Chapter 5 - Lost – and Found – in Transmission

Summary

As has often been remarked, Oscan inscriptions originate from a large area – Campania, Samnium, Lucania, Bruttium and Sicily – but despite this are remarkably similar in terms of language and spelling, with very little regional variation (see e.g. Rix 1996). Likewise, the Oscan alphabet was created in a context of multiple languages and scripts, the result of a long period of successive migrations to the southern half of the Apennine peninsula; the Etruscans, from Etruria; Greek settlers, from different Greek city-states; and later on the Samnites, from the heights of the Apennine mountain range.