Vocabulary
Lexical comparison leads to more specific data about the history of the Italic languages. There are linguistic boundaries called isoglosses that may date back to pre-Italic history: e.g., Oscan humuns, Latin homines, and Gothic gumans ‘human beings’ derive from an Indo-European root that meant ‘earth’; and Oscan anamúm ‘mind’ (accusative singular) is directly related to Latin animus ‘mind, soul’ and Irish anam ‘soul,’ these words deriving from an Indo-European root meaning ‘to breathe’ (compare Greek anemos ‘wind’). There are many old differences between Latin on the one hand and Osco-Umbrian (and South Picene) on the other. Latin ignis ‘fire’ = Sanskrit agni, but Umbrian pir ‘fire’ = Greek pŷr = Old English fyr; Latin aqua ‘water’ = Gothic ahwa, but Umbrian utur ‘water’ = Greek hydōr = Old English wæter; Latin filius, filia ‘son, daughter,’ but Oscan puklu and South Picene puqloh ‘son’ = Sanskrit putra, and Oscan futír ‘daughter’ = Greek thygatēr = Gothic dauhtar. Adjectives of totality in Latin are omnis, cunctus, totus, in Osco-Umbrian sollo-, sevo-, allo- (cognate to English all). ‘The people’ or ‘the state’ is expressed in Latin by populus or civitas (the latter literally ‘citizenship,’ based on civis ‘citizen’), but by Oscan touto, Umbrian tuta, South Picene toúta = Irish túath = Gothic thiuda.
Certain lexical fields that reflect the acquisition of the Mediterranean culture show an independent terminology. The following forms strongly suggest that Latin and Osco-Umbrian speakers were not in contact with each other when they began to build cities: Latin porta ‘gate,’ Oscan veru ‘gate’; Latin arx ‘citadel,’ Umbrian ocar ‘citadel, castle’; Latin moenia ‘walls, ramparts,’ murus ‘wall,’ Oscan feíhúss (accusative plural) ‘walls.’ On the other hand, Latins and Osco-Umbrians adopted the same terms for ‘write’ and ‘read’; Latin scribere ‘to write,’ Oscan scriftas ‘written’; Latin legere ‘to read,’ Paelignian lexe ‘you will read.’ It is known that the Latin and Osco-Umbrian alphabets are derived from the Etruscan alphabet; the spread of these terms can, therefore, be attributed to a period of Etruscan predominance. Etruscan features are obvious in archaic Italic religion; Osco-Umbrians and Veneti adopted even the Etruscan word for ‘god’—ais. Many other religious terms show a close community among Italic peoples; e.g., the Latin forms pius ‘pious, obedient’ and piare ‘to honour with religious rites’ are equivalent to Volscian pihom (neuter singular) and Umbrian pihatu (imperative); Latin feriae ‘religious days’ is related to Oscan fiisiais (ablative plural); and Latin sacer ‘sacred,’ sacrare ‘to consecrate, dedicate,’ sanctus ‘consecrated’ are cognates with Oscan sakrid (ablative singular), sakrafír (subjunctive passive), saahtúm (neuter singular). These correspondences in religious vocabulary extend to whole phrases, some inherited from Indo-European forms of expression and therefore of very great antiquity: e.g., the Umbrian prayer formula ueiro pequo…salua seritu ‘keep safe men (and) livestock’ is directly comparable to Latin pastores pecuaque salva servassis ‘may you keep safe shepherds and livestock’ (in an ancient Roman prayer), and both are cognate with similar expressions in Vedic Sanskrit and Avestan.
The Etruscan supremacy ended with the foundation of local republics in Rome and in other cities of Italy in approximately 500 bce; when that occurred, the unifying force of Etruscan culture lost its influence. Early republican terminology developed independently; e.g., Latin consul ‘consul’ but Oscan meddíss designate the first magistrate, to Latin senatus ‘senate’ corresponds Oscan kúmparakineís (genitive singular), and to Latin comitia ‘assembly’ the Oscan forms comono or kúmbennieís. The last period of Italic language history is characterized by an increasing influence of Roman models. For example, Oscan ceus ‘citizen’ is a Latin loanword that stems from a form *ceuis, which existed about 200 bce and was intermediate between Old Latin ceivis and its later form civis; Oscan aídil and kvaísstur imitate Latin aedilis and quaestor, terms for offices in the Roman government; and the Veneti adopted the Roman word for ‘freed man,’ libertus. In addition, the Oscan Tabula Bantina slavishly copied the juridical style and terminology of the Romans.
Poetics
Beyond vocabulary, the Italic languages share features of expression that are prominent in formal modes of discourse, such as prayers, oaths and curses, and legal formulations. For many such compositions, the distinction between “prose” and “poetry” is an artificial one: prayers or juridical formulas that otherwise appear to be prose may show elaborate structures dependent on sequences of isosyllabic cola (i.e., phrases with equal numbers of syllables, like lines of verse) or other rhythmic patterns, marked effects arising from antithesis or synonymy, and a high degree of asyndeton (i.e., lack of connective words such as and). Perhaps most striking is the phonetic feature of alliteration, pervasive throughout early Latin poetry, as well as in formal documents composed in Oscan, Umbrian, and South Picene. For Latin and Umbrian, compare the parallel phrases salua seritu and salva servassis in the prayer mentioned above, with the latter preceded by pastores pecuaque; an Oscan curse includes the sequence fakinss, fangvam, biass, biítam ‘(I hand over to the divinity [i.e., I curse] his) deeds, tongue, strength, life’; and note the concluding sequence viat vepetí ‘he lies in the tomb’ in the depiction of a South Picene epitaph.
