LATIN LANGUAGE LAZARITES
LATIN LITERATURE LAZARUS (New Testament)
LATINUS LAZARUS, EMMA
LATITUDE LAZARUS, HENRY
LATIUM LAZARUS, MORITZ
LATONA LAZARUS, ST, ORDER OF
LATOUCHE, HYACINTHE JOSEPH DE LEA, HENRY CHARLES
LA TOUR, MAURICE QUENTIN DE LEAD (South Dakota, U.S.A.)
LA TOUR D'AUVERGNE, MALO LEAD (chemical element)
LATREILLE, PIERRE ANDRÉ LEADER, BENJAMIN WILLIAMS
LA TRÉMOILLE LEADHILLITE
LATROBE, CHARLES JOSEPH LEADHILLS
LATTEN LEAD POISONING
LATTICE LEAF PLANT LEADVILLE
LATUDE, JEAN HENRI LEAF
LATUKA LEAF-INSECT
LAUBAN LEAGUE
LAUBE, HEINRICH LEAKE, WILLIAM MARTIN
L'AUBESPINE LEAMINGTON
LAUCHSTÄDT LÉANDRE, CHARLES LUCIEN
LAUD, WILLIAM LEAP-YEAR
LAUD LEAR, EDWARD
LAUDANUM LEASE
LAUDER, SIR THOMAS DICK LEATHER
LAUDER, WILLIAM LEATHER, ARTIFICIAL
LAUDER (burgh of Scotland) LEATHERHEAD
LAUDERDALE, JOHN MAITLAND LEATHES, STANLEY
LAUENBURG LEAVEN
LAUFF, JOSEF LEAVENWORTH
LAUGHTER LEBANON (middle east)
LAUMONT, FRANÇOIS GILLET DE LEBANON (Illinois, U.S.A.)
LAUNCESTON (Cornwall, England) LEBANON (Pennsylvania, U.S.A.)
LAUNCESTON (Tasmania) LE BARGY, CHARLES GUSTAVE AUGUSTE
LAUNCH LE BEAU, CHARLES
LAUNDRY LEBEAU, JOSEPH
LA UNION (Salvador) LEBEL, JEAN
LA UNION (Spain) LEBER, JEAN MICHEL CONSTANT
LAURAHÜTTE LEBEUF, JEAN
LAUREATE LE BLANC, NICOLAS
LAUREL LE BLANC
LAURENS, HENRY LEBOEUF, EDMOND
LAURENT, FRANÇOIS LE BON, JOSEPH
LAURENTINA, VIA LEBRIJA
LAURENTIUS, PAUL LE BRUN, CHARLES
LAURIA ROGER DE LEBRUN, CHARLES FRANÇOIS
LAURIA (Italy) LEBRUN, PIERRE ANTOINE
LAURIER, SIR WILFRID LEBRUN, PONCE DENIS ÉCOUCHARD
LAURISTON, JACQUES BERNARD LAW LE CARON, HENRI
LAURIUM (Greece) LE CATEAU
LAURIUM (Michigan, U.S.A.) LECCE
LAURUSTINUS LECCO
LAURVIK LECH
LAUSANNE LE CHAMBON
LAUTREC, ODET DE FOIX LE CHAPELIER, ISAAC RENÉ GUY
LAUZUN, ANTONIN NOMPAR DE CAUMONT LECHLER, GOTTHARD VICTOR
LAVA LECKY, WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE
LAVABO LE CLERC, JEAN
LAVAGNA LECOCQ, ALEXANDRE CHARLES
LAVAL, ANDRÉ DE, DE LOHÉAC LECOINTE-PUYRAVEAU, MICHEL MATHIEU
LAVAL (France) LE CONTE, JOSEPH
LA VALLIÈRE, LOUISE FRANÇOISE DE LECONTE DE LISLE, CHARLES MARIE RENÉ
LAVATER, JOHANN KASPAR LE COQ, ROBERT
LAVAUR LECOUVREUR, ADRIENNE
LAVEDAN, HENRI LÉON ÉMILE LE CREUSOT
LAVELEYE, ÉMILE LOUIS VICTOR DE LECTERN
LAVENDER LECTION, LECTIONARY
LAVERDY, CLÉMENT FRANÇOIS DE LECTISTERNIUM
LAVERNA LECTOR
LAVERY, JOHN LECTOURE
LAVIGERIE, CHARLES ALLEMAND LEDA
LA VILLEMARQUÉ, CLAUDE HENRI LE DAIM, OLIVIER
LAVINIUM LEDBURY
LAVISSE, ERNEST LEDGER
LAVOISIER, ANTOINE LAURENT LEDOCHOWSKI, MIECISLAUS JOHANN
LA VOISIN LEDRU-ROLLIN, ALEXANDRE AUGUSTE
LAW, JOHN LEDYARD, JOHN
LAW, WILLIAM LEE, ANN
LAW LEE, ARTHUR
LAWES, HENRY LEE, FITZHUGH
LAWES, SIR JOHN BENNET LEE, GEORGE ALEXANDER
