The language of the Sicilians in the Indo-European family tree

The Romans could not fail to notice the fact that the Latin language had many phonetic and syntactic similarities both with the language of the Hellenes and with that of the Sicilians, and their historical documents provided a very important support in this regard, since they synoptically affirmed that in Lazio they lived both Sicilians than Hellenes in more ancient times. Certainly, however, they could not have imagined that these similarities, that is this passage of isoglosses, actually dated back to the time of their Central European settlement and not to the chance second meeting in the Italian peninsula.

di Alexander Bonfanti

This article was born from the intent to make clearer and more accessible, especially to laymen, all the news on the Sicilian prisco ethnos that I have released in the previous article (which in turn is a continuation of the first, published last November 5, 2020, The Urvolk of megalithic culture). It must therefore be accepted as an in-depth study, but always in a preparatory form, of the previous one, as well as its continuation. What made me dwell on the same topic in the development of my program was the cordial correspondence between me and you readers, always in a very respectful and loyal way, appropriately asking me about certain long-standing quaestiones concerning other homonymous populations of Europe and also about the probability that some Sicilians would have spread even to more distant territories of our peninsula and my Sicily. As you have seen and read in my two previous articles (I always remind you that the first is of fundamental importance), I introduce not only many `` neologisms '' but also many new classifications, very often in total dissonance with what has so far been exposed by other scholars, who, some good and others less, still others brilliant and my Masters (above all Giacomo Devoto), have conducted research which however proved to be quite far from the truth.

Why am I saying this? In scientific empiricism, data accumulates, test after test, forming layers that are sometimes impenetrable and really difficult to untangle over time. But not all is lost or, worse, thrown away. A scholar can be wrong (and who doesn't this happen to?), And he can live his entire life having believed that the results of his experiments were correct. And then someone else arrives, who, based on the studies of this '' crazy '' character, taking him as an example, being even more '' crazy '', finally completes the great work, succeeding, finding the solution. This, for example, happened to the writer referring to Giacomo Devoto. Therefore, never denigrate what your predecessors did, since every structure stands brick by brick, and when the structure is close to failure, because something is not right, you learn its technique and improve it. It is a challenge, but also an act of faith towards one's Masters, towards those who, although humanly wrong, have given us the keys to access the treasures of wisdom. True Masters always expect their students to surpass them, otherwise they would have been good Masters. Without them there would never have been a beginning and therefore never perfection, so I owe so much to the great Master Giacomo Devoto. 

AB

Everyone, really all the scholars, James Devout including, they classified the language of the Sicilians as '' Indo-European language ''. The funny thing is that Giacomo Devoto himself, after having identified in the Italian peninsula a proto-Illyrian Indo-European layer, the first in his opinion, coming from the current Puglia, therefore from the Adriatic coast, did not attribute this Indo-European `` first layer '' to the Ausoni, nor to the Enotri, completely excluding the Sicilians. He then recognized a second Indo-European layer, the Latin and Faliscan one, to which the Sicilian also '' binds '' without giving any demonstration; and finally he identified the Osco-Umbrians in the Proto-Villanovan incineration culture group, which is completely wrong. All the other scholars have so far only followed this pattern. I took the liberty of overturning this pattern, which is so ancient and misleading. But then, where would these observations (or '' theories '') of Giacomo Devoto come from? Is simple. The first scholar to assign to the Siculus a derivation from the Latin-Faliscan branch was Karl Julius Beloch towards the end of the nineteenth century, and it was Giacomo Devoto who developed the still persistent idea that the Sicilian was the '' branch '' of the '' proto-Latin family '' settled in the south, testimony of an ancient continuum, then interrupted by the penetration into the Italian peninsula by the '' Italics '' Osco-Umbrians. Siculus would thus have been an '' Indo-European language of the Latin and not Italic type ''.

In short and to better understand, after Karl Julius Beloch and his theory, from the end of the XNUMXth century. the developments were these: Antonie Meillet, in the early 900s, he postulated a unitary "Italic" linguistic family, including Latin, Falisco, Siculus and Osco-Umbrian, flanking it in Northern Europe with the Celtic and Germanic groups; Alois Walde, again in the same period, on the other hand, he introduced the theory of the `` two Italic branches '', one comprising Latin, Falisco and Siculo, the other Osco-Umbrian, taking into consideration what was already formulated by August Schleicher about the proximity and therefore the common origin of the first branch with the Celtic group (or rather a part of it, that kw, that is the subgroup that later established itself both in the Iberian peninsula and in Ireland, namely Celtiberian and Goidelic / Gaelic, and therefore also the variants of Scotland and Isle of Man); and this model was followed by both Victor Pisani both by Giacomo Devoto.

