B. Latin

Regions where Romance languages are spoken, either as mother tongue or as second language.

The Romance languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, comprise all languages that descended from Latin, the language of the Roman Empire. Romance languages have some 800 million native speakers worldwide, mainly in the Americas, Europe, and Africa, as well as in many smaller regions scattered through the world. The largest languages are Spanish and Portuguese, with about 400 and 200 million mother tongue speakers respectively, most of them outside Europe. Within Europe, French (with 80 million) and Italian (70 million) are the largest ones. All Romance languages descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of soldiers, settlers, and slaves of the Roman Empire, which was substantially different from the Classical Latin of the Roman literati. Between 200 BC and 100 AD, the expansion of the Empire, coupled with administrative and educational policies of Rome, made Vulgar Latin the dominant native language over a wide area spanning from the Iberian Peninsula to the Western coast of the Black Sea. During the Empire’s decadence and after its collapse and fragmentation in the 5^th century, Vulgar Latin evolved independently within each local area, and eventually diverged into dozens of distinct languages. The oversea empires established by Spain, Portugal and France after the 15^th century then spread Romance to the other continents — to such an extent that about two thirds of all Romance speakers are now outside Europe.

Latin is usually classified, along with Faliscan, as an Italic dialect. The Italic speakers were not native to Italy, but migrated into the Italian Peninsula in the course of the 2^nd millennium BC, and were apparently related to the Celtic tribes that roamed over a large part of Western Europe at the time. Archaeologically, the Apennine culture of inhumations enters the Italian Peninsula from ca. 1350 BC, east to west; the Iron Age reaches Italy from ca. 1100 BC, with the Villanovan culture (cremating), intruding north to south. Before the Italic arrival, Italy was populated primarily by non-Indo-European groups (perhaps including the Etruscans). The first settlement on the Palatine hill dates to ca. 750 BC, settlements on the Quirinal to 720 BC, both related to the Founding of Rome. As Rome extended its political dominion over Italy, Latin became dominant over the other Italic languages, which ceased to be spoken perhaps sometime in the 1^st century AD. 

Italic is usually divided into:

·   Sabellic, including:

o  Oscan, spoken in south-central Italy.

o  Umbrian group:

§  Umbrian.

§  Volscian.

§  Aequian.

§  Marsian.

§  South Picene.

·   Latino-Faliscan, including:

o  Faliscan, spoken in the area around Falerii Veteres, north of the city of Rome.

o 

Iron Age Italy, ca 800 BC. In central Italy, Italic languages. In southern and north-western Italy, other Indo-European languages. Venetic, Sicanian and Sicel were possibly IE.

Latin, spoken in west-central Italy. The Roman conquests eventually spread it throughout the Roman Empire and beyond.

The ancient Venetic language, as revealed by its inscriptions (including complete sentences), was also closely related to the Italic languages and is sometimes even classified as Italic. However, since it also shares similarities with other Western Indo-European branches (particularly Germanic), some linguists prefer to consider it an independent IE language.

Phonetic changes from EIE to Latin include: b^h→f/b, d^h→f/b, g^h→h/f, g^w→w/g, k^w→kw/k, p→p/kw.

The Italic languages are first attested in writing from Umbrian and Faliscan inscriptions dating to the 7^th century BC. The alphabets used are based on the Old Italic alphabet, which is itself based on the Greek alphabet. The Italic languages themselves show minor influence from the Etruscan and somewhat more from the Ancient Greek languages.

Oscan had much in common with Latin, though there are also some differences, and many common word-groups in Latin were represented by different forms; as, Lat. uolo, uelle, uolui, and other such forms from PIE wel-, will, were represented by words derived from g^her-, desire, cf. Osc. herest, “he wants, desires” as opposed to Lat. uult (id.). Lat. locus, “place” was absent and represented by Osc. slaagid.

Forum inscription in Latin, written boustrophedon.

In phonology, Oscan also shows a different evolution, as EIE k^w→ Osc. p instead of Lat. kw (cf. Osc. pis, Lat. quis); EIE g^w → Osc. b instead of Latin w; EIE medial b^h, d^h → Osc. f, in contrast to Lat. b or d (cf. Osc. mefiai, Lat. mediae); etc.