LAW MERCHANT LEE, HENRY
LAWN LEE, JAMES PRINCE
LAWN-TENNIS LEE, NATHANIEL
LAWRENCE, ST LEE, RICHARD HENRY
LAWRENCE, AMOS (American merchant) LEE, ROBERT EDWARD
LAWRENCE, AMOS ADAMS (junior) LEE ROWLAND
LAWRENCE, GEORGE ALFRED LEE, SIDNEY
LAWRENCE, SIR HENRY MONTGOMERY LEE, SOPHIA
LAWRENCE, JOHN LAIRD LAWRENCE LEE, STEPHEN DILL
LAWRENCE, STRINGER LEE (Massachusetts, U.S.A.)
LAWRENCE, SIR THOMAS LEE (shelter or sediment)
LAWRENCE (Kansas, U.S.A.) LEECH, JOHN
LAWRENCE (Massachusetts, U.S.A.) LEECH (Chaetopod worms)
LAWRENCEBURG LEEDS, THOMAS OSBORNE
LAWSON, CECIL GORDON LEEDS (England)
LAWSON, SIR JOHN LEEK (English town)
LAWSON, SIR WILFRID LEEK (plant)
LAY LEER
LAYA, JEAN LOUIS LEEUWARDEN
LAYAMON LEEUWENHOEK, ANTHONY VAN
LAYARD, SIR AUSTEN HENRY LEEWARD ISLANDS
LAYMEN, HOUSES OF LE FANU, JOSEPH SHERIDAN
LAYNEZ, DIEGO LEFEBVRE, PIERRE FRANÇOIS JOSEPH
LAZAR
LATIN LANGUAGE. 1. _Earliest Records of its Area._--Latin was the
language spoken in Rome and in the plain of Latium in the 6th or 7th
century B.C.--the earliest period from which we have any contemporary
record of its existence. But it is as yet impossible to determine
either, on the one hand, whether the archaic inscription of Praeneste
(see below), which is assigned with great probability to that epoch,
represents exactly the language then spoken in Rome; or, on the other,
over how much larger an area of the Italian peninsula, or even of the
lands to the north and west, the same language may at that date have
extended. In the 5th century B.C. we find its limits within the
peninsula fixed on the north-west and south-west by Etruscan (see
ETRURIA: _Language_); on the east, south-east, and probably north and
north-east, by Safine (Sabine) dialects (of the Marsi, Paeligni,
Samnites, Sabini and Picenum, qq.v.); but on the north we have no direct
record of Sabine speech, nor of any non-Latinian tongue nearer than
Tuder and Asculum or earlier than the 4th century B.C. (see UMBRIA,
IGUVIUM, PICENUM). We know however, both from tradition and from the
archaeological data, that the Safine tribes were in the 5th century B.C.
migrating, or at least sending off swarms of their younger folk, farther
and farther southward into the peninsula. Of the languages they were
then displacing we have no explicit record save in the case of Etruscan
in Campania, but it may be reasonably inferred from the evidence of
place-names and tribal names, combined with that of the Faliscan
inscriptions, that before the Safine invasion some idiom, not remote
from Latin, was spoken by the pre-Etruscan tribes down the length of the
west coast (see FALISCI; VOLSCI; also ROME: _History_; LIGURIA; SICULI).
