South Picene
Old Sabellic
Native to	Picenum
Region	Marche,Italy
Era	attested 6th–4th century BC[1]
Language family	Indo-European Italic Osco-Umbrian South Picene
Writing system	Picene alphabets
Language codes
ISO 639-3	spx
Linguist List	spx
Glottolog	sout2618
Ethnolinguistic map of Italy in theIron Age, before theRoman expansion and conquest of Italy

South Picene (also known as Paleo-Sabellic, Mid-Adriatic or Eastern Italic)^[2] is an extinctItalic language belonging to theSabellic subfamily. It is apparently unrelated to theNorth Picene language, which is not understood and therefore unclassified. South Picene texts were at first relatively inscrutable even though some words were clearlyIndo-European. The discovery in 1983 that two of the apparently redundant punctuation marks were in reality simplified letters led to an incremental improvement in their understanding and a first translation in 1985. Difficulties remain. It may represent a third branch of Sabellic, along withOscan andUmbrian (and their dialects),^[3] or the whole Sabellic linguistic area may be best regarded as alinguistic continuum. The paucity of evidence from most of the 'minor dialects' contributes to these difficulties.

The corpus of South Piceneinscriptions consists of 19 inscriptions on stone or bronze dating from as early as the 6th century BC to as late as the 4th century BC.^[4] The dating is estimated according to the features of the letters and in some cases the archaeological context. As the known history of thePicentes does not begin until their subjugation by Rome in the 3rd century, the inscriptions open an earlier window onto their culture as far back as the lateRoman Kingdom. Most arestelai orcippi of sandstone or limestone in whole or fragmentary condition sculpted for funerary contexts, but some are monumental statues.

On a typical gravestone is the representation of the face or figure of the deceased with the inscription in a spiral around it or under it reading in a clockwise direction, orboustrophedon, or vertically.^[5] Stones have been found atAscoli Piceno,Chieti,Teramo,Fano,Loro Piceno,Cures, theAbruzzi between theTronto and theAterno-Pescara, andCastel di Ieri andCrecchio south of the Aterno-Pescara.^[6] To them are added inscriptions on a bronze bracelet in central Abruzzi and two 4th-century BC helmets fromBologna in thePo Valley andBari on the southeastern coast.^[7]

A complete inventory is as follows:^[4]

• the Cippus ofCastignano (6th-century BC sandstone pyramid)
• three stelai ofPenna Sant'Andrea atTeramo (a whole and two fragmentary limestoneobelisks of the 1st half of the 5th century BC)
• the cover of theCampovalanopyxis (7th to 6th centuries BC)
• spiral bracelet of Chietino in Valle del Pescara (5th century BC)
• the Cippus ofCures (limestone)
• the Stele ofLoro Piceno (sandstone)
• the Stele ofMogliano (sandstone)
• the Stele ofAcquaviva
• the Stele ofBelmonte (jointed sandstone)
• the Cippus ofFalerone
• the Stele ofServigliano (sandstone)
• a fragment of inscribed sandstone atBelmonte
• the Cippus ofSant'Omero (sandstone)
• two stelai ofBellante (sandstone)
• the Stele ofCrecchio (sandstone)
• two cippi ofCastel di Ieri (limestone, whole and fragmentary)
• the Statue ofCapestrano (limestone, life-size representation of kingNevio Pompuledio, 2nd half of the 7th, 1st half of the 6th centuries BC)
• the Helmet ofBologna (bronze)
• the Helmet ofApulia

• South Picene inscriptions
• 
  Stele ofLoro Piceno
• 
  Stele ofMogliano
• 
  Stele ofServigliano

Forconsonants South Picene had:^[8]

In cases where there is a choice ofgrapheme the context determines which one applies. For the glides,⟨v⟩ and⟨u⟩ were used for word-initial /w/ and⟨ú⟩ for intervocalic /w/ or in other special contexts. The table above omits special contexts.

The south Picene alphabet, known from the 6th century BC, is most like the southernEtruscan alphabet in that it usesq for /k/ andk for /g/. It is:

⟨a b g d e v h i í k l m n o p q r s t u ú f *⟩

⟨.⟩ is a reduced⟨o⟩ and⟨:⟩ is a reduced⟨8⟩, used for/f/.^[9]

An outline of South Picene grammar, comprising both its inflectional morphology and its syntax, is provided in Zamponi (2021).

South Picene, like other Italic languages, is afusional language that encodes multiple layers of grammatical information simultaneously in a given inflected form and/or ending.

South Picene nouns decline for twogrammatical numbers (singular and plural) and six attestedcases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative, locative).

Nouns in South Picene possess an innategrammatical gender; adjectives must agree with their modified nouns in gender. Masculine and feminine adjective gender agreement is attested; neuter agreement is not.^[10]

Nouns are also divided into separate declension classes, which determine which endings for case and number they take. The declension classes are as follows:

• ā-stems, corresponding to the Latin first declension;
• o-stems, equivalent to the Latin second declension;
• u-stems, equivalent to the Latin fourth declension and only attested once inmanus "hands" (ablative plural);
• i-stems;
• consonant stems; in Latin, they are grouped together with the i-stems to form the third declension.

Zamponi also presumes that a counterpart to the Latin fifth declension also existed in South Picene, but no such noun is attested.

The attested declensional endings for nouns include:

Likein Latin, South Picene has rather free word order in terms of the position of the subject, object, and verb in a given sentence. For example:

Nevertheless, some principles of South Picene syntax can be drawn. Many of the examples in this section are taken from Zamponi (2021).

Adverbs usually precede the verb they modify.^[11]

Copular clauses consist of the complement followed by the copular verb:

In South Picene, adjectives and genitive noun phrases usually precede the nouns they modify:^[12]

Demonstratives also must occur before their associated noun.

Inscription Sp TE 2 on a gravestone fromBellante was studied by a linguist ofIndo-European studies,Calvert Watkins, as an example of the earliest Italic poetry and as possibly a reflex of aProto-Indo-European poetic form.^[5] In the inscription given below colons are used to separate words; in the original inscription, three vertical dots are used ("the triple interpunct").

postin : viam : videtas : tetis : tokam : alies : esmen : vepses : vepeten

"Along the road you see the 'toga' of Titus Alius? buried? in this tomb."^[13]

The translation of the questioned items is unclear. Fortoga Fortson suggests "covering."

Note thealliteration:viam andvidetas;tetis andtokam;alies andesmen;vepses andvepeten. The possibility of this and the other inscriptions beingstanzas of verse (strophes) was considered from the time of their discovery. Watkins called them "the South Picene strophe," which he defines as three lines of seven syllables each, comparing them to a strophe of theRig Veda containing three lines of eight syllables each.^[14] Moreover, each line ends "in a trisyllable." The lines of this inscription are:

postin viam videtas

tetis tokam alies

esmen vepses vepeten

The first line would be syllabified and read:

po-stin vi-am vi-de-tas

• Stuart-Smith, Jane (2004).Phonetics and philology: sound change in Italic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Watkins, Calvert (1996).How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics. New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Zamponi, Raoul (2021).South Picene. Routledge World Languages. London; New York: Routledge.

• Languages attested from the 6th century BC
• Languages extinct in the 4th century BC
• Languages of ancient Italy
• Osco-Umbrian languages

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