Oscan

Le projet de recherche Police pour les Inscriptions Monétaires (PIM) a pour objectif la création d’outils adaptés pour retranscrire les informations contenues dans les inscriptions monétaires, au-delà de leur contenu sémantique. Les informations textuelles et les caractéristiques graphiques présentes sur une monnaie peuvent fournir de nombreuses informations concernant son origine et la société dans laquelle elle a été frappée. Mais jusqu’à aujourd’hui, aucune fonte numérique ne pouvait retranscrire à la fois intégralement et fidèlement les inscriptions monétaires.

Ce billet, publié sur le blog de la BnF, vise d’abord à retracer la genèse du projet ainsi que les grandes étapes depuis l’annotation des monnaies de la BnF jusqu’à la réalisation des fontes.

La religiosità dei Sanniti. Cosmo Iannone, Isernia 2016 – preface by Dominique Briquel,

This book presents a brief but detailed and updated overview of the main problems concerning the religiosity of the Samnites, and particularly of the Samnites " Pentri " , who for centuries, in ancient times, were the fiercest amongst Rome's enemies. In order to do so, several thematic chapters have been developed where the general trends of the cults are introduced. The treatise also focuses on a few exemplary case-studies that contribute in a peculiar way to the understanding of the times, the spaces, the objects and the rites of this Italic civilization. These chapters are devoted to the following themes: • An introduction to the sources, the topics, and the studies of the Samnites' religiosity • The Italic ver sacrum • The funerary practices of the Samnites • The sacred places of the Samnites • The gods of the Samnites • The so-called " Tavola Osca " , a document of extraordinary historical value • The political-religious complex of Pietrabbondante and the supreme divine triad that was worshipped there • The triad from Pietrabbondante and the Indo-European comparative hypothesis A rich bibliography as well as a selection of images of meaningful sites and objects furnishes the text. Although the published works of archeologists, philologists, and epigraphists are considerably more numerous, the forms and the structures of the religious culture of the Samnites have not been to date amongst the most visited subjects by historians and anthropologists of religions in ancient Italy. This is in fact the first book that focuses on these themes from a historical-anthropological perspective exclusively. The treatise is introduced by two prefaces written by two eminent scholars: Dominique Briquel (Sorbonne, Paris) and Gianluca Tagliamonte (University of Salento, Lecce).

Argumenta:
In the small mountain villages and countryside of Southern Italy, there still lives a magical female tradition shrouded in mystery. These women are called Janare (singular Janara), and in popular folklore they are considered witches, devoted to the darkest and most evil of practices.
This dark reputation is mainly because of the Catholic Inquisition, and the works of a C17th Jewish doctor, who described them as devil worshippers. But in actuality, these women were, and still are above all, peasant healers and seers, capable of entering the world of invisible things. But as free women, the Janare have been seen historically as dangerous for the patriarchal peasant society of southern Italy.
(Article pubblished on Sacred Hoop Magazine - issue 111, March 2021)

Key words: witchcraft, folklore, cultural studies, janare, traditions, paesant magic

Data computerisation is a strategic element for the study and valorisation of cultural heritage. The final goal of this project is to collect the Oscan inscriptions from Samnium and to store them in a digital archive, taking into account all the related epigraphical, linguistic and archaeological aspects.

The article examines the various bindin0g formulas contained in the Oscan curse repertory consisting of 13 texts written on lead, to emphasize analogies and differences among these spells and those witnessed by defixiones belonging to other cultural traditions. The  author proposes several hypothesis for the comprehension of some Oscan forms.

The article considers various aspects of the oscan cursing tablets, particularly it examines the binding formulae, the cursing typologies and the thematic classification of these texts, comparing them with cursing tablets pertaining to other cultural areas. It considers also the textual and linguistic peculiar aspects of the oscan corpus, setting it in the context of linguistic studies and the history of magic.

L’articolo prende in considerazione vari aspetti della tavolette di maledizione osche; in particolar modo si prendono in esame le formule esecratorie, le varie tipologie di maledizione e la classificazione contenutistica di questi testi, ponendoli a confronto con le defixiones pertinenti ad altre aree culturali. Si prendono, inoltre, in considerazione i peculiari aspetti linguistici e testuali del corpus documentario osco, contestualizzandoli nell’ambito degli studi linguistici e della storia della magia.

In this paper, I provide a new way to read the “Sabine” gloss in Varro LL 5.97 substantiated by philological and linguistic arguments. While Varro explains Lat. porcus ‘pig’ as a loan word either from “Sabine” (apruno porco) or Greek (πορκη πορκος), it is clear that porcus is inherited from PIE. Based on the findings that both Lat. porcus as well as Umbr. abron- denote only the domesticated pig (and not the wild boar, as Lat. aper does), it is likely that the gloss apruno porco is Sabellic (Oscan) and denotes the “male domesticated pig”. It is furthermore argued that Gk. πόρκος ‘(kind of fish trap)’ is named after its pig-like shape and is thus cognate with Lat. porcus ‘pig’ etc.

