OSCAN was the name given by the Romans to that dialect (lingua Osca) which they found spoken by the Osci of Campania. But inscriptional and other records, i.e., local and personal names and glosses in ancient authors, manifestly of the same dialect, have been found not only in Campania, where the dialect was, according to the most probable interpretation of the evidence, not original, but seems to have been imposed upon the Oscans by Samnite invaders in the 5th century B.C., but also further south, namely in northern Apulia, Lucania, in the country of the Brutii (the "toe" of Italy), and even in the north-east angle of Sicily at Messana (the modern Messina), which was captured by the Campanian Mamertines c. 289 B.C. ; in Samnium proper, including the territory of the Frentani and Hirpini ; and finally, further north, in the country of the Paeligni, Marrucini and Vestini. Thus there are distinguished, geographically, and dialectally, three main groups of Oscan : Central Oscan of Campania and the Samnite tribes, (2) Southern Oscah, and (3) Northern Oscan. These are all closely related to one another as compared with the dialect of the Volsci and of the Umbrian townships (Iguvium, the modern Gubbio ; Tuder, modern Todi ; and one or two others) ; while Oscan, Volscian and Umbrian, taken together, make one of the two great divisions—the other being Latin (q.v.) with Faliscan—into which the Italic branch of the Indo-European family of languages falls. Since the Samnitic tribes, whose ex pansion by successive migrations—"sacred springs" as they were called—diffused the Oscan speakers from their home in central Italy, knew their land (in Latin, Samnium) by the name Safinim, it has been proposed to describe their dialects as "Safine," a title at once more comprehensive and historically truer than "Oscan." The stock to which the Samnites belonged used commonly a suffix -no- (e.g., in Sabi-ni) to form their tribal names, as distinguished from the suffixes -co- and -(a)ti- of an earlier stratum of popula tion (e.g., in Volsci, Tea-te). In names like Marru-ci-ni, Ardea ti-ni, the superimposed -no- suffix bears witness to a conquest or overlordship of the earlier by the later stock.
Until the Roman advance gradually replaced it by Latin—im portant stages of this advance are marked not so much by the three Samnite wars as by the destruction of Capua in 2I I B.C. and the Social War of 91-89 B.C.-Oscan held its place as a language in recognized official and educated usage side by side with, or in stead of, Latin or Greek. The poet Ennius is said to have spoken all three tongues (Gellius '7,17,1), and if Strabo (5, p.233 C) may be trusted, the rude farces or puppet-shows introduced from the Oscan town Atella (fabulae Atellanae, ludi Osci) were actually performed at Rome in Oscan. The latest Oscan inscriptions,
scratched on the walls of houses at Pompeii, were written shortly before the eruption of Vesuvius which overwhelmed that city in A.D. 79, and it is probable that the dialect, which has left its mark on modern south Italian dialects, survived in remote country dis tricts as a local patois for some time longer. None of the Oscan inscriptions, on the other hand, is older than the 5th century B.C.
Many of the inscriptions are carefully, indeed almost with phonetic accuracy, written in a native alphabet which was itself derived, with certain necessary modifications, from the Etruscan alphabet ; but a few belonging to the southern group, and includ ing all those from Sicily, are in the Greek, and some from Lucania and elsewhere in the rustic or Colonial Latin alphabets. Over 250 in number, the majority are quite short; nevertheless, they furnish materials adequate to give us a fairly complete conspectus of the dialect. About two-thirds of the whole come from Cam pania, and most of those from Capua and Pompeii.
In character they fall mostly into the following classes: (I) official documents—municipal regulations (Bantia), a treaty (Nola and Abella), inscriptions relating to public works (Pompeii and elsewhere) ; religious—an inventory of statues and altars in a sacred grove at Agnone (Samnium), the interesting group of heraldic iovilae (q.v.) from Capua, recording or prescribing spe cial ceremonies connected with family cults, numerous simple vo tive and dedicatory inscriptions; (3) military and election an nouncements (from Pompeii) ; (4) private documents—epitaphs, bricks inscribed with names, and (from Campania) a few be longing to the interesting group of curses, inscribed on lead and deposited in tombs; (5) coin legends, including those of the Social War reading vitellizi, i.e., "Italia." Oscan has many peculiarities which distinguish it from Latin in sound changes, word forms and vocabulary; in syntax the dif ferences are much less marked. But it also possesses certain fea tures which distinguish it amongst the Italic dialects themselves. Their nature and extent may be indicated roughly by a specimen text (on a sundial found at Pompeii) : mr atiniis mr kvaisstur eitiuvad milltasikad kumbennieis tangi(nud) aamanaffed This in Latin would be: M(a)r(a) Atinius M(a)r(ae) (filius) quaestor pecunia multaticia conventus scitu fieri iussit (Mara Atinius, son of Mara, quaestor, in accordance with a decree of the assembly, had this set up from fine-money.)