Denarius of Marsican Confederation with Oscan legend.

Oscan, the language of the Osci, is in the Sabellic branch of the Italic language family, which is a branch of Indo-European and includes Umbrian, Latin and Faliscan. It was spoken in Samnium and in Campania, as well as in Lucania and Abruzzo. Oscan is known from inscriptions beginning in the 5th century BC. The most important Oscan inscriptions are the Tabula Bantina and the Cippus Abellanus. Oscan was written in the Latin and Greek alphabets, as well as in a variety of the Old Italic alphabet. Image File history File links Denarius-Marsic_Federation-Syd_627. ... Image File history File links Denarius-Marsic_Federation-Syd_627. ... First row : c. ... The Marsi were an ancient people of Italy, whose chief centre was Marruvium, on the eastern shore of Lake Fucinus. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Osco-Umbrian languages. ... The Italic subfamily is a member of the Centum branch of the Indo-European language family. ... The Indo-European languages include some 443 (SIL estimate) languages and dialects, including most of the major language families of Europe, as well as many languages of Southwest and South Asia, which belong to a single superfamily. ... Umbrian, an Indo-European language of the Italic family, is a dead language formerly spoken in Umbria, Italy. ... Latin is an Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... Falisci, a tribe of Sabine origin or connections, but speaking a dialect closely akin to Latin, who 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. ... Samnite warriors Samnium (Oscan Safinim) was a region of the southern Apennines in Italy that was home to the Samnites, a group of Sabellic tribes that controlled the area from about 600 BC to about 290 BC. Samnium was delimited by Latium in the north, by Lucania in the south... Campania is a region of Southern Italy, bordering on Lazio to the north-west, Molise to the north, Puglia to the north-east, Basilicata to the east, and the Tyrrhenian Sea to the west. ... For the mountain in Canada named after Lucania, see Mount Lucania. ... Abruzzo, (also known as Abruzzi, an older obsolete plural denomination) is a region of central Italy, formerly a part of the Abruzzi e Molise region (with Molise). ... Inscriptions are words or letters written, engraved, painted, or otherwise traced on a surface and can appear in contexts both small and monumental. ... (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. ... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ... 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. ... 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...

Dialects of Oscan include Samnite, Marrucine, Paelignan, Vestinian, Sabine, and Marsian.

Oscan had much in common with Latin, though there are also many striking differences, and many common word-groups in Latin were absent and represented by entirely different forms. For example, Latin volo, velle, volui, and other such forms from the Proto-Indo-European root *wel ('to will') were represented by words derived from *gher ('to desire'): Oscan herest ('he wants, desires') as opposed to Latin vult (id.). Latin locus (place) was absent and represented by slaagid (place). The Proto-Indo-Europeans are the hypothetical speakers of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language, a prehistoric people of the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age. ...

In phonology Oscan also showed differences from Latin: Oscan 'p' in place of Latin 'qu' (Osc. pis, Lat. quis); 'b' in place of Latin 'v'; medial 'f' in contrast to Latin 'b' or 'd' (Osc. mefiai, Lat. mediae). Phonology (Greek phone = voice/sound and logos = word/speech), is a subfield of linguistics closely associated with phonetics. ...

Considered the most conservative of all the known Italic languages, Oscan is rivaled only by Greek in the retention of the inherited vowel system with the diphthongs intact. In phonetics, a diphthong (in Greek δίφθογγος) is a vowel combination usually involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ...

Example of an Oscan text (the Cippus Abellanus):

 ekkum[svaí píd herieset trííbarak[avúm tereí púd liímítú[m] pernúm [púís herekleís fíísnú mefi[ú íst, ehtrad feíhúss pú[s herekleís fíísnam amfr et, pert víam pússtíst paí íp íst, pústin slagím senateís suveís tangi núd tríbarakavúm lí kítud. íním íúk tríba rakkiuf pam núvlanús tríbarakattuset íúk trí barakkiuf íním úíttiuf abellanúm estud. avt púst feíhúís pús físnam am fret, eíseí tereí nep abel lanús nep núvlanús pídum tríbarakattíns. avt the savrúm púd eseí tereí íst, pún patensíns, múíníkad ta[n ginúd patensíns, íním píd e[íseí thesavreí púkkapíd ee[stit a]íttíúm alttram alttr[ús h]erríns. avt anter slagím a]bellanam íním núvlanam s]úllad víú uruvú íst . edú e]ísaí víaí mefiaí teremen n]iú staíet. 

External link

• Oscan vocabulary.