2. _Earliest Roman Inscriptions._--At Rome, at all events, it is clear
from the unwavering voice of tradition that Latin was spoken from the
beginning of the city. Of the earliest Latin inscriptions found in Rome
which were known in 1909, the oldest, the so-called "Forum inscription,"
can hardly be referred with confidence to an earlier century than the
5th; the later, the well-known _Duenos_ (= later Latin _bonus_)
inscription, certainly belongs to the 4th; both of these are briefly
described below (§§ 40, 41). At this date we have probably the period of
the narrowest extension of Latin; non-Latin idioms were spoken in
Etruria, Umbria, Picenum and in the Marsian and Volscian hills. But
almost directly the area begins to expand again, and after the war with
Pyrrhus the Roman arms had planted the language of Rome in her military
colonies throughout the peninsula. When we come to the 3rd century B.C.
the Latin inscriptions begin to be more numerous, and in them (e.g. the
oldest epitaphs of the Scipio family) the language is very little
removed from what it was in the time of Plautus.
3. _The Italic Group of Languages._--For the characteristics and
affinities of the dialects that have just been mentioned, see the
article ITALY: _Ancient Languages and Peoples_, and to the separate
articles on the tribes. Here it is well to point out that the only one
of these languages which is not akin to Latin is Etruscan; on the other
hand, the only one very closely resembling Latin is Faliscan, which with
it forms what we may call the Latinian dialect of the Italic group of
the Indo-European family of languages. Since, however, we have a far
more complete knowledge of Latin than of any other member of the Italic
group, this is the most convenient place in which to state briefly the
very little that can be said as yet to have been ascertained as to the
general relations of Italic to its sister groups. Here, as in many
kindred questions, the work of Paul Kretschmer of Vienna (_Einleitung in
die Geschichte der griechischen Sprache_, Göttingen, 1896) marked an
important epoch in the historical aspects of linguistic study, as the
first scientific attempt to interpret critically the different kinds of
evidence which the Indo-European languages give us, not in vocabulary
merely, but in phonology, morphology, and especially in their mutual
borrowings, and to combine it with the non-linguistic data of tradition
and archaeology. A certain number of the results so obtained have met
with general acceptance and may be briefly treated here. It is, however,
extremely dangerous to draw merely from linguistic kinship deductions as
to racial identity, or even as to an original contiguity of habitation.
Close resemblances in any two languages, especially those in their inner
structure (morphology), may be due to identity of race, or to long
neighbourhood in the earliest period of their development; but they may
also be caused by temporary neighbourhood (for a longer or shorter
period), brought about by migrations at a later epoch (or epochs). A
particular change in sound or usage may spread over a whole chain of
dialects and be in the end exhibited alike by them all, although the
time at which it first began was long after their special and
distinctive characteristics had become clearly marked. For example, the
limitation of the word-accent to the last three syllables of a word in
Latin and Oscan (see below)--a phenomenon which has left deep marks on
all the Romance languages--demonstrably grew up between the 5th and 2nd
centuries B.C.; and it is a permissible conjecture that it started from
the influence of the Greek colonies in Italy (especially Cumae and
Naples), in whose language the same limitation (although with an accent
whose actual character was probably more largely musical) had been
established some centuries sooner.
