Oscan in Southern Italy and Sicily - Evaluating Language Contact in a Fragmentary Corpus

A groundbreaking new interpretation of the relationship between Greek and Oscan, two of the most widely spoken languages of pre-Roman Italy.

List of contents

1. Introduction; 2. Bilingualism and language contact in written texts; 3. Alphabets, orthography and epigraphy; 4. Dedicatory inscriptions; 5. Curse tablets; 6. Legal and official texts; 7. Shorter texts: funerary inscriptions, graffiti and signatures; 8. Conclusions; Appendix 1. Datings of inscriptions; Appendix 2. Catalogue of sites.

About the author

Katherine McDonald is Research Fellow in Classics at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and an affiliated postdoctoral researcher on the AHRC-funded project 'Greek in Italy'. Her current research interests include the Italic languages, ancient bilingualism, personal names, and gender linguistics.

Summary

In pre-Roman Italy and Sicily, dozens of languages and writing systems competed and interacted. Using new archaeological evidence and modern theories of bilingualism, this book explores the relationship between Greek and Oscan, two of the most widely spoken languages in the south of the peninsula.

Product details

• Authors: Katherine Mcdonald, Katherine (Gonville and Caius College Mcdonald, McDonald Katherine
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.10.2015
• EAN: 9781107103832
• ISBN: 978-1-107-10383-2
• No. of pages: 325
• Series: Cambridge Classical Studies; Cambridge Classical Studies
• Subjects: Education and learning > Miscellaneous; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > Classical linguistics / literary studies; European History, HISTORY / Ancient / Rome, HISTORY / Europe / General, Ancient Rome, Ancient History, Classical history / classical civilisation, Historical & comparative linguistics, Romance, Italic & Rhaeto-Romanic languages, Romance, Italic and Rhaeto-Romanic languages, BCE to c 500 CE, BCE period – Protohistory, Historical and comparative linguistics