As is well known, Latin, the language of the Roman civilization, belongs to the Indo-European language family, whose origin dates back some 4,000 years. Archaeology has placed the origin of the first Indo-European communities in the area encompassing the steppes of southern Ukraine, north of the Caucasus.
From this nerve center, the Indo-European language would have spread to different parts of the Eurasian continent, splitting into different branches: Anatolian, Indo-Iranian, Hellenic, Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, etc.
Latin, therefore, belongs to the group of the so-called Italic languages.
Italy: a mosaic of Indo-European and non-Indo-European languages
The Italic peninsula of the first millennium B.C. is not a homogeneous territory from a linguistic point of view, so we cannot speak of ‘Italic’ as we do of Greek or Germanic. Early Italy is a true melting pot of peoples and cultures of which traces have come down to us through archaeological remains, including epigraphic inscriptions. Thanks to epigraphy, we know that the alphabet was introduced in Italy around the 7th and 5th centuries BC.
However, among the languages that coexisted in the Italic peninsula during the first millennium, not all of them belonged to the Indo-European family, but some of them cannot be ascribed to this group, and, therefore, their origin is ambiguous or unknown.
Non-Indo-European languages of Italy: Etruscan
Etruscan is the language of Etruria or Tuscia, an area corresponding to the present-day region of Tuscany. It is the most widely attested language in early Italy after Latin and Greek, and this is largely due to the political importance of the Etruscan civilization in the origins of Rome (especially in the 6th century B.C.).
In this regard, it is important to remember that, before the establishment of the Republic, the last three kings of Rome were Etruscan: Tarquinius Priscus, Servius Tullius and Tarquinius the Superb.
We have more than 10,000 inscriptions, among which the Liber Linteus stands out for being the longest known text in the Etruscan language. The document has been dated to around the 1st century B.C.
We can relatively easily transcribe the sounds of Etruscan, but we have not been able to decipher it. Its origin is much debated, but some specialists speak of Etruscan as a language originating in Asia Minor that would have settled in Italy before the arrival of Indo-European.
In addition to Etruscan, there are other languages of non-Indo-European origin in early Italy, such as Rhaetian (in the Alpine region), Punic (a language linked to the later expansion of Carthage in the Italian peninsula), Northern Picenic (with an alphabet derived from Etruscan), Ligurian, Silanian and Elymian.
Indo-European languages of Italy
One of the most important languages of early Italy was Greek, linked above all to the territory of Magna Graecia, the name given in classical antiquity to the territory occupied by the Greek colonists in the south of the Italian peninsula and in Sicily.
Southern Italy, therefore, will be consolidated as a constant focus of Hellenization throughout the history of Rome, since the process of Greek colonization in this area was very stable.
On the other hand, the Osco-Umbrian or Sabellic languages are a subgroup of the Italic languages that developed from the middle of the first millennium BC. Oscan was the language of the Samnites, who settled in the Campania region, while Umbrian was spoken in the Umbria region of central Italy. Both languages were absorbed by Latin, which would end up adopting some of its features.
Falisco, a language spoken in the ancient region of southern Tuscia, is the closest Italic language to Latin; in fact, it is sometimes referred to as the Latin-Faliscan subgroup of languages. The neuralgic center of the Faliscos was located in the city of Falerii.
Finally, Latin originated in the region of Latium, in central Italy. We have evidence of some dialectization of the early Latin language in the regions of Tusculum, Satricum and Praeneste (present-day Palestrina). In fact, the first written testimony of ancient Latin is written in the Prenestine dialect and is associated with the so-called Prenestine Fibula, a golden fibula with an inscription dating back to the 7th century BC.
The phrase, written from right to left, as is usual in archaic Latin inscriptions, reads as follows:
MANIOS MED FHEFHAKED NVMASIOI
/*mánios mēd féfaked numásioi/
The transliteration in classical Latin would be: MANIUS ME FECIT NUMERIO, which in English could be translated as » Manius made me for Numerius «.
Latin would progressively impose itself over other languages in the territory surrounding Lazio. With the passage of time, it would also expand throughout central Italy, the entire Italian peninsula and, finally, the entire Mediterranean basin.
The expansion of Latin was not determined by linguistic reasons (i.e., that it was by nature a more apt language than others or with a greater capacity for adaptation and survival), but is linked exclusively to the political and military hegemony of Rome.
Therefore, it is only through the enormous expansion of Roman civilization that a language that originated in a remote corner of Latium became the mother tongue of many of today’s European languages, especially in the Mediterranean region.
Carlos Sánchez Luis