The Italic subfamily is a member of the Indo-European language family. It includes the Romance languages derived from Latin (Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Romanian, etc.), and a number of extinct languages of the Italian Peninsula, including Umbrian, Oscan, Faliscan, and Latin itself.
In the past various definitions of "Italic" have prevailed. This article uses the classification presented by the Linguist List (see under External links be...
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The Italic subfamily is a member of the Indo-European language family. It includes the Romance languages derived from Latin (Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Romanian, etc.), and a number of extinct languages of the Italian Peninsula, including Umbrian, Oscan, Faliscan, and Latin itself.
In the past various definitions of "Italic" have prevailed. This article uses the classification presented by the Linguist List (see under External links below): Italic includes the Latin subgroup (Latin and the Romance languages) as well as the ancient Italic languages (Faliscan, Osco-Umbrian and two unclassified Italic languages, Aequian and Vestinian). Venetic (the language of ancient Venice), however, is regarded as unclassified Indo-European, despite its influence on the modern Italian of the region.
In the extreme view, Italic did not exist, but the different groups descended directly from Indo-European and converged because of geographic contiguity. This view stems in part from the...
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