Back Idioma picenu septentrional AST Nordpikenische Sprache German Βόρεια Πικηνική γλώσσα Greek Idioma piceno septentrional Spanish Nord-picène French Lingua picena settentrionale Italian Noord-Piceens Dutch Język północnopiceński Polish Língua piceno setentrional Portuguese Северопиценский язык Russian
| North Picene | |
|---|---|
| (possible hoax [1]) | |
| Native to | Picenum |
| Region | Marche, Italy |
| Era | 1st millennium BCE[2] |
| Picene alphabets | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | nrp |
nrp | |
| Glottolog | nort1401 |
 Ethnolinguistic map of Italy in the Iron Age, before the Roman expansion and conquest of Italy | |
North Picene, also known as North Picenian or Northern Picene, is a supposed ancient language, which may have been spoken in part of central-eastern Italy; alternatively the evidence for the language may be a hoax, with the language never having existed. The evidence for the language consists of four inscriptions apparently dating from the 1st millennium BC, three of them no more than small broken fragments. It is written in a form of the Old Italic alphabet. While its texts are easily transliterated, none of them have been translated so far. It is not possible to determine whether it is related to any other known language. Despite the use by modern scholars of a similar name, it does not appear that North Picene is closely related to South Picene, and they may not be related at all. The total number of words in the inscriptions is about 60. It is not even certain that the inscriptions are all in one language.
The forerunner of the term North Picene was devised in 1933 by the linguist Joshua Whatmough, in Prae-Italic Dialects of Italy, a catalogue of texts in Italic languages. While neither Picene language could be read with any confidence at the time, Whatmough distinguished between six inscriptions in a central-east Italic language and all the rest southern. The northern later lost three and gained one.[3] Before that work, all the inscriptions had been lumped together under a variety of names, such as "Sabellic".
A 2021 study of the techniques used on the stone and other considerations claimed that all supposed North Picene inscriptions are forgeries created in the 19th century. In a book-length analysis of North Picene texts, Belfiore, Sefano and Alessandro stated regarding the longest text: "On the whole, iconographic, paleographic, and technical features suggest that this stele is a forgery." They came to the same conclusions about all other inscriptions considered to contain North Picene inscriptions.[1]
- ^ a b Belfiore, Valentina; Lugli, Stefano; Naso, Alessandro (2021). Novilara stelae: a stylistic, epigraphical, and technological study in a middle Adriatic epigraphical and sculptural context. Universitätsforschungen zur prähistorischen Archäologie. Bonn: Verlag Dr. Rudolf Habelt GmbH. ISBN 978-3-7749-4310-0.
- ^ North Picene at MultiTree on the Linguist List
- ^ Calvelli, Alberto. "Lingua e Scrittura". I Piceni (in Italian). antiqui. Retrieved 8 September 2010.