The Samnite Oscan Language/Alphabet

[Anabasis]

Why does the oscan alphabet look similar to the runic alphabet?

[url:ikjh5s05]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/03/Anglosaxonrunes.JPG[/url]
[url:ikjh5s05]http://xoomer.alice.it/davmonac/sanniti/smliny.html[/url]

I notice one or two of the letters are similar.

[Ioannis]

Actually it looks more than a very early Greek alphabet, especially that used by the Euboeans.

Euboean alphabet: http://www.ancientscripts.com/images/etruscan.gif

The Euboeans were the first Greeks to colonise Italy so it does make sense!

[Anabasis]

Wow, thanks Ioannis!

[Ioannis]

You're most welcome Michael!

[Quadratus]

Just an aside, but as I understand it, many ancient alphabets were designed - or evolved -primarily to be carved into wood or stone easily and therefore had as few curves as possible. In the case of most variants of the runic and ogham scripts, no curves at all.

As a result, quite apart from resemblance by direct descent - which is clearly present in this case - it is likely that any 'made for carving' script will have similarities with any other simply because there are only a limited number of things you can do with straight lines.

[hoplite14gr]

Well possibly the more rounded forms of letters started appearing late neolithic / ealy bronze age with the clay tablets.
But usually legends have it that alphabets were gifts of the solar daities and people wouldn´t dare easily to do something "heretic" with them.
Hope it helps Alan.

Kind regards

[FAVENTIANVS]

Look a this:



And this Lead plate: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... rita_1.jpg

[Dan Diffendale]

The Greeks borrowed the alphabet from the Phoenicians -- maybe not even in mainland Greece, but in the Euboean colony of Pithekoussai (Ischia) in the Bay of Naples, and the Etruscans borrowed it from the Greeks, maybe at Cumae, and Oscan-speakers borrowed the alphabet from the Etruscans -- though note that Oscan was also written in the Greek and Latin alphabets in different regions!

Be cautious also in describing peoples and languages. The Samnites spoke Oscan, but so did others. The Osci seem to originally have been an Oscan-speaking people on the Tyrrhenian coast who gave their name to the language they had in common with the interior, north and south. And, as I said, the Oscan alphabet is not coterminous with the Oscan language!

The runic alphabet was borrowed from the north Etruscan alphabet.