cuma, in Italian) is an ancient Greek settlement lying to the northwest of Naples in the Italian region of Campania. ...

Bibliography

• W. Deecke in a series of articles in the Rheinisches Museum, xxxvi. 576 sqq.; xxxvii. 373 sqq. ; xl. 131 sqq.; xlii. 226 sqq.
• S. Bugge, Bezzenbergers Beiträge, vol. 18.
• L. Ceci Notizie degli Scavi (1908), p. 86; and one or two others are recorded by Professor Viola, ibid. 1884, p. 128 sqq. and in Giornale degli Scavi di Pompei, vol. 4 (1878), pp. 70 sqq. The place-names of the district are collected by R. S. Conway, The Italic Dialects, p. 31; for the Tarentine-Ionic alphabet see ibid. ii., 461.

For a discussion of the important ethnological question of the origin of the Messapians see: Robert Seymour Conway (1864-1933) was a British classical scholar and comparative philologist. ...

• Wolfgang Helbig, Hermes, xi. 257
• P. Kretschmer, Einleitung in die Geschichte der griechischen Sprache, pp. 262 sqq., 272 sqq.
• H. Hirt, Die sprachliche Stellung der Illyrischen (Festschrift fur H. Kiepert, pp. 179-188)

Paul Kretschmer (May 2, 1866 – March 9, 1956) was a German linguist who studied the earliest history and interrelations of the Indo-European languages and showed how they were influenced by non-Indo-European languages, such as Etruscan. ... Hermann Hirt (born 1865 in Magdeburg, died 1936 in Gießen) was an Indo-Europeanist. ...

See also

• Illyrian languages

The Illyrian languages are a group of Indo-European languages that were spoken in the western part of the Balkans in former times by ethnic groups identified as Illyrians: Delmatae, Pannoni, Illyrioi, Autariates, Taulanti (see List of Illyrian tribes). ...

External links

• it Civiltà messapica