Approximate distribution of languages in Iron Age Italy during the sixth century BC.

The Faliscan language, the extinct language of the ancient Falisci, forms, together with Latin, the group of Latino-Faliscan languages. It is preserved in about 100 short inscriptions, dating from the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, and is written in a variety of the Old Italic alphabet derived from the Etruscan, and written from right to left, but showing some traces of the influence of the Latin alphabet.^[1]

A specimen of the language appears written round the edge of a picture on a patera, the genuineness of which is established by the fact that the words were written before the glaze was put on: "foied vino pipafo, cra carefo," i.e. in Latin hodie vinum bibam, cras carebo 'today I will drink wine; tomorrow I won't have any' (R. S. Conway, Italic Dialects, p. 312, b). This shows some of the phonetic characteristics of the Faliscan language, such as the following:

1. The retention of medial f which in Latin became b;
2. The representation of an initial Proto-Indo-European gh by f (foied, contrast Latin hodie);
3. The palatalization of d+ consonant i into some sound denoted merely by i- the central sound of foied, from fo-died;
4. The loss of final s, at least before certain following sounds (cra beside Latin cras);

Other characteristics, appearing elsewhere, are:

1. The retention of the labiovelars (Fal. cuando = Latin quando; contrast Umbrian pan(n)u;)
2. The assimilation of some final consonants to the initial sound of the next word: "pretod de zenatuo sententiad" (Conway, lib. cit. 321), i.e. in Latin "praetor de senatus sententia" (zenatuo for senatuos, an archaic genitive).

For further details see Conway, ib. pp. 370 ff., especially pp. 384–385, where the relation of the names Falisci, Falerii to the local hero Halaesus (e.g. Ovid, Fasti, iv. 73) is discussed, and where reason is given for thinking that the change of initial f (from an original bh or dh) into an initial h was a genuine mark of Faliscan dialect.

It seems probable that the dialect lasted on, though being gradually permeated with Latin, till at least 150 BC.

In addition to the remains found in the graves, which belong mainly to the period of Etruscan domination and give ample evidence of material prosperity and refinement, the earlier strata have yielded more primitive remains from the Italic epoch. A large number of inscriptions consisting mainly of proper names may be regarded as Etruscan rather than Faliscan, and they have been disregarded in the account of the dialect just given. It should perhaps be mentioned that there was a town Feronia in Sardinia, named probably after their native goddess by Faliscan settlers, from some of whom we have a votive inscription found at S. Maria di Falleri (Conway, ib. p. 335).

[edit] References

1. ^ "Old Italic alphabets". http://www.omniglot.com/writing/olditalic.htm. Retrieved 2008-01-24. 

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.