Messapic | |
---|---|
Messapian | |
Region | Apulian region of Italy |
Era | attested 6th to 2nd century BC[1][2][3] |
Messapic alphabet[7] | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | cms |
cms | |
Glottolog | mess1244 |
![]() Ethnolinguistic map of Italy in the Iron Age, before the Roman expansion and conquest of Italy |
Messapic (/mɛˈsæpɪk, mə-, -ˈseɪ-/; also known as Messapian; or as Iapygian) is an extinct Indo-European Paleo-Balkanic language of the southeastern Italian Peninsula, once spoken in Salento by the Iapygian peoples of the region: the Calabri and Salentini (known collectively as the Messapii), the Peucetians and the Daunians.[8][9] Messapic was the pre-Roman, non-Italic language of Apulia. It has been preserved in about 600 inscriptions written in an alphabet derived from a Western Greek model and dating from the mid-6th to at least the 2nd century BC, when it went extinct following the Roman conquest of the region.[10][1][2]
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