Umbrian language

This article is about the ancient language. For the modern Italian dialect, see Central Italian.
Umbrian

ikuvins
Native to Umbria
Region central Italy
Era attested 7th–1st century BC[1]
Umbrian and Old Italic alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3 xum
Linguist list
 xum
Glottolog umbr1253[2]

Approximate distribution of languages in Iron Age Italy during the 6th century BC

Umbrian is an extinct Italic language formerly spoken by the Umbri in the ancient Italian region of Umbria. Within the Italic languages it is closely related to the Oscan group and is therefore associated with it in the group of Osco-Umbrian languages. Since that classification was first formulated a number of other languages in ancient Italy were discovered to be more closely related to Umbrian. Therefore, a group was devised to contain them, the Umbrian languages.

Corpus

Umbrian is known from about 30 inscriptions dated from the 7th through 1st centuries BC. The largest cache by far is the Iguvine Tablets, nine inscribed bronze tablets found in 1444 in an underground chamber at Gubbio (ancient Iguvium). Two have since disappeared. The remaining seven contain notes on the ceremonies and statutes for priests of the ancient pagan religion in the region. Sometimes they are called the Eugubian tablets after the medieval name of Iguvium/Eugubium.[3] The tablets contain 4000-5000 words.

Other minor inscriptions are from Todi, Assisi and Spoleto.

Alphabet

The Iguvine tablets were written in two alphabets. The older, the Umbrian alphabet, like other Old Italic alphabets, was derived from the Etruscan alphabet, and was written right-to-left. The newer was written in the Latin script. The texts are sometimes called Old Umbrian and New Umbrian. The differences are mainly orthographic.[4]

Notes

  1. ↑ Umbrian at MultiTree on the Linguist List
  2. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Umbrian". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. ↑ Colby, Frank Moore; Williams, Talcott, eds. (1922). "Italic languages". The New International Encyclopedia. Volume 12. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company. p. 459.
  4. ↑ Buck 1904, p. 7

Bibliography

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