From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lepontic is an extinct Celtic language that was spoken in parts of Cisalpine Gaul between 700 BC and 400 BC. Sometimes called Cisalpine Celtic, it is considered a dialect of the Gaulish language and thus a Continental Celtic language (Eska 1998).

The language is only known from a few inscriptions discovered that were written in the alphabet of Lugano, one of five main varieties of Northern Italic alphabets, derived from the Etruscan alphabet. These inscriptions were found in an area centered on Lugano, including Lago di Como and Lago Maggiore. Similar scripts were used for writing the Rhaetic and Venetic languages, and the Germanic runic alphabets probably derive from a script belonging to this group.

Lepontic was assimilated first by Gaulish, with the settlement of Gaulish tribes north of the River Po, and then by Latin, after the Roman Republic gained control over Gallia Cisalpina during the late second and first century BC.

The grouping of all of these inscriptions into a single Celtic language has been disputed, and some (including specifically all of the older ones) are said to be in a non-Celtic language related to Ligurian (Whatmough 1933, Pisani 1964). Under this view, which was the prevailing view until about 1970, Lepontic is the correct name for the non-Celtic language, while the Celtic language is to be called Cisalpine Gaulish. Following Lejeune (1971), the consensus view became that Lepontic should be classified as a Celtic language, albeit possibly as divergent as Celtiberian, and in any case quite distinct from Cisalpine Gaulish. Only in recent years, there has been a tendency to identify Lepontic and Cisalpine Gaulish as one and the same language.

While the language is named after the tribe of the Lepontii, which occupied portions of ancient Rhaetia, specifically an Alpine area straddling modern Switzerland and Italy and bordering Cisalpine Gaul, the term is currently used by many Celticists to apply to all Celtic dialects of ancient Italy. This usage is disputed by those who continue to view the Lepontii as one of several indigenous pre-Roman tribes of the Alps, quite distinct from the Gauls who invaded the plains of Northern Italy in historical times.

The older Lepontic inscriptions date back to before the 5th century BC, the item from Castelletto Ticino being dated at the 6th century BC and that from Sesto Calende possibly being from the 7th century BC (Prosdocimi, 1991). The people who made these inscriptions are nowadays identified with the Golasecca culture, that has been ascribed a Celtic identity (De Marinis, 1991). The extinction date for Lepontic is only inferred by the absence of later inscriptions.

• Eska, J. F. (1998). The linguistic position of Lepontic. In Proceedings of the twenty-fourth annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society vol. 2, Special session on Indo-European subgrouping and internal relations (February 14, 1998), ed. B. K. Bergin, M. C. Plauché, and A. C. Bailey, 2–11. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society.
• Eska, J. F., and D. E. Evans. (1993). "Continental Celtic". In The Celtic Languages, ed. M. J. Ball, 26–63. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-01035-7.
• Gambari, F. M., and G. Colonna (1988). "Il bicchiere con iscrizione arcaica de Castelletto Ticino e l'adozione della scrittura nell'Italia nord-occidentale". Studi Etruschi 54: 119–64. 
• Lejeune, M. (1970–71). "Documents gaulois et para-gaulois de Cisalpine". Études Celtiques 12: 357–500. 
• Lejeune, M. (1971). Lepontica. Paris: Société d'Éditions 'Les Belles Lettres'. 
• Lejeune, M. (1978). "Vues présentes sur le celtique ancien". Académie Royale de Belgique, Bulletin de la Classe des Lettres et des Sciences morales et politiques 64: 108–21. 
• Lejeune, M. (1988). Recueil des inscriptions gauloises: II.1 Textes gallo-étrusques. Textes gallo-latins sur pierre. Paris: CNRS. 
• Pisani, V. (1964). Le lingue dell'Italia antica oltre il latino, 2nd ed., Turin: Rosenberg & Sellier. 
• Tibiletti Bruno, M. G. (1978). "Ligure, leponzio e gallico". In Popoli e civiltà dell'Italia antica vi, Lingue e dialetti, ed. A. L. Prosdocimi, 129–208. Rome: Biblioteca di Storia Patria.
• Tibiletti Bruno, M. G. (1981). "Le iscrizioni celtiche d'Italia". In I Celti d'Italia, ed. E. Campanile, 157–207. Pisa: Giardini.
• Whatmough, J. (1933). The Prae-Italic Dialects of Italy, vol. 2, The Raetic, Lepontic, Gallic, East-Italic, Messapic and Sicel Inscriptions. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 
• AA.VV. and Prosdocimi, A.L. (1991). I Celti, pag.50-60, Lingua e scrittura dei primi Celti. Bompiani. 
• AA.VV. and De Marinis, R.C. (1991). I Celti, capìtol I Celti Golasecchiani. Bompiani.