NOTE. A specimen of Faliscan appears written round the edge of a picture on a patera: “foied vino pipafo, cra carefo”, which in Old Latin would have been “hodie vinom bibabo, cras carebo”, translated as “today I will drink wine; tomorrow I won't have any” (R. S. Conway, Italic Dialects). Among other distinctive features, it shows the retention of medial f which in Latin became b, and evolution of EIE g^h→f (fo-, contrast Lat. ho-).

Hence the reconstructed changes of North-West Indo-European into Proto-Italic:

·Voiced labiovelars unround or lenite: g^w→g/w, g^wh→g^h.

·Voiced aspirates become first unvoiced, then fricativize: b^h→p^h→ɸ→f; d^h→t^h→θ; g^h→k^h→x.

NOTE. About PIE intervocalic g^h → Ita. x, linguists (see Joseph & Wallace 1991) generally propose that it evolves as Faliscan g or k, while in Latin it becomes glottal h, without a change of manner of articulation. Picard (1993) rejects that proposal citing abstract phonetic principles, which Chela-Flores (1999) argues citing examples of Spanish phonology.

·EIE s → Ita. θ before r (cf. Ita. kereθrom, Lat. cerebrum); unchanged elsewhere.

Up to 8 cases are found; apart from the 6 cases of Classic Latin (i.e. N-V-A-G-D-Ab), there was a Locative (cf. Lat. proxumae viciniae, domī, carthagini; Osc. aasai, Lat. “in ārā” etc.) and an Instrumental (cf. Columna Rostrata Lat. pugnandod, marid, naualid, etc; Osc. cadeis amnud, Lat. “inimicitiae causae”; Osc. preiuatud, Lat. “prīuātō”, etc.).

About forms different from original Genitives and Datives, compare Genitive (Lapis Satricanus:) Popliosio Valesiosio (the type in -ī is also very old, Segomaros -i), and Dative (Praeneste Fibula:) numasioi, (Lucius Cornelius Scipio Epitaph:)  quoiei.

C. Celtic

The Celtic languages are the languages descended from Proto-Celtic, or “Common Celtic”, an Indo-European proto-language.

Diachronic distribution of Celtic peoples: maximal expansion (ca. 200 BC) and modern “Celtic nations” and Celtic-speaking territories.

During the 1^st millennium BC, especially between the 5^th and 2^nd centuries BC they were spoken across Europe, from the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula and the North Sea, up the Rhine and down the Danube to the Black Sea and the Upper Balkan Peninsula, and into Asia Minor (Galatia). Today, Celtic languages are now limited to a few enclaves in the British Isles and on the peninsula of Brittany in France.

The distinction of Celtic into different sub-families probably occurred about 1000 BC. The early Celts are commonly associated with the archaeological Urnfield culture, the La Tène culture, and the Hallstatt culture.

Some scholars distinguish Continental and Insular Celtic, arguing that the differences between the Goidelic and Brythonic languages arose after these split off from the Continental Celtic languages. Other scholars distinguish P-Celtic from Q-Celtic, putting most of the Continental Celtic languages in the former group – except for Celtiberian, which is Q-Celtic.

Hallstatt core territory (ca. 800 BC) and its influence (ca. 500 BC); and La Tène culture (ca. 450) and its influence (ca. 50 BC). Some major Celtic tribes have been labeled.

NOTE. There are two competing schemata of categorization. One scheme, argued for by Schmidt (1988) among others, links Gaulish with Brythonic in a P-Celtic node, leaving Goidelic as Q-Celtic. The difference between P and Q languages is the treatment of EIE k^w, which became *p in the P-Celtic languages but *k in Goidelic. An example is the Cel. verbal root k^wrin- “to buy”, which became Welsh pryn-, but O.Ir. cren-.

The other scheme links Goidelic and Brythonic together as an Insular Celtic branch, while Gaulish and Celtiberian are referred to as Continental Celtic. According to this theory, the ‘P-Celtic’ sound change of [k^w] to [p] occurred independently or regionally. The proponents of the Insular Celtic hypothesis point to other shared innovations among Insular Celtic languages, including inflected prepositions, VSO word order, and the lenition of intervocalic [m] to [β̃], a nasalized voiced bilabial fricative (an extremely rare sound), etc. There is, however, no assumption that the Continental Celtic languages descend from a common “Proto-Continental Celtic” ancestor. Rather, the Insular/Continental schemata usually consider Celtiberian the first branch to split from Proto-Celtic, and the remaining group would later have split into Gaulish and Insular Celtic.