4. _Position of the Italic Group._--The Italic group, then, when
compared with the other seven main "families" of Indo-European speech,
in respect of their most significant differences, ranges itself thus:
(i.) _Back-palatal and Velar Sounds._--In point of its treatment of
the Indo-European back-palatal and velar sounds, it belongs to the
western or _centum_ group, the name of which is, of course, taken from
Latin; that is to say, like German, Celtic and Greek, it did not
sibilate original _k_ and _g_, which in Indo-Iranian, Armenian,
Slavonic and Albanian have been converted into various types of
sibilants (Ind.-Eur.* _kmtom_ = Lat. _centum_, Gr. _[Greek:
(he)-katon]_, Welsh _cant_, Eng. _hund_-(_red_), but Sans. _satam_,
Zend _sat[schwa]m_); but, on the other hand, in company with just the
same three western groups, and in contrast to the eastern, the Italic
languages labialized the original velars (Ind.-Eur. * _qod_ = Lat.
_quod_, Osc. _pod_, Gr. _[Greek: pod-(apos)]_, Welsh _pwy_, Eng.
_what_, but Sans. _kás_, "who?").
(ii.) _Indo-European Aspirates._--Like Greek and Sanskrit, but in
contrast to all the other groups (even to Zend and Armenian), the
Italic group largely preserves a distinction between the Indo-European
_mediae aspiratae_ and _mediae_ (e.g. between Ind.-Eur. _dh_ and _d_,
the former when initial becoming initially regularly Lat. _f_ as in
Lat. _fec-i_ [cf. Umb. _feia_, "_faciat_"], beside Gr. [Greek:
he-thêk-a] [cf. Sans. _da-dha-ti_, "he places"], the latter simply _d_
as in _domus_, Gr. [Greek: domos]). But the _aspiratae_, even where
thus distinctly treated in Italic, became fricatives, not pure
aspirates, a character which they only retained in Greek and Sanskrit.
(iii.) _Indo-European o._--With Greek and Celtic, Latin preserved the
Indo-European _o_, which in the more northerly groups (Germanic,
Balto-Slavonic), and also in Indo-Iranian, and, curiously, in
Messapian, was confused with _a_. The name for olive-oil, which spread
with the use of this commodity from Greek ([Greek: elaiwon]) to Italic
speakers and thence to the north, becoming by regular changes (see
below) in Latin first *_ólaivom_, then *_óleivom_, and then taken into
Gothic and becoming _alev_, leaving its parent form to change further
(not later than 100 B.C.) in Latin to _oleum_, is a particularly
important example, because (a) of the chronological limits which are
implied, however roughly, in the process just described, and (b) of
the close association in time of the change of _o_ to _a_ with the
earlier stages of the "sound-shifting" (of the Indo-European plosives
and aspirates) in German; see Kretschmer, _Einleit_. p. 116, and the
authorities he cites.
(iv.) _Accentuation._--One marked innovation common to the western
groups as compared with what Greek and Sanskrit show to have been an
earlier feature of the Indo-European parent speech was the development
of a strong expiratory (sometimes called stress) accent upon the first
syllable of all words. This appears early in the history of Italic,
Celtic, Lettish (probably, and at a still later period) in Germanic,
though at a period later than the beginning of the "sound-shifting."
This extinguished the complex system of Indo-European accentuation,
which is directly reflected in Sanskrit, and was itself replaced in
Latin and Oscan by another system already mentioned, but not in Latin
till it had produced marked effects upon the language (e.g. the
degradation of the vowels in compounds as in _conficio_ from
_cón-facio_, _includo_ from _ín-claudo_). This curious wave of
accentual change (first pointed out by Dieterich, _Kuhn's
Zeitschrift_, i., and later by Thurneysen, _Revue celtique_, vi. 312,
_Rheinisches Museum_, xliii. 349) needs and deserves to be more
closely investigated from a chronological standpoint. At present it is
not clear how far it was a really connected process in all the
languages. (See further Kretschmer, _op. cit._ p. 115, K. Brugmann,
_Kurze vergleichende Grammatik_ (1902-1904), p. 57, and their
citations, especially Meyer-Lübke, _Die Betonung im Gallischen_
(1901).)
