Umbrian

Umbrian
"ikuvins"
Spoken in	Umbria
Region	central Italy
Extinct	Latest inscriptions 1st century BC
Language family	Indo-European Italic Osco-Umbrian Umbrian
Writing system	Old Italic alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	xum
Approximate distribution of languages in Iron Age Italy during the 6th century BC

Umbrian is an extinct Italic language formerly spoken by the Umbri in the ancient Italian region of Umbria. Within the Italic languages it is closely related to the Oscan group and is therefore associated with it in the group of Osco-Umbrian languages. Since that classification was first formulated a number of other languages in ancient Italy were discovered to be more closely related to Umbrian. Therefore a group was devised to contain them, termed the Umbrian group. In addition to the specific Umbrian language, they are the Volscian language, the Sabine language, the South Picene language, and the Marsian language. The classification used in this article is that of the Linguist List and SIL International.

Corpus

Umbrian is known from about 30 inscriptions dated from the 7th through 1st centuries BC. The largest cache by far is the Iguvine Tables, nine inscribed bronze tablets found in an underground chamber at Gubbio (ancient Iguvium) in 1444. Two have since disappeared. The remaining seven contain notes on the ceremonies and statutes for priests of the ancient pagan religion in the region. Sometimes they are called the Eugubian tablets after the medieval name of Iguvium, Eugubium.^[1] The tablets contain 4000-5000 words.

Other minor inscriptions are from Todi, Assisi and Spoleto.

Alphabet

The Iguvine tablets were written in two alphabets. The older, the Umbrian alphabet, like other Old Italic alphabets, was derived from the Etruscan alphabet, and was written right-to-left. The newer was written in the Latin script. The texts are sometimes called Old Umbrian and New Umbrian. The differences are mainly orthographic.^[2]

Notes

Bibliography

• Buck, Carl Darling (2007) [1904]. A Grammar Of Oscan And Umbrian: With A Collection Of Inscriptions And A Glossary. Kessinger. ISBN 978-1432691325. http://www.archive.org/details/grammarofoscanum00buckuoft. 

External links

• Hare, JB (2005). "Umbrian". Wordgumbo. http://www.wordgumbo.com/ie/cmp/umbr.htm. Retrieved 24 August 2010.