Known PIE evolutions into Proto-Celtic include:

·   Consonants: p →ɸ→h→Ø in initial and intervocalic positions. Cel. ɸs→xs, ɸt→xt

NOTE. EIE p was lost in Proto-Celtic, apparently going through the stages ɸ (perhaps in Lus. porcos, v.i.) and h (perhaps attested by the toponym Hercynia if this is of Celtic origin) before being lost completely word-initially and between vowels. EIE sp- became Old Irish s and Brythonic f; while Schrijver (1995) argues there was an intermediate stage sɸ- (in which ɸ remained an independent phoneme until after Proto-Insular Celtic had diverged into Goidelic and Brythonic), McCone (1996) finds it more economical to believe that sp- remained unchanged in PC, that is, the change p to ɸ did not happen when s preceded.

·   Aspirated: d^h→d, b^h→b, g^h→x, g^wh→g^w; but g^w→b.

·   Vowels: ō → ā, ū (in final syllable); ē→ī; EIE u-w → Cel. o-w.

·   Diphthongs: āi→ai, ēi→ei, ōi→oi; āu→au, ēu,ōu→ou.

·   Sonorants: l̥→la, li (before stops); r̥ → ar, ri (before stops); m̥ → am; n̥ → an.

Italo-Celtic refers to the hypothesis that Italic and Celtic dialects are descended from a common ancestor, Proto-Italo-Celtic, at a stage post-dating Proto-Indo-European. Since both Proto-Celtic and Proto-Italic date to the early Iron Age (say, the centuries on either side of 1000 BC), a probable time frame for the assumed period of language contact would be the late Bronze Age, the early to mid 2^nd millennium BC. Such grouping is supported among others by Meillet (1890), and Kortlandt (2007).

NOTE. One argument for Italo-Celtic was the thematic Genitive in i (dominus, domini). Both in Italic (Popliosio Valesiosio, Lapis Satricanus) and in Celtic (Lepontic, Celtiberian -o), however, traces of PIE gentivie -osjo have been discovered, so that the spread of the i-Genitive could have occurred in the two groups independently, or by areal diffusion. The community of -ī in Italic and Celtic may be then attributable to early contact, rather than to an original unity. The i-Genitive has been compared to the so-called Cvi formation in Sanskrit, but that too is probably a comparatively late development.

Other arguments include that both Celtic and Italic have collapsed the PIE Aorist and Perfect into a single past tense, and the ā-subjunctive, because both Italic and Celtic have a subjunctive descended from an earlier optative in -ā-. Such an optative is not known from other languages, but the suffix occurs in Balto-Slavic and Tocharian past tense formations, and possibly in Hitt. -ahh-.

D. Slavic

The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages), a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of the Indo-European language family, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia. The largest languages are Russian and Polish, with 165 and some 47 million speakers, respectively. The oldest Slavic literary language was Old Church Slavonic, which later evolved into Church Slavonic.

There is much debate whether Pre-Proto-Slavic branched off directly from Europe’s Indo-European in 2000 BC, or whether it passed through a common Proto-Balto-Slavic stage which had necessarily split apart before 1000 BC in its two main sub-branches.

The original homeland of the speakers of Proto-Slavic remains controversial too. The most ancient recognizably Slavic hydronyms (river names) are to be found in northern and western Ukraine and southern Belarus. It has also been noted that Proto-Slavic seemingly lacked a maritime vocabulary.

Historical distribution of the Slavic languages. The larger shaded area is the Prague-Penkov-Kolochin complex of cultures of the 6th to 7th centuries, likely corresponding to the spread of Slavic-speaking tribes of the time. The smaller shaded area indicates the core area of Slavic river names, dated ca. 500 AD.

The Proto-Slavic language secession from a common Proto-Balto-Slavic is estimated on archaeological and glottochronological criteria to have occurred between 1500-1000 BC. Common Slavic is usually reconstructible to around 600 AD.

By the 7^th century, Common Slavic had broken apart into large dialectal zones. Linguistic differentiation received impetus from the dispersion of the Slavic peoples over a large territory – which in Central Europe exceeded the current extent of Slavic-speaking territories. Written documents of the 9^th, 10^th & 11^th centuries already show some local linguistic features.

NOTE. For example the Freising monuments show a language which contains some phonetic and lexical elements peculiar to Slovenian dialects (e.g. rhotacism, the word krilatec).

Page from Codex Zographensis (10th 11th c. AD) in Old Church Slavonic.