To these larger affinities may be added some important points in which
the Italic group shows marked resemblances to other groups.
5. _Italic and Celtic._--It is now universally admitted that the Celtic
languages stand in a much closer relation than any other group to the
Italic. It may even be doubted whether there was any real frontier-line
at all between the two groups before the Etruscan invasion of Italy (see
ETRURIA: _Language_; LIGURIA). The number of morphological innovations
on the Indo-European system which the two groups share, and which are
almost if not wholly peculiar to them, is particularly striking. Of
these the chief are the following.
(i.) Extension of the abstract-noun stems in -_ti_- (like Greek
[Greek: phatis] with Attic [Greek: basis], &c.) by an -_n_- suffix, as
in Lat. _mentio_ (stem _mention_-) = Ir. (_er_-)_mitiu_ (stem
_miti-n_-), contrasted with the same word without the _n_-suffix in
Sans. _mati_-, Lat. _mens_, Ind.-Eur. *_mn-ti_-. A similar extension
(shared also by Gothic) appears in Lat. _iuventu-t_-, O. Ir. _óitiu_
(stem _oiliut_-) beside the simple -_tu_- in nouns like _senatus_.
(ii.) Superlative formation in -_is-mmo_- as in Lat. _aegerrimus_ for
*_aegr-ismmos_, Gallic [Greek: Ouxisamê] the name of a town meaning
"the highest."
(iii.) Genitive singular of the _o_-stems (second declension) in -_i_
Lat. _agri_, O. Ir. (Ogam inscriptions) _magi_, "of a son."
(iv.) Passive and deponent formation in -_r_, Lat. _sequitur_ = Ir.
_sechedar_, "he follows." The originally active meaning of this
curious -_r_ suffix was first pointed out by Zimmer (_Kuhn's
Zeitschrift_, 1888, xxx. 224), who thus explained the use of the
accusative pronouns with these "passive" forms in Celtic; Ir.
-_m-berar_, "I am carried," literally "folk carry me"; Umb. _pir
ferar_, literally _ignem feratur_, though as _pir_ is a neuter word (=
Gr. [Greek: pyr]) this example was not so convincing. But within a
twelvemonth of the appearance of Zimmer's article, an Oscan
inscription (Conway, _Camb. Philol. Society's Proceedings_, 1890, p.
16, and _Italic Dialects_, p. 113) was discovered containing the
phrase _ultiumam_ (_iuvilam_) _sakrafir_, "ultimam (imaginem)
consecraverint" (or "ultima consecretur") which demonstrated the
nature of the suffix in Italic also. This originally active meaning of
the -_r_ form (in the third person singular passive) is the cause of
the remarkable fondness for the "impersonal" use of the passive in
Latin (e.g., _itur in antiquam silvam_, instead of _eunt_), which was
naturally extended to all tenses of the passive (_ventum est_, &c.),
so soon as its origin was forgotten. Fuller details of the development
will be found in Conway, _op. cit._ p. 561, and the authorities there
cited (very little is added by K. Brugmann, _Kurze vergl. Gramm._
1904, p. 596).
(v.) Formation of the perfect passive from the -_to_- past participle,
Lat. _monitus_ (_est_), &c., Ir. _léic-the_, "he was left,"
_ro-léiced_, "he has been left." In Latin the participle maintains its
distinct adjectival character; in Irish (J. Strachan, _Old Irish
Paradigms_, 1905, p. 50) it has sunk into a purely verbal form, just
as the perfect participles in -_us_ in Umbrian have been absorbed into
the future perfect in -_ust_ (_entelust_, "intenderit"; _benust_,
"venerit") with its impersonal passive or third plural active
-_us_(_s_)_so_ (probably standing for -_ussor_) as in _benuso_,
"ventum erit" (or "venerint").
To these must be further added some striking peculiarities in
phonology.
