North Picene language

North Picene is the conventional name for an unclassified and disputed ancient language attested on four stone stelae, most from the Novilara cemetery near Pesaro on Italy's Adriatic coast, traditionally dated to around the sixth or seventh century BC and associated with the pre-Roman Picenum region. The inscriptions, containing only about 60 words in total written in the Old Italic alphabet, have never been translated, and scholars cannot even agree on how the language relates to any other known family. A 2021 scholarly study went further and argued that the inscriptions themselves are nineteenth-century forgeries produced by an antiques dealer from Fano, a claim that, if accepted, would remove North Picene from the ranks of genuine ancient languages entirely. Whether treated as authentic or spurious, North Picene remains one of the most disputed cases in the study of the ancient languages of Italy.