Zusammenfassung: Die erste Etymologie des Ortsnamens ‚Casīnum‘ (heute: ‚Cassino‘, Latium), die uns bekannt ist, stammt von Varro (116-27 v. Chr.). In ‚De lingua latina‘ (7,29) erwähnt er im Kontext lateinischer und sabellischer Wörter für ‘alt’ auch den Namen des Ortes Casinum, der zu seiner Zeit noch ‚Forum Vetus‘ ‘altes Forum’ genannt werde. Diese und verschiedene moderne Etymologien des Ortsnamens werden im vorliegenden Aufsatz einer Überprüfung unterzogen, wobei Erkenntnisse der modernen Indogermanistik sowie außersprachliche Tatsachen mit in die Betrachtung einfließen. Nachdem die Semantik der Wurzel uridg. *k̑as- ‘weißlich glänzend, silbrig grau (von Oberflächen)’ herausgearbeitet worden ist, soll das Suffix nach-uridg. *-īno-, das in manchen Sprachen zur Bezeichnung geographischer Räume und schließlich zur Bildung von Ortsnamen Verwendung findet, untersucht werden. Aus lautchronologischen Gründen kann der Ortsname ‚Casīnum‘ als ursprünglich oskisch bestimmt und als Ableitung von einem Nomen *k̑as-o- (oder *k̑as-i-) ‘Nebel’ interpretiert werden. Das oskische Adjektiv *kasīno-, das im später als lat. ‚Casīnum‘ belegten Ortsnamen fortlebt, kann somit fogendermaßen paraphrasiert werden: ‘durch hohes Aufkommen von Nebel charakterisiert’.

Abstract: The first known etymology of the ancient place name ‚Casīnum‘ (modern: ‚Cassino‘, Lazio) was given by Varro (116-27 BCE) in his treatise ‚On the Latin language‘ (7,29). He mentions ‚Casīnum‘ among other Italic words based on the root it. *kas- ‘old’, noting that this city in his day was still called ‚Forum Vetus‘ ‘ancient forum/marketplace’. In the present paper, I will evaluate Varro’s etymology as well as various other, modern proposals in the light of recent insights in historical linguistics and considering extralinguistic facts. I will thereby identify the very meaning of the root PIE *k̑as- as ‘greyish white, shining (of surfaces)’ and examine the Indo-European background of the suffix post-PIE *-īno-. The latter was used to derive appellative adjectives which in some cases developed into place names. Furthermore, the relative and absolute chronology of certain sound laws suggests that the place name ‚Casīnum‘ is of Oscan provenience. Finally, it is possible to interpret it as derived from a noun *k̑as-o- (or *k̑as-i-) denoting the fog typical of the river valley at the edge of which the city in question is located. The Oscan adjective *kasīno- underlying the later Latin place name ‚Casīnum‘ can thus be paraphrased as ‘characterized by frequent fog’.

The Saussure’s Effect represents the loss of the laryngeal in the environments *#HRo and *-oRHC, primarily seen in Greek as described by Beekes (1969) . Nussbaum (1997) argued for the presence of the Saussure’s Effect in Italic, counting sollo ‘all, entire’ among the stronger examples. According to Nussbaum, the two possible preforms of sollo are *sol(h2)-ṷo- and *sol(h2)-no-, both of which would be an example of *-oRHC > *-oRC. Recently, Machajdíková (2013) argued in favour of *sol(h2)-no- as the only possible preform and in favour of it being an example of the Saussure’s Effect in Italic. However, van Beek (2011) and Pronk (2011) tend to limit the working of the Saussure’s Effect to Greek and their proposals regarding sollo do not take into account the possibility of *sol(h2)-no-. In this paper, I attempt to re-examine and modify the existing arguments in favour of the suffix *-no- and against *-ṷo-, primarily on the basis of the Sabellic material that has not, in my opinion, received sufficient attention so far. I argue that Oscan and Latin material pertaining to sollo supports the presence of the Saussure's Effect in Italic.

Der Eindruck, den das vorliegende Buch auf Rez. macht, ist durchweg positiv und wird durch die oben angeführten Kritikpunkte nicht geschmälert. Es handelt sich bei Z.s Studie zu diesem besonderen Teil des Oskischen um ein methodisch sehr gründliches, aber auch, bezüglich der konstruktiven Ergebnisse, fast desillusionierend ehrliches Buch. Z. konnte, ja musste Lejeunes Theorie zu den orthographischen Schulen widerlegen und korrigierte schließlich die Datierungen von insgesamt neun oskischen Inschriften in griechischer Schrift ins Diffusere (vgl. pp. 176f.), von denen eine (Lucania or Brettii or Sicilia 1/Lu 26) nun gar nicht mehr zu datieren ist. Z. bewegt sich sicher im klar abgegrenzten Material und scheut sich nicht, wiederholt auf die begrenzten Möglichkeiten desselben aufmerksam zu machen und auf zukünftige Funde zu bauen. Selten hat man den Eindruck, dass aus zu großer Demut vor der Evidenz auf eine plausible Schlussfolgerung verzichtet wurde; vielmehr bereiten verstreute Hinweise auf alternative Lösungsansätze Freude und regen zu eigenen Gedanken an.