Sicel

Sicel, also known as Siculian, is an extinct language spoken by the Sicels of central and eastern Sicily, attested in inscriptions and glosses dating from roughly the late sixth to the fourth century BC. Most scholars classify it as an Italic language related to Latin and Oscan, though the surviving evidence, fewer than thirty inscriptions and about twenty-five words quoted by ancient grammarians, is too limited to settle the question with certainty. What text there is was written mainly in the Greek alphabet, reflecting heavy Greek cultural influence following the colonization of eastern Sicily, and shows some vocabulary and grammatical forms comparable to other early Italic languages. Sicel eventually died out as its speakers were assimilated into the Greek-speaking, and later Latin-speaking, population of Sicily.