Oscan was spoken in Southern Italy in the second half of the first millennium BC. Here, for the first time, all the evidence for the spelling of Oscan in the Greek alphabet is collected and examined. Understanding the orthography of these inscriptions has far-reaching implications for the historical phonology and morphology of Oscan and the Italic languages (for example providing unique evidence for the reconstruction of the genitive plural). A striking discovery is the lack of a standardised orthography for Oscan in the Greek alphabet, which seriously problematises attempts to date inscriptions by assuming the consistent chronological development of spelling features. There are also intriguing insights into the linguistic situation in South Italy. Rather than a separate community of Oscan-speakers who had adopted and subsequently adapted the Greek alphabet in isolation, we should posit groups who were in touch with contemporary developments in Greek orthography due to widespread Greek-Oscan bilingualism.

By examining Greek-alphabet Oscan inscriptions, this book shines light on the linguistics, bilingualism and epigraphy of ancient Southern Italy.

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

In pre-Roman Italy and Sicily, dozens of languages and writing systems competed and interacted, and bilingualism was the norm. Using frameworks from epigraphy, archaeology and the sociolinguistics of language contact, this book explores the relationship between Greek and Oscan, two of the most widely spoken languages in the south of the peninsula. Dr McDonald undertakes a new analysis of the entire corpus of South Oscan texts written in Lucania, Bruttium and Messana, including dedications, curse tablets, laws, funerary texts and graffiti. She demonstrates that genre and domain are critical to understanding where and when Greek was used within Oscan-speaking communities, and how ancient bilinguals exploited the social meaning of their languages in their writing. This book also offers a cutting-edge example of how to build the fullest possible picture of bilingualism in fragmentary languages across the ancient world.

By examining Greek-alphabet Oscan inscriptions, this book shines light on the linguistics, bilingualism and epigraphy of ancient Southern Italy.

Studying from the Mycenean to the late Hellenistic period, this work includes new articles by twenty-seven specialists of ancient Greece, and presents an examination of the Greek cultures of mainland Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt and Italy. With the chapters sharing the theme of social history, this fascinating book focuses on women, the poor, and the slaves – all traditionally seen as beyond the margins of powerand includes the study of figures who were on the literal margins of the Greek world. Bringing to the forefront the research into areas previously thought of as marginal, Anton Powell sheds new light on vital topics and authors who are central to the study of Greek culture. Plato’s reforms are illuminated through a consideration of his impatient and revolutionary attitude to women, and Powell also examines how the most potent symbol of central Greek history – the Parthenon – can be understood as a political symbol when viewed with the knowledge of the cosmetic techniques used by classical Athenian women. The Greek World is a stimulating and enlightening interaction of social and political history, comprehensive, and unique to boot, students will undoubtedly benefit from the insight and knowledge it imparts.

This book presents an exhaustive treatment of a long-standing problem of Proto-Indo-European and Italic philology: the development of the Proto-Indo-European voiced aspirates in the ancient languages of Italy. In so doing it tackles a central issue of historical linguistics: the plausibility of explanations for sound change. The author argues that the problem can be resolved by combining a traditional philological investigation with experimental phonetics. Philological methodsenable the presentation of the first integrated account of the evidence for the Italic languages, with detailed discussion of languages other than Latin. Theory and methods from experimental phonetics are then adopted to offer a new explanation for how the sound change might have taken place. At the sametime, phonetic methods also confirm the traditional reconstruction of voiced aspirates for Proto-Indo-European. Thus the book offers a case-study of the successful application of synchronic theory and method to a problem of diachrony.