Talk:Oscan language

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[edit] Vitalieu

I'd like to see some citation for the claim that Italian vita is related to this. I have no knowledge of any connection between vita and veal. -- (Unsigned)

I've removed the reference, I could find no other reference to this on the Web, and the article for Italy states that the etymology for that word is very uncertain:

"The name appears to be a Greek form of Latin Vitelia, related to the Latin vitulus and Greek ἰταλός 'calf', but nature of the relationship is obscure: see Italus."

-- Archfalhwyl 16:52, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Example of an Oscan text ? why is it written using english style letters can we have the actual example in its original alphabet

The article mentions already that the language often was written in the Latin alphabet. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * (talk) 16:32, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] slaagid

I'm not an expert in the Italic languages, but I think the last sentence in this paragraph may be mistaken, or at least misleading:

Oscan had much in common with Latin, though there are also many striking differences, and many common word-groups in Latin were absent and represented by entirely different forms. For example, Latin volo, velle, volui, and other such forms from the Proto-Indo-European root *wel ('to will') were represented by words derived from *gher ('to desire'): Oscan herest ('he wants, desires') as opposed to Latin vult (id.). Latin locus (place) was absent and represented by slaagid (place).

Isn't Oscan slaagid (ablative), slagím (accusative) cognate with Latin locus? The Latin word appears earlier as stlocus, and I gather that Indo-European *sl was preserved in Oscan but regularly changed to *stl in many Indo-European languages spoken in the Mediterranean area, including Latin. Compare the Oscan proper name Slabiis with Latin Stlabius, later Labius. See Phelps (1937) "Indo-European Initial sl", Language 13:4, pp. 279-284. --Dependent Variable.

[edit] herest - quiere

I wonder whether Oscan "herest" is really related to spanish "quiere". "Quiere" obviously descends from Latin "quaerit". Latin initial /kw/ corresponds to Oscan /p/, so, if Oscan had a cognate of "quaerit", it should have been *pairit or *pairet or something, certainly NOT "herest". --Pail (talk) 23:47, 15 May 2008 (UTC)