Giacomo Devoto was the first, however, to postulate the first layer of Indo-Europeanization (but this too must be totally reviewed) peninsular of Balkan origin and dating back to the Ionian and Apulian coasts, excluding however the Sicilian, which, as already said, forcefully inserted into the Latin-Faliscan context, although without proof. What is most upsetting is that in these first attempts the Venetician escaped older scholars, who at that time did not know whether to '' pair it '' with the Celtic or Illyrian group, when it was quite evident how close this language was, '' sister '' in the true sense of the word, both in Latin and in Falisco (the language of the area of Falerii Veteres, today Civita Castellana, on the northern side of present-day Lazio): it is enough to adduce the treatment of bh- as f- and the verbal form of the first person singular of '' to be ''; two elements, these, which in the Sicilian are clearly close or identical to the proto-Illyrian and Illyrian ones. These theories still survive in universities all over the world, and there have been many attempts to update them and struggles against the majority who persist in carrying out studies based on no valid comparative evidence. 

I told you that the Sicilians have emerged from the proto-Illyrian macro-group, together with other populations, who at the same time with the Sicilians, starting from the Eenolithic (or Copper) age, have partly left the Balkan coast for the facing Italian peninsula: Sicilians e Liburnians, located further north, they reached the current regions of Romagna, Marche and Umbria, then, overcoming the Apennines, the Tuscan Maremma and Lazio; the Ausoni they reached the current Puglia and the Ionian Gulf, therefore Basilicata and part of Calabria, then reaching Campania and Lazio (Liri and Volturno rivers); the Enotri from the Peloponnese they reached Basilicata and Calabria giving life to the Enotria; later they arrived Peucezi e Cones, settling the former in Puglia, the latter in Basilicata; then i Messapians, settling in Salento; and finally i Dauni, now influenced by the culture of the urn fields (Ur-Celtic culture), which have settled in the northern part of Puglia.

But there were already other Indo-European populations on the peninsula and on the two major islands. THE Sicani they were spread a bit patchy: from present-day Liguria and north-western Tuscany up to Lazio, in most of the peninsular Tyrrhenian side, and finally in Sicily (Culture of Castelluccio di Noto, city of the writer). The Sicans are the result of the fragmentation of a very ancient Indo-European macro-group, which I called ''Sub-Carpathian'', having peculiar phonetic characteristics and craniometric peculiarities, but also an umbilical relationship with other populations deriving from the same Indo-European stock (i.e. the one that later gave life to the civilizations of the ancient Bronze Age in the Anatolian peninsula). Their typical cranial morphology is unmistakable: pentagonid / sphenoid skulls; skulls that I have even found in historically Celtic areas or where a certain Celtic influence has come. For example, in the famous Parisian catacomb, where from the end of the XNUMXth century they moved the bodies of the famous Cemetery of the Innocents in the center of Paris, making it a truly amazing ossuary (many of the skulls placed in the shape of a heart and in other arrangements are in fact pentagonoids); then in Iceland, an island where the Celtic-Irish element came together with the Norsemen (Celtic was the female one); and finally in Ireland and the Isle of Man. With this I do not say absolutely that the Sicans were a fraction of the Proto-Celtic group, but it is clear that the sub-Carpathian macro-group to which the Sicans belonged still has something in common with the first group, something that dates back to such a remote antiquity that escapes us, although in Sicily, especially on the eastern side, Ibleo, many castelluccian remains are affected by the dolmenic cultural influence (Castelluccio di Noto, Cava Lazzaro, Contrada Paolina etc. .).

I Ligurians, all of which gossip about their '' non '' Indo-Europeanity, are also the result of a fragmentation of a very ancient macro-group of Indo-European origin (I explain this extensively in my books). The same Francis Villar, the very illustrious prof. of Salamanca, identifies at least five linguistic layers in the Ligurian, classifying four as Indo-European, while on the other it vacillates with this vague '' Mediterranean ''. In reality, that first layer is of undisputed Indo-Europeanity, and I do not understand how neither he nor others have noticed it up to now. I have already given an in-depth explanation of all these linguistic layers that make up Ligurian, Ligurian culture and spirituality, the origin of their ethnonym, always alongside the anthropometric data. 

