Vénète

The vénète is a extinct Indo-European language, spoken formerly in Venezia, between the delta of the Po and the south of the the Alps.

The town of Venice would have been founded by vénètophones, called Veneti by the Romains and Enetoi by the Greek .

The language is attested by more than 250 inscriptions going back to Ve or Life centuries before J. - C., and disappeared in the neighborhoods from the first century BC, time to which the vénètophones were compared to Latin.

One should not confuse the vénète with the Vénitien, a language Romance E spoken today in this area.

Linguistic classification

The vénète is a language centum, the inscriptions being in an alphabet close to the old italic. The exact relation existing between the vénète and the other Indo-European languages is still to determine.

The vénète taken a long time in relation to the Illyrien, language which one knows very few things spoken in Balkans, but this assumption is rejected today by the majority of the specialists.

The majority of the scientists classify today the vénète in the Italic group (including/understanding the Latin , the Osque and the Ombrien). In particular, it has many similarities with the Latin , which can make suppose that the Latino-falisque and the Vénète constitute an old layer of settlement, separate into two group by the arrival of the Osco-Ombiens (assumption supported by Beeler, Porzig, Krahe, Hamp, Lejeune and Georgiev).

Parallels important were proposed with the Germanic Langues, particulièrment on the level of the pronouns:

Vénète: ego = I mego = me (accusative)

Gotique: ik , mik

German: ich , mich

Latin: ego , me

Vénète : sselboisselboi = with oneself

High German: selb selbo

German: sich selber

Latin: sibi ipsi

While being based on these similarities, some (Polomé, Safarewicz, Hirunuma, Bell-tower) affirm that the vénètes is an Indo-European language with share. However, these similarities are due only to the vocabulary, and one can explain them by exchanges dating from the time when the carriers of the Italic languages were neighborly those of the Germanic languages and also Slavic.

Radoslav Katičić also showed that the anthroponymy of the north-western zone of the old Roman province of Illyrie (which it calls “the north-Adriatic”), that is to say the country of the people liburne belongs to a vaster space anthroponymic, including/understanding the vénète worldwide, the Istrie, and going until the the Eastern Alps. The contiguous anthroponomymic zone, that it calls “dalmato-pannonienne”, corresponding to the countries of the Dalmates and the Iapodes at the time of the Roman conquest and being prolonged until in Pannonia, also refers many common with the first.

These discoveries draw a very new face with the Italic Langues, whose territory would be prolonged until in Central Europe.

Properties

The vénète had 6 or 7 nominal Cas and 4 Conjugaison S (in a way similar to Latin). One knows an about sixty words, some having been borrowed from Latin or the Etruscan . The majority point out Indo-European roots, for example: fraterei < IE *bhraterei = with the brother.

Examples

An inscription in vénète, found on a Nail in Bronze with Este:

Vénète: mego donasto śainatei reitiiai will porai will egeotora aimoi ke louderobos

Latin: me donavit sanatrici Reitiae bonae Egetora pro-Aemo that liberis French

An inscription found on a Situla in Cadore:

Vénète: eik goltanos doto will louderai kanei

Latin: difficulty Goltanus denies Liberae Cani French

: Goltanus sacrificed that for the virgin Canis

Source

Julius Pokorny (1959): Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch . Bern, 1959. Pages 708-709, 882-884.
Bernard Sergent (1995): the Indo-Europeans , Payot, Paris.

See too

External bonds

Of the vénète
Inscriptions vénètes of Adolfo Zavaroni
Database on the vénète
Víteliú: Old languages of Italy

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