In the second half of the ninth century, the dialect spoken north of Thessaloniki became the basis for the first written Slavic language, created by the brothers Cyril and Methodius who translated portions of the Bible and other church books. The language they recorded is known as Old Church Slavonic. Old Church Slavonic is not identical to Proto-Slavic, having been recorded at least two centuries after the breakup of Proto-Slavic, and it shows features that clearly distinguish it from Proto-Slavic. However, it is still reasonably close, and the mutual intelligibility between Old Church Slavonic and other Slavic dialects of those days was proved by Cyril’s and Methodius’ mission to Great Moravia and Pannonia. There, their early South Slavic dialect used for the translations was clearly understandable to the local population which spoke an early West Slavic dialect.

As part of the preparation for the mission, the Glagolitic alphabet was created in 862 and the most important prayers and liturgical books, including the Aprakos Evangeliar – a Gospel Book lectionary containing only feast-day and Sunday readings – , the Psalter, and Acts of the Apostles, were translated. The language and the alphabet were taught at the Great Moravian Academy (O.C.S. Veľkomoravské učilište) and were used for government and religious documents and books. In 885, the use of the O.C.S. in Great Moravia was prohibited by the Pope in favour of Latin. Students of the two apostles, who were expelled from Great Moravia in 886, brought the Glagolitic alphabet and the Old Church Slavonic language to the Bulgarian Empire, where it was taught and Cyrillic alphabet developed in the Preslav Literary School.

Vowel changes from North-West Indo-European to Proto-Slavic:

Ø EIE ī, ei → Sla. i₁; EIE i →*i → Sla. Ь; EIE u → *u → Sla. ъ; EIE ū → Sla. y.

Ø EIE e → Sla. e; EIE ē → Sla. ě₁;

Ø EIE en, em → Sla. ę; EIE an, on; am, om →*an; *am → Sla. ǫ.

Ø EIE a, o → *a → Sla. O; EIE ā, ō → *ā → Sla. a; EIE ai, oi → *ai → Sla. ě₂. reduced *ai (*ăi/*ui) → Sla. i₂; EIE au, ou → *au → Sla. u.

NOTE 1. Apart from this simplified equivalences, other evolutions appear (see Kortlandt’s From Proto-Indo-European to Slavic at <http://www.kortlandt.nl/publications/art066e.pdf>):

o  The vowels i₂, ě₂ developed later than i₁, ě₁. In Late Proto-Slavic there were no differences in pronunciation between i₁ and i₂ as well as between ě₁ and ě₂. They had caused, however, different changes of preceding velars, see below.

o  Late Proto-Slavic yers ь, ъ < earlier i, u developed also from reduced EIE e, o respectively. The reduction was probably a morphologic process rather than phonetic.

o  We can observe similar reduction of ā into *ū (and finally y) in some endings, especially in closed syllables.

o  The development of the Sla. i₂ was also a morphologic phenomenon, originating only in some endings.

o  Another source of the Proto-Slavic y is *ō in Germanic loanwords – the borrowings took place when Proto-Slavic no longer had ō in native words, as EIE ō had already changed into *ā.

o  EIE a (from PIE ə) disappeared without traces when in a non-initial syllable.

o  EIE eu probably developed into *jau in Early Proto-Slavic (or during the Balto-Slavic epoch), and eventually into Proto-Slavic ju.

o  According to some authors, EIE long diphthongs ēi, āi, ōi, ēu, āu, ōu had twofold development in Early Proto-Slavic, namely they shortened in endings into simple *ei, *ai, *oi, *eu, *au, *ou but they lost their second element elsewhere and changed into *ē, *ā, *ō with further development like above.

NOTE 2. Other vocalic changes from Proto-Slavic include *jo, *jъ, *jy changed into *je, *jь, *ji; *o, *ъ, *y also changed into *e, *ь, *i after *c, *ʒ, *s’ which developed as the result of the 3^rd palatalization; *e, *ě changed into *o, *a after *č, *ǯ, *š, *ž in some contexts or words; a similar change of *ě into *a after *j seems to have occurred in Proto-Slavic but next it can have been modified by analogy.

On the origin of Proto-Slavic consonants, the following relationships are found:

·      EIE p → Sla. p; EIE b, b^h → Sla. b.

·      EIE t → Sla. t; EIE d, d^h → Sla. d.

