 STANPA
Group
Single
Geography
The territory of north-eastern Italy and the adjacent regions of modern Slovenia and Austria used to be inhabited in Roman times by the tribes of Veneti. They first founded Venice on an island near the Adriatic coast.
History
About 250 short inscriptions were found written in Venetic, all of them were created from the 6th to the 1st century BC. Such inscriptions were found in Italian towns of Este, Vicenza, Padua, Spina. The majority of them evidently suffer the influence of either Etruscan or Latin languages. After the region fell under the Roman rule in the 1st century, Venetic was quickly assimilated by Latin which was obviously very close to it.
Phonetics
Venetic was rather archaic in phonetics; its vowels could be either long or short, numerous diphthongs existed. The reflection of Indo-European stops is very similar to Latin and Illyrian - voiced aspirates disappear. New spirants f, h, ts appear, the Indo-European labiovelar *kw was preserved.
Nominal Morphology
Inscription show clear five noun cases with three genders, the dual number was also in use - unlike in Italic and Celtic. Some noun endings can be identified, like instrumental plural -fos or genitive singular -í. Several pronouns are known: exo 'I' (IE *eg'hom), mexo 'me', selboi 'for oneself'.
Verbal Morphology
Four types of conjugation were used in Venetic, obviously all tenses merged into two: the present and the past (with maybe sigmatic aorist forms). Samples of the mediopassive voice with -r endings were found. Participles used suffixes -nd- and -mno-.
LexiconAbout 600 names are known, but many of them are borrowed from Etruscan and Latin. Words are not numerous to judge about the vocabulary in general, but some are exactly Indo-European (like vhraterei 'for a brother').
Writing
Venetic alphabet
Close Contacts
Venetic is believed to be a single group very close to Italic, Illyrian and Celtic. Obvious are contacts with Etruscan and maybe Rhaetian.
Sample
eik goltanos doto louderai kanei.
Goltanus sacrificed this for the virgin Kanis.
550 BC - 50 BC Messapic and Venetic inscriptions
The history of Venetic, Illyrian, and Messapic tribes began much earlier, when they arrived on the Balkan peninsula and later (Messapics) crossed the Adriatic and appeared in Italy. But while we can judge about this early period of their history only by archaeological materials or by ancient authors, since the 6th century BC these peoples started leaving inscriptions for us to be sure that they existed and played a certain part in the Indo-European Chronology.
Venetic speakers are sometimes identified as Italics or Illyrians, but evidently they were none of them, though closely related to these two groups. Also Venetic has close ties with Celtic, Germanic languages and (only by the name, similar to the name of one Slavic tribes) with Slavic. The Este (Ateste) culture which was flourishing in northern Italy and Slovenia left about 250 texts, mainly epitaphs and dedicatory inscriptions. They were written in a local script variety, a mixture of Etruscan and Greek writing, or in the Latin script. In the 1st century BC Venetic people was assimilated by Romans and took up Latin.
Illyrians did not leave any written examples of their existence, though many glosses were left by Roman writers, as well as the data of onomastics and toponymy. As for Messapic, nearly 350 inscriptions were found in South-Eastern Italy, which are quite short and do not tell much about the grammar or syntax of the language. But still, the cognation of Messapic and Illyrian can be stated.
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RAIXE VENETE - el jorna