Extinct Indo-European language of Southeastern Italy
Messapic
Messapian
Region
Apulian region of Italy
Era
attested 6th to 2nd century BC[1][2][3]
Language family
Indo-European
Albanoid[4]
Messapic
Writing system
Messapic alphabet[5]
Language codes
ISO 639-3
cms
Linguist List
cms
Glottolog
mess1244
Ethnolinguistic map of Italy in the Iron Age, before the Roman expansion and conquest of Italy
Messapic (/mɛˈsæpɪk,mə-,-ˈseɪ-/; also known as Messapian; or as Iapygian) is an extinct Indo-European Paleo-Balkanic language of the southeastern Italian Peninsula, once spoken in Salento by the Iapygian peoples of the region: the Calabri and Salentini (known collectively as the Messapii), the Peucetians and the Daunians.[6][7] Messapic was the pre-Roman, non-Italic language of Apulia. It has been preserved in about 600 inscriptions written in an alphabet derived from a Western Greek model and dating from the mid-6th to at least the 2nd century BC, when it went extinct following the Roman conquest of the region.[8][1][2]
^ abMatzinger 2015, p. 57.
^ abDe Simone 2017, pp. 1839–1840.
^Messapic at MultiTree on the Linguist List
^Hyllested & Joseph 2022, p. 235; van Driem 2022, pp. 1055–1056; Friedman 2020, p. 388; Majer 2019, p. 258; Trumper 2018, p. 385; Trask 2019, pp. 14, 159, 210; Yntema 2017, p. 337; Mërkuri 2015, pp. 65–67; Ismajli 2015, p. 45; Demiraj 2004, pp. 58–59; Hamp 1996, pp. 89–90.
^Marchesini 2023a, p. 10.
^De Simone 2017, p. 1839.
^Small 2014, p. 18.
^Marchesini 2009, pp. 80, 141: "L'orizzonte cronologico più antico dell'epigrafia messapica, almeno allo stato attuale della documentazione, è da collocare quindi alla metà circa del VI secolo, stando alla cronologia dei testi più antichi di cui abbiamo parlato sopra. Più difficile è invece formulare ipotesi per quanto riguarda il limite cronologico inferiore. Per il momento l'evidenza ci mostra che non si hanno iscrizioni messapiche databili oltre il II sec. a.C."
Messapic (/mɛˈsæpɪk, mə-, -ˈseɪ-/; also known as Messapian; or as Iapygian) is an extinct Indo-European Paleo-Balkanic language of the southeastern Italian...
historically compact language group. Whether descendants or sisters of what was called 'Illyrian' by classical sources, Albanian and Messapic, on the basis of...
god"). Albanian Zoj-z and Messapic Zis are clear equivalents and cognates of Zeus. In the Greek, Albanian, and Messapic forms the original cluster *di̯...
alphabet that replaced the older Messapic script. Since its settlement, Messapic was in contact with the Italic languages of the region. In the centuries...
Albanian linguistic sources. However, Messapic is to be considered as an independent Indo-European language. The language became extinct following the Roman...
close relationship with Messapic, once spoken in southern Italy, has been suggested but remains unproven. Among modern languages, Albanian is often conjectured...
have been recorded by ancient authors. Messapic words and relevant etymologies are listed in Messapiclanguage#Lexicon. This is a list of lemmas explicitly...
Brindisi, some of them still visible today. The head of deer derives from the Messapic name of the city Brention, a name inspired by the shape of the port city...
Celtic Language Routledge, p. 44 Whatmough, J. (1933). The Prae-Italic Dialects of Italy, vol. 2, "The Raetic, Lepontic, Gallic, East-Italic, Messapic and...
central and southern Apulia respectively. All three tribes spoke the Messapiclanguage, but had developed separate archaeological cultures by the seventh...
inscriptions from the south-eastern Italian region of Apulia written in the Messapiclanguage, which is generally considered to be related to Illyrian, although...
Peuceti and Messapi (collectively known as Iapyges, and speaking the Messapiclanguage). The term "Illyrians" last appears in the historical record in the...
Iberian language remains an unclassified non-Indo European language. A 1978 study claimed many similarities between Iberian and the Messapiclanguage. Iberian...
standpoint", Messapic is the closest at least partially attested language to Albanian. Hyllested & Joseph (2022) label this Albanian-Messapic branch as Illyric...
Indo-European languages, of which Albanian language varieties are the only surviving representatives. Albanian is grouped in the same IE branch with Messapic, an...
words the Messapiclanguage with probably a good 1000 words (the estimate is difficult because most texts in this hardly understandable language do not use...
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe,...
The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They...
one of the descendant of the Illyrian languages (Messapiclanguage) is based on geography where the languages were spoken however not enough archaeological...
The Iranian languages, also called the Iranic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken...
transcription delimiters. The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are directly descended from Vulgar...
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