·      EIE k, k^w → Sla. K (palatalized *k^j → Sla. s); EIE g, g^h, g^w, g^wh → Sla. g (palatalized (*g^j, *g^jh → Sla. z)

·      EIE s → Sla. s; before a voiced consonant EIE [z] → Sla. z; before a vowel when after r, u, k, i, probably also after l → Sla. x. 

·      EIE word-final m → Sla. n (<BSl. *n).

·      EIE m̥ → Sla. im, um; EIE n̥ → Sla. in, un; EIE l̥ → Sla. il, ul; EIE r̥ → Sla. ir, ur.

·      EIE w → Sla. v (<BSl. *w); EIE j → Sla. j.

In some words the Proto-Slavic x developed from other PIE phonemes, like kH, ks, sk.

E. Baltic

The Baltic languages are a group of related languages belonging to the IE language family, spoken in areas extending east and southeast of the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe.

The language group is often divided into two sub-groups: Western Baltic, containing only extinct languages as Prussian or Galindan, and Eastern Baltic, containing both extinct and the two living languages in the group, Lithuanian and Latvian. While related, Lithuanian, Latvian, and particularly Old Prussian differ substantially from each other and are not mutually intelligible.

The oldest Baltic linguistic record is the Elbinger lexicon of the beginning of the 14^th century AD. IT contains 802 Old Prussian equivalents of Old Middle German words. The oldest Baltic text is Old Prussian as well; it comes from the middle of the 14^th century AD and includes only eleven words. The first Old Lithuanian and Old Latvian texts come from the 16^th century and appear already in book form, and were translations of a catechism and the Lord’s Prayer.

Baltic and Slavic share so many similarities that many linguists, following the lead of such notable Indo-Europeanists as August Schleicher and Oswald Szemerényi, take these to indicate that the two groups separated from a common ancestor, the Proto-Balto-Slavic language, dated ca. 1500-500 BC, depending on the different guesstimates.

NOTE 1. For those guesstimates, “Classical glottochronology” conducted by Czech Slavist M. Čejka in 1974 dates the Balto-Slavic split to -910±340 BCE, Sergei Starostin in 1994 dates it to 1210 BCE, and “recalibrated glottochronology” conducted by Novotná & Blažek dates it to 1400-1340 BCE. This agrees well with Trziniec-Komarov culture, localized from Silesia to Central Ukraine and dated to the period 1500–1200 BCE.

NOTE 2. Until Meillet’s Dialectes indo-européens of 1908, Balto-Slavic unity was undisputed among linguists – as he notes himself at the beginning of the Le Balto-Slave chapter, “L’unité linguistique balto-slave est l’une de celles que personne ne conteste”. Meillet’s critique of Balto-Slavic confined itself to the seven characteristics listed by Karl Brugmann in 1903, attempting to show that no single one of these is sufficient to prove genetic unity. Szemerényi in his 1957 re-examination of Meillet’s results concludes that the Balts and Slavs did, in fact, share a “period of common language and life”, and were probably separated due to the incursion of Germanic tribes along the Vistula and the Dnepr roughly at the beginning of the Common Era.

A new theory was proposed in the 1960s by V. Ivanov and V. Toporov: that the Balto-Slavic proto-language split from the start into West Baltic, East Baltic and Proto-Slavic. In their framework, Proto-Slavic is a peripheral and innovative Balto-Slavic dialect which suddenly expanded, due to a conjunction of historical circumstances. Onomastic evidence shows that Baltic languages were once spoken in much wider territory than the one they cover today, and were later replaced by Slavic.

NOTE. The most important of these common Balto-Slavic isoglosses are:

o  Winter’s law: lengthening of a short vowel before a voiced plosive, usually in a closed syllable.

o  Identical reflexes of PIE syllabic sonorants, usually developing i and u before them. Kuryłowicz thought that *uR reflexes arose after PIE velars, and also notable is also older opinion of J.Endzelīns and R. Trautmann according to whom *uR reflexes are the result of zero-grade of morphemes that had EIE o → PBSl. *a in normal-grade. Matasović (2008) proposes following internal rules after EIE syllabic R → BSl. *əR: 1) *ə→*i in a final syllable; 2) *ə→*u after velars and before nasals; 3) *ə→*i otherwise.

o  Hirt’s law: retraction of PIE accent to the preceding syllable closed by a laryngeal.

o  Rise of the Balto-Slavic acute before PIE laryngeals in a closed syllable.

o  Replacement of PIE genitive singular of thematic nouns with ablative.

o  Formation of past tense in *-ē (cf. Lith. pret. dãvė, “he gave”, O.C.S. imperfect bě, “he was”)

o  Generalization of the IE neuter to- stem to the nominative singular of masculine and feminine demonstratives instead of IE so- pronoun, so, sā, tod → BSl. tos, tā, tod.

o  Formation of definite adjectives with a construction of adjective and relative pronoun; cf. Lith. geràsis, “the good”, vs. gẽras, “good”; O.C.S dobrъjь, “the good”, vs. dobrъ, “good”.

