Italic languages

The early languages spoken in the area of modern Italy. The major language of the group was Latin, the language of Rome and the surrounding provinces, evidenced in inscriptions from the 6th-c BC, and in literature from the 3rd-c BC; it is used now only in formulaic contexts of religion, and in public (usually governmental) declamations. The modern Romance languages ultimately belong to the Italic family.

The Italic subfamily is a member of the Centum branch of the Indo-European language family. It includes the Romance languages (among others, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese), and a number of extinct languages.

Italic has two known branches:

Sabellic, including: Oscan, was spoken in the south-central region of the Italian Peninsula Umbrian group, including: Umbrian (not to be confused with the modern Umbrian dialect of Italian), was spoken in the north-central region Volscian Aequian Marsian, the language of the Marsi South Picene, in east-central Italy Latino-Faliscan, including: Faliscan, was spoken in the area around Falerii Veteres (modern Civita Castellana) north of the city of Rome Latin, was spoken in west-central Italy, the Roman conquests eventually spreading it throughout the empire and beyond Romance languages, the descendants of Latin

The Italic speakers were not native to Italy, but migrated into the Italian Peninsula in the course of the 2nd millennium BC.

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. The Italic languages themselves show minor influence from the Etruscan and somewhat more from the Ancient Greek languages.

As Rome extended its political dominion over the whole of the Italian Peninsula, so too did Latin become dominant over the other Italic languages, which ceased to be spoken perhaps sometime in the 1st century AD.