Same Etruscans, which all indicate "Mediterranean" (even Prof. Mario Alinei for "ancestors of the Turks"); who indicates them as '' Asians '', perhaps thinking of the Lydians, who were later Indo-Europeans; who thinks they were who knows what else; in reality they were the result of a synecism, the founding nucleus of which was made up of a small group of the culture of the urn fields (therefore ur-Celts), to which many other ethnic elements have joined over time, but always Indo-European , including Ligurians, proto-Illyrians (Pelasgians), Osco-Umbrians, Terramaricoli (proto-Latins and Falisci), a substantial group of Shardana Anatolians by now established in Sardinia, giving impetus to the mature Nuragic phase of the tholoid type, and then many other Hellenic and Anatolian elements, very influential from a technological and cultural point of view (the Etruscans drew a lot from the first Hellenic colonizers, the so-called orientalizing style '' is in fact an absolutely Hellenic contribution, not directly Anatolian, although the Hellenes had merged their original vision with the Anatolian-Eastern one, still Indo-European). The linguistic result was an incredible pidgin, a creolization that drove anyone crazy in deciphering their inscriptions. Here too I have made use of anthropometric, glottological and linguistic comparisons (attention, Glottology and Linguistics are not the same thing !!), cultural. Just think, one of the most important theonyms of the Etruscan Pantheon is tinya, God of lightning and thunder, corresponding to the Germanic theonym Donate/Thor and the Celtic theonym Taranis. But don't you notice the same succession of phonetic elements: apico-dental (deaf-voiced) + nasal + vibrating (the latter with a certain degree of mobility, precisely because it is a sonorous element, therefore not a consonant)? Our lemmas '' thunder '' and '' tone '' have an umbilical link with this semantic root, an absolutely Indo-European radical element, haud doubt.

- Osco-Umbrian were the bearers of the Pit tomb culture in Italy and the first to arrive. They brought the well-known battle ax as a cultural model to the times of the Remedello Culture, during the Copper Age, first settling in Northern Italy. Going further south they fought against the Proto-Illyrian Sicilians and Liburnians, eventually conquering their lands and forcing the Liburnians to return to the Balkans (in part they then returned to Italy again) and the Sicilians to cross the Apennines until reaching the Tuscan Maremma and upper Lazio (the final phase of the Rinaldone culture and the beginning of the proto-Apennine one).  Pliny the Elder in the Naturalis Historia says (book III, 14, 112): Umbrians eos expulere, hos Etruria, hanc Galli. '' The Umbrians expelled them [Siculi and Liburnians], the Etruscans the Umbrians, the Gauls the Etruscans ''. Shortly after, on the Etruscans (par. 113): ... trecenta eorum oppida Tusci eradicated reperiuntur, '' [it is said that] the Etruscans [bringing war to the Umbrians] defeated and took 300 of their cities ''. It was therefore the Etruscans, indeed the first nucleus of the Etruscans, to bring the Urnfield culture e the use of incinerating corpses, not the Osco-Umbrians who have always practiced inhumation in underground chamber tombs. These underground chamber tombs were in turn used by a part of the Etruscans both in Tuscany and in Campania, where they brought other decorative models. In Campania there are Samnite pit tombs with the typical pictorial wall decoration depicting triumphal scenes of the '' return of the warrior '', such as that of Paestum, and contemporary Etruscan ones with symposial scenes, such as that of the '' diver ''.

I proto-Latins, and so i False, descended at a later time from the north peninsular, being the epigones of the Terramaric culture, which was characterized both by the infusion and by the cremation but within vascular urns, and which in Lazio soon became involved in the Proto-Villanovan culture (taking with it also a good part of the proto-Illyrian Ausoni) evolving into the famous one faces that Lazio culture (XNUMXth-XNUMXth century BC), that is that of the Albani Mountains, characterized by urns in the shape of a chapel or small house with pronaos in antis (typical element of the Etruscan Villanovan). The Ligurians passed from the infusion within a lithic cyst (as in the cultural horizon of Remedello and also of the bell-shaped glass) to cremation, a rite imported from the Celts to Italy (the Ligurians soon became part of the Celtic culture of Golasecca). The last to arrive were the Venetians, i.e. the ancient Venetians, related to the proto-Latins, the Falisci and the older Osco-Umbrians (I will explain why), who