Common Balto-Slavic innovations include several other prominent, but non-exclusive isoglosses, such as the satemization, Ruki, change of PIE o → BSl. *a (shared with Germanic, Indo-Iranian and Anatolian) and the loss of labialization in PIE labiovelars (shared with Indo-Iranian, Armenian and Tocharian). Among Balto-Slavic archaisms notable is the retention of traces of an older PIE accent.  ‘Ruki’ is the term for a sound law which is followed especially in BSl. and Aryan dialects. The name of the term comes from the sounds which cause the phonetic change, i.e. PIE s → š / r, u, K, i (it associates with a Slavic word which means ‘hands’ or ‘arms’). A sibilant [s] is retracted to [ʃ] after i,u,r, and after velars (i.e. k which may have developed from earlier k, g, g^h). Due to the character of the retraction, it was probably an apical sibilant (as in Spanish), rather than the dorsal of English. The first phase (s → š) seems to be universal, the later retroflexion (in Sanskrit and probably in Proto-Slavic as well) is due to levelling of the sibilant system, and so is the third phase - the retraction to velar [x] in Slavic and also in some Middle Indian languages, with parallels in e.g. Spanish. This rule was first formulated for IE by Holger Pedersen.

Baltic and Slavic show a remarkable amount of correspondence in vocabulary too; there are at least 100 words exclusive to BSl., either being a common innovation or sharing the same semantic development from a PIE root; as, BSl. *lēipā, “tilia” → Lith. líepa, O.Prus. līpa, Ltv. liẽpa; Sla. *lipa; BSl. *rankā, “hand” → Lith. rankà, O.Prus. rānkan, Ltv. rùoka; Sla. *rǭkà (cf. O.C.S. rǫka). BSl. *galwā́, “head” → Lith. galvà, O.Prus. galwo, Ltv. galva; Sla. *golvà (cf. O.C.S. glava).

F. Fragmentary Dialects

Messapian

Messapian (also known as Messapic) is an extinct Indo-European language of south-eastern Italy, once spoken in the regions of Apulia and Calabria. It was spoken by the three Iapygian tribes of the region: the Messapians, the Daunii and the Peucetii. The language, a centum dialect, has been preserved in about 260 inscriptions dating from the 6^th to the 1^st century BC. It became extinct after the Roman Empire conquered the region and assimilated the inhabitants.

There is a hypothesis that Messapian was an Illyrian language. The Illyrian languages were spoken mainly on the other side of the Adriatic Sea. The link between Messapian and Illyrian is based mostly on personal names found on tomb inscriptions and on classical references, since hardly any traces of the Illyrian language are left.

NOTE. Some phonetic characteristics of the language may be regarded as quite certain:

o   PIE short *o→a, as in the last syllable of the genitive kalatoras.

o   PIE final *m→n, as in aran.

o   PIE *nj→nn, as in the Messapian praenomen Dazohonnes vs. the Illyrian praenomen Dazonius; the Messapian genitive Dazohonnihi vs. Illyrian genitive Dasonii, etc.

o   PIE *tj→tth, as in the Messapian praenomen Dazetthes vs. Illyrian Dazetius; the Messapian genitive Dazetthihi vs. the Illyrian genitive Dazetii; from a Dazet- stem common in Illyrian and Messapian.

o   PIE *sj→ss, as in Messapian Vallasso for Vallasio, a derivative from the shorter name Valla.

o   The loss of final *-d, as in tepise, and probably of final *-t, as in -des, perhaps meaning “set”, from PIE *d^he-, “set, put”.

o   The change of voiced aspirates in Proto-Indo-European to plain voiced consonants: PIE *d^h→d, as in Messapian anda (< PIE *en-d^ha- < PIE *en-, “in”, compare Gk. entha); and PIE *b^h→b, as in Messapian beran (< PIE *b^her-, “to bear”).

