Project Ancient ItalyLanguagesThe Celtic languages of the ancient Italy

The Celtic languages of the ancient Italy

The Celtic languages of Italy are known from epigraphic texts coming from northern Italy and belonging to two varieties, namely Lepontic and Cisalpine Gaulish.

The approximately 430 inscriptions date between the 7th and the 1st cent. BC: they are primarily graffiti or engravings written in an Etrsucan-based local alphabetic variety, called ‘Lepontic alphabet’.

Lepontic and Cisalpine Gaulish cannot linguistically be easily identified, even though the geographical and chronological boundaries of the respective attestations are potentially identifiable.

Lepontic is suggested to be the language of the ancient Lepontii, i.e., the population settled during the 1st millennium BC in part of northern Italy (Lombardia and Val d’Ossola) and modern-day Swiss cantons Ticino and Grisons. The most ancient texts can be dated from the 7th-6th cent. BC to the end of the 1st cent. BC. The documentation diminishes starting from the 4th cent. BC, as a consequence of the migrations of the Gaulish populations who settled along the Po river from Mediolanum (Insubri) to Verona (Cenomani). Most of the Cisalpine Gaulish inscriptions can be dated to the 1st cent. BC: Celtic languages of Italy are not attested thereafter.

Further evidence of Celtic languages of Italy comes from proper names, either anthroponyms and toponyms, attested in local Latin inscriptions or by Greek, Latin, and Medieval authors: a systematic analysis of such secondary sources is lacking.

The texts are very short, in most cases consisting of one word only, and they rarely present two, three or four words. More complex texts, such as the Gallo-Latin bilingual inscription from Vercelli, are very uncommon. Lepontic inscriptions are mostly funerary or votive and are engraved on large stones, while the Gaulish ones consist of graffiti on vases.

From a linguistic and cultural point of view, the Celtic languages of Italy differ from the other languages of ancient Italy, having a binomial onomastic formula (praenomen + gentilicium), for the preservation of the formula consisting of an individual name and patronymic, characterized by specific suffixes such as -ikno-.

Bibliography

- Lejeune, M. 1971, Lepontica, Paris.

- Tibiletti Bruno, M. G. 1981. «Le iscrizioni celtiche d’Italia». In I Celti d’Italia, a cura di Enrico Campanile, 157–207. Pisa.

- Solinas, P. 1995. «Il celtico d’Italia», Studi Etruschi 60: 311-408.

- Motta, F. 2000. «La documentazione epigrafica e linguistica». In I Leponti tra mito e realtà, a cura di R. C. de Marinis, S. Biaggio Simona, vol. II, 181-222, Locarno.

- Stifter, D. 2020. Cisalpine Celtic. Languge, Writing, Epigraphy. Aelaw Booklet 8. Zaragoza: Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza.

- Stifter, D. 2020. «Cisalpine Celtic», Palaeohispanica 20: 335-365.