Italic Languages

Italic languages, certain Indo-European languages that were once spoken in the Apennine Peninsula (modern Italy) and in the eastern part of the Po valley. These include the Latin, Faliscan, Osco-Umbrian, South Picene, and Venetic languages, which have in common a considerable number of features that separate them from the other languages of the same area—e.g., from Greek and Etruscan. (In a more narrow sense, the term Italic languages excludes Latin and denotes only Osco-Umbrian, South Picene, Faliscan, and Venetic.)

For a long time the Italic languages have been considered to be an Indo-European subfamily like Celtic, Germanic, or Slavic. Today some scholars are inclined to distinguish within the so-called Italic branch at least three independent members of the Indo-European family: Latin (with Faliscan), Osco-Umbrian (with South Picene), and Venetic (if indeed this is an Italic language, as will be assumed in this article). They attribute the similarities—i.e., the unifying phenomena in the division—to a convergence that took place when the speakers of these different idioms were integrated into the “Italic” civilization of the early 1st millennium bce. The culture that resulted is known as the “Etruscan koine.”