o   PIE *au→ā before (at least some) consonants: Bāsta, from Bausta.

o   The form penkaheh – which Torp very probably identifies with the Oscan stem pompaio – a derivative of the Proto-Indo-European numeral *penk^we, “five”.

o   If this last identification be correct it would show, that in Messapian (just as in Venetic and Ligurian) the original labiovelars (*k^w,* g^w, *g^wh) were retained as gutturals and not converted into labials. The change of o to a is exceedingly interesting, being associated with the northern branches of Indo-European such as Gothic, Albanian and Lithuanian, and not appearing in any other southern dialect hitherto known. The Greek Aphrodite appears in the form Aprodita (Dat. Sg., fem.).

o   The use of double consonants which has been already pointed out in the Messapian inscriptions has been very acutely connected by Deecke with the tradition that the same practice was introduced at Rome by the poet Ennius who came from the Messapian town Rudiae (Festus, p. 293 M).

Venetic

Venetic is an Indo-European language that was spoken in ancient times in the Veneto region of Italy, between the Po River delta and the southern fringe of the Alps. It was a Centum dialect.

The language is attested by over 300 short inscriptions dating between the 6^th century BC and 1^st century. Its speakers are identified with the ancient people called Veneti by the Romans and Enetoi by the Greek. The inscriptions use a variety of the Northern Italic alphabet, similar to the Old Italic alphabet. It became extinct around the 1^st century when the local inhabitants were assimilated into the Roman sphere.

NOTE. The exact relationship of Venetic to other Indo-European languages is still being investigated, but the majority of scholars agree that Venetic, aside from Liburnian, was closest to the Italic languages. Venetic may also have been related to the Illyrian languages, though the theory that Illyrian and Venetic were closely related is debated by current scholarship.

Interesting parallels with Germanic have also been noted, especially  in pronominal forms:

Ven. ego, “I”, acc. mego, “me”; Goth. ik, acc. mik; but cf. Lat. ego, acc. me.

Ven. sselboisselboi, “to oneself”; O.H.G. selb selbo; but cf. Lat. sibi ipsi.

Venetic had about six or even seven noun cases and four conjugations (similar to Latin). About 60 words are known, but some were borrowed from Latin (liber.tos. < libertus) or Etruscan. Many of them show a clear Indo-European origin, such as Ven. vhraterei (< PIE *b^hreh₂terei), “to the brother”.

In Venetic, PIE stops *b^h→f, *d^h→f, *g^h→h, in word-initial position (as in Latin and Osco-Umbrian), but to *b^h→b, *d^h→d, *g^h→g, in word-internal intervocalic position, as in Latin. For Venetic, at least the developments of *b^h and *d^h are clearly attested. Faliscan and Osco-Umbrian preserve internal *b^h→f,* d^h→f, *g^h→h.

There are also indications of the developments of PIE initial *g^w→w-, PIE *k^w→kv and PIE initial *g^wh→f in Venetic, all of which are parallel to Latin, as well as the regressive assimilation of PIE sequence p...k^w... → k^w...k^w... (e.g. penk^we → *k^wenk^we, “five”, perk^wu → *k^werk^wu, “oak”), a feature also found in Italic and Celtic (Lejeune 1974).

Ligurian

The Ligurian language was spoken in pre-Roman times and into the Roman era by an ancient people of north-western Italy and south-eastern France known as the Ligures. Very little is known about this language (mainly place names and personal names remain) which is generally believed to have been Indo-European; it appears to have adopted significantly from other IE languages, primarily Celtic (Gaulish) and Latin.

Strabo states “As for the Alps... Many tribes (éthnê) occupy these mountains, all Celtic (Keltikà) except the Ligurians; but while these Ligurians belong to a different people (hetero-ethneis), still they are similar to the Celts in their modes of life (bíois).”

Liburnian

The Liburnian language is an extinct IE language which was spoken by the ancient Liburnians in the region of Liburnia (south of the Istrian peninsula) in classical times. It is usually classified as a Centum language. It appears to have been on the same Indo-European branch as the Venetic language; indeed, the Liburnian tongue may well have been a Venetic dialect.

NOTE. No writings in Liburnian are known, though. The grouping of Liburnian with Venetic is based on the Liburnian onomastics. In particular, Liburnian anthroponyms show strong Venetic affinities, with many common or similar names and a number of common roots, such as Vols-, Volt-, and Host- (<PIE *g^hos-ti-, “stranger, guest, host”). Liburnian and Venetic names also share suffixes in common, such as -icus and -ocus.

