Oscan, the language of the Osci, is in the Sabellic branch of the Italic language family, which is a branch of Indo-European that also includes Umbrian, Latin, and Faliscan. It was spoken in Samnium and in Campania, as well as in Lucania, Ager Bruttius (modern Calabria) 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 wri...
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Oscan, the language of the Osci, is in the Sabellic branch of the Italic language family, which is a branch of Indo-European that also includes Umbrian, Latin, and Faliscan. It was spoken in Samnium and in Campania, as well as in Lucania, Ager Bruttius (modern Calabria) 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.
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...
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