Lepontian language
| Lepont table | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Spoken in |
Alpine foothills of Northern Italy | |
| speaker | (extinct) | |
| Linguistic classification |
|
|
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639 -1 |
- |
|
| ISO 639 -2 |
cel (other Celtic languages) |
|
| ISO 639-3 |
xlp |
|
The Lepontic language (rarely Celtoligurian ) is an extinct mainland Celtic language . It was spoken in northern Italy in the foothills of the Alps , in the area of Lake Maggiore , Lake Lugano , Lake Como and on the Po Valley . The main settlement area of the Lepontier was the area around Lake Lugano ( Golasecca culture since the 13th century BC). It belongs to the pre-Roman languages of Italy and is the one of the mainland Celtic languages whose evidence is considered to be the earliest extant.
Some inscriptions date back to the 6th century BC. Chr. Dated. The language is very similar to the finds based on Gallic , which was also spoken in the Italian Alpine foothills (Galli cisalpini) , and is documented by the Lugano alphabet , which is derived from the Etruscan script . About 70 inscriptions are known. Longer ones are rare, such as the Prestino stone near Como . In the 4th / 3rd century BC BC the Lepontic was replaced by the Gallic .
literature
- Maria Teresa Grassi: I Celti in Italia (= Biblioteca di Archeologia. Vol. 16). 2nd Edition. Longanesi, Milan 1991. ISBN 88-304-1012-8 (Italian).
- Michel Lejeune : Lepontica (= Monographies Linguistiques I). Paris 1971.
- Patrizia Solinas: Il Celtico in Italia. In: Studi Etruschi 60 (1995), 311-408.
- Jürgen Uhlich: On the linguistic classification of the Lepontic. In: Stefan Zimmer, Rolf Ködderitzsch, Arndt Wigger (eds.): Files from the second German Celtological Symposium (Bonn, April 2-4, 1997). Niemeyer, Tübingen 1999, 277-304.
Web links
- Lepontic alphabet , Lexicon Leponticum of the University of Vienna