These features set Liburnian and Venetic apart from the Illyrian onomastic province, though this does not preclude the possibility that Venetic-Liburnian and Illyrian may have been closely related, belonging to the same Indo-European branch. In fact, a number of linguists argue that this is the case, based on similar phonetic features and names in common between Venetic-Liburnian on the one hand and Illyrian on the other.

Liburnia was conquered by the Romans in 35 BC, and its language was eventually replaced by Latin, undergoing language death probably very early in the Common Era.

Lusitanian

Iberian Peninsula ca. 200 BC.

Lusitanian or Lusatian (so named after the Lusitani or Lusitanians) was a Paleohispanic IE language known by only five inscriptions and numerous toponyms and theonyms. The language was spoken before the Roman conquest of Lusitania, in the territory inhabited by Lusitanian tribes, from Douro to the Tagus river in the western area of the Iberian Peninsula, where they were established already before the 6^th c. BC.

Their language is usually considered a Pre-Celtic (possibly Italo-Celtic) IE dialect, and it is sometimes associated with the language of the Vettones and with the linguistic substratum of the Gallaeci and Astures, based on archaeological findings and descriptions of ancient historians.

NOTE. The affiliation of the Lusitanian language within a Pre-Celtic (or Italo-Celtic) IE group is still debated. There are those who endorse that it is a Celtic language, a theory largely based upon the historical fact that the only Indo-European tribes that are known to have existed in Portugal at that time were Celtic tribes. The apparent Celtic character of most of the lexicon —anthroponyms and toponyms — may also support a Celtic affiliation. There is a substantial problem in the Celtic theory however: the preservation of PIE initial *p-, as in Lusitanian pater or porcom, meaning “father” and “pig”, respectively. The Celtic languages had lost that initial *p- in their evolution; compare Lat. pater, Gaul. ater, and Lat. porcum, O.Ir. orc. However, it does not necessarily preclude the possibility of Lusitanian being Celtic, because of the supposed evolution of PIE initial *p → *ɸ → *h → Cel. Ø, so it might have been an early Proto-Celtic (or Italo-Celtic) dialect that split off before the loss of p-, or when p- had become *ɸ - (before shifting to h- and then being lost); the letter p of the Latin alphabet could have been used to represent either sound.

 F. Villar and R. Pedrero relate Lusitanian with the Italic languages. The theory is based on parallels in the names of deities, as Lat. Consus, Lus. Cossue, Lat. Seia, Lus. Segia, or Marrucinian Iovia, Lus. Iovea(i), etc. and other lexical items, as Umb. gomia, Lus. comaiam, with some other grammatical elements.

Tocharian or Tokharian is one of the most obscure branches of the group of Indo-European languages. The name of the language is taken from people known to the Greek historians (Ptolemy VI, 11, 6) as the Tocharians (Greek Τόχαροι, “Tokharoi”).

NOTE. These are sometimes identified with the Yuezhi and the Kushans, while the term Tokharistan usually refers to 1^st millennium Bactria. A Turkic text refers to the Turfanian language (Tocharian A) as twqry. F. W. K. Müller has associated this with the name of the Bactrian Tokharoi. In Tocharian, the language is referred to as arish-käna and the Tocharians as arya.

Tocharian consisted of two languages; Tocharian A (Turfanian, Arsi, or East Tocharian) and Tocharian B (Kuchean or West Tocharian). These languages were spoken roughly from the 6^th to 9^th century centuries; before they became extinct, their speakers were absorbed into the expanding Uyghur tribes. Both languages were once spoken in the Tarim Basin in Central Asia, now the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China. 

Note. Properly speaking, based on the tentative interpretation of twqry as related to Tokharoi, only Tocharian A may be referred to as Tocharian, while Tocharian B could be called Kuchean (its native name may have been kuśiññe), but since their grammars are usually treated together in scholarly works, the terms A and B have proven useful.

Tocharian is documented in manuscript fragments, mostly from the 8^th century (with a few earlier ones) that were written on palm leaves, wooden tablets and Chinese paper, preserved by the extremely dry climate of the Tarim Basin. Samples of the language have been discovered at sites in Kucha and Karasahr, including many mural inscriptions.

Tocharian A and B were not intercomprehensible. The common Proto-Tocharian language must have preceded the attested languages by several centuries, probably dating to the 1^st millennium BC.