(vi.) Assimilation of _p_ to a _q^u_ in a following syllable as in
Lat. _quinque_ = Ir. _cóic_, compared with Sans. _pánca_, Gr. [Greek:
pente], Eng. _five_, Ind.-Eur. *_penqe_.
(vii.) Finally--and perhaps this parallelism is the most important of
all from the historical standpoint--both Italic and Celtic are divided
into two sub-families which differ, and differ in the same way, in
their treatment of the Ind.-Eur. velar tenuis _q_. In both halves of
each group it was labialized to some extent; in one half of each group
it was labialized so far as to become _p_. This is the great line of
cleavage (i.) between Latinian (Lat. _quod_, _quando_, _quinque_;
Falisc. _cuando_) and Osco-Umbrian, better called Safine (Osc. _pod_,
Umb. _panu_- [for *_pando_], Osc.-Umb. _pompe_-, "five," in Osc.
_pumperias_ "nonae," Umb. _pumpedia_-, "fifth day of the month"); and
(ii.) between Goidelic (Gaelic) (O. Ir. _cóic_, "five," _maq_, "son";
modern Irish and Scotch _Mac_ as in _MacPherson_) and Brythonic
(Britannic) (Welsh _pump_, "five," _Ap_ for map, as in _Powel_ for _Ap
Howel_).
The same distinction appears elsewhere; Germanic belongs, broadly
described, to the _q_-group, and Greek, broadly described, to the
_p_-group. The ethnological bearing of the distinction within Italy is
considered in the articles SABINI and VOLSCI; but the wider questions
which the facts suggest have as yet been only scantily discussed; see
the references for the "Sequanian" dialect of Gallic (in the
inscription of Coligny, whose language preserves _q_) in the article
CELTS: _Language_.
From these primitive affinities we must clearly distinguish the
numerous words taken into Latin from the Celts of north Italy within
the historic period; for these see especially an interesting study by
J. Zwicker, _De vocabulis et rebus Gallicis sive Transpadanis apud
Vergilium_ (Leipzig dissertation, 1905).
6. _Greek and Italic._--We have seen above (§ 4, i., ii., iii.) certain
broad characteristics which the Greek and the Italic groups of language
have in common. The old question of the degree of their affinity may be
briefly noticed. There are deep-seated differences in morphology,
phonology and vocabulary between the two languages--such as (a) the loss
of the forms of the ablative in Greek and of the middle voice in Latin;
(b) the decay of the fricatives (_s_, _v_, _^i_) in Greek and the
cavalier treatment of the aspirates in Latin; and (c) the almost total
discrepancy of the vocabularies of law and religion in the two
languages--which altogether forbid the assumption that the two groups
can ever have been completely identical after their first dialectic
separation from the parent language. On the other hand, in the first
early periods of that dialectic development in the Indo-European family,
the precursors of Greek and Italic cannot have been separated by any
very wide boundary. To this primitive neighbourhood may be referred such
peculiarities as (a) the genitive plural feminine ending in -_asom_ (Gr.
[Greek: -aôn], later in various dialects [Greek: -eôn, -ôn, -an]; cf.
Osc. _egmazum_ "rerum"; Lat. _mensarum_, with -_r_- from -_s_-), (b) the
feminine gender of many nouns of the -_o_- declension, cf. Gr. [Greek:
hê hodos], Lat. _haec fagus_; and some important and ancient
syntactical features, especially in the uses of the cases (e.g. (c) the
genitive of price) of the (d) infinitive and of the (e) participles
passive (though in each case the forms differ widely in the two
groups), and perhaps (f) of the dependent moods (though here again the
forms have been vigorously reshaped in Italic). These syntactic
parallels, which are hardly noticed by Kretschmer in his otherwise
careful discussion (_Einleit._ p. 155 seq.), serve to confirm his
general conclusion which has been here adopted; because syntactic
peculiarities have a long life and may survive not merely complete
revolutions in morphology, but even a complete change in the speaker's
language, e.g. such Celticisms in Irish-English as "What are you after
doing?" for "What have you done?" or in Welsh-English as "whatever" for
"anyhow." A few isolated correspondences in vocabulary, as in _remus_
from *_ret-s-mo_-, with [Greek: eretmos] and in a few plant-names (e.g.
[Greek: prason] and _porrum_), cannot disturb the general conclusion,
though no doubt they have some historical significance, if it could be
determined.
7. _Indo-Iranian and Italo-Celtic._--Only a brief reference can here be
made to the striking list of resemblances between the Indo-Iranian and
Italo-Celtic groups, especially in vocabulary, which Kretschmer has
collected (ibid. pp. 126-144). The most striking of these are _rex_, O.
Ir. _rig_-, Sans. _raj_-, and the political meaning of the same root in
the corresponding verb in both languages (contrast _regere_ with the
merely physical meaning of Gr. [Greek: oregnymi]); Lat. _flamen_ (for
*_flag-men_) exactly = Sans. _brahman_- (neuter), meaning probably
"sacrificing," "worshipping," and then "priesthood," "priest," from the
Ind.-Eur. root *_bhelgh_-, "blaze," "make to blaze"; _res_, _rem_
exactly = Sans. _ras_, _ram_ in declension and especially in meaning;
and _Ario_-, "noble," in Gallic _Ariomanus_, &c., = Sans. _arya_-,
"noble" (whence "Aryan"). So _argentum_ exactly = Sans. _rajata_-, Zend
_erezata_-; contrast the different (though morphologically kindred)
suffix in Gr. [Greek: argyros]. Some forty-two other Latin or Celtic
words (among them _credere_, _caesaries_, _probus_, _castus_ (cf. Osc.
_kasit_, Lat. _caret_, Sans. _sista_-), _Volcanus_, _Neptunus_, _ensis_,
_erus_, _pruina_, _rus_, _novacula_) have precise Sanskrit or Iranian
equivalents, and none so near in any other of the eight groups of
languages. Finally the use of an -_r_ suffix in the third plural is
common to both Italo-Celtic (see above) and Indo-Iranian. These things
clearly point to a fairly close, and probably in part political,
intercourse between the two communities of speakers at some early epoch.
A shorter, but interesting, list of correspondences in vocabulary with
Balto-Slavonic (e.g. the words _mentiri_, _ros_, _ignis_ have close
equivalents in Balto-Slavonic) suggests that at the same period the
precursor of this dialect too was a not remote neighbour.
8. _Date of the Separation of the Italic Group._--The date at which the
Italic group of languages began to have (so far as it had at all) a
separate development of its own is at present only a matter of
conjecture. But the combination of archaeological and linguistic
research which has already begun can have no more interesting object
than the approximate determination of this date (or group of dates); for
it will give us a point of cardinal importance in the early history of
Europe. The only consideration which can here be offered as a
starting-point for the inquiry is the chronological relation of the
Etruscan invasion, which is probably referable to the 12th century B.C.
(see ETRURIA), to the two strata of Indo-European population--the -CO-
folk (_Falisci_, _Marruci_, _Volsci_, _Hernici_ and others), to whom the
Tuscan invaders owe the names _Etrusci_ and _Tusci_, and the -NO- folk,
who, on the West coast, in the centre and south of Italy, appear at a
distinctly later epoch, in some places (as in the Bruttian peninsula,
see BRUTTII) only at the beginning of our historical record. If the view
of Latin as mainly the tongue of the -CO- folk prove to be correct (see
ROME: _History_; ITALY: _Ancient Languages and Peoples_; SABINI; VOLSCI)
we must regard it (a) as the southern or earlier half of the Italic
group, firmly rooted in Italy in the 12th century B.C., but (b) by no
means yet isolated from contact with the northern or later half; such is
at least the suggestion of the striking peculiarities in morphology
which it shares with not merely Oscan and Umbrian, but also, as we have
seen, with Celtic. The progress in time of this isolation ought before
long to be traced with some approach to certainty.