A. General
Pre-Roman Italian shows an astonishing linguistic variety, which is definable in terms of at least four Indo-European branches, namely the Italic branch ( Latin, Faliscan, Oscan-Umbrian, Venetic), the Celtic branch ( Celtic languages: Lepontic, Gaulish), the Messapian branch (Illyric?), and the Greek branch (see stemma). Indo-European languages of (as yet) unknown assignm…