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Oscan

Eurasian Language Families

Oscan is an extinct Italic language of the Osco-Umbrian, or Sabellic, branch of the Indo-European family, spoken across much of southern Italy, including Samnium, Campania, Lucania, Calabria and parts of Abruzzo, from roughly the fifth century BC until close to the end of the first century AD. It was written at different times in three separate alphabets, a native Oscan script derived from Etruscan, the Greek alphabet, and eventually the Latin alphabet, reflecting the language's long contact with its neighbors. Around 800 inscriptions survive, including major legal and administrative texts such as the Cippus Abellanus and the Tabula Bantina, alongside more everyday material. Oscan graffiti scratched on the walls of Pompeii show that the language remained part of ordinary life in Roman Campania right up until the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, long after Rome's political conquest of the Oscan-speaking lands.

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