Umbrian Language

Umbrian language, one of the ancient Italic languages closely related to Oscan and Volscian and more distantly related to Latin and Faliscan. Umbrian was spoken in central Italy, probably only in the area of the Tiber River valley in the last few centuries bc; it was displaced by Latin at an unknown date. Modern knowledge of the language is derived almost entirely from the Iguvine Tables (q.v.), a set of bronze tablets discovered near Gubbio (ancient Iguvium), Italy, in 1444. Dating from between about 300 bc and about 90 bc, the tables are written in an Umbrian alphabet derived from Etruscan and in the Latin script. As it appears in these tablets, Umbrian is quite similar to the Oscan language and Latin language in structure but shows a series of sound shifts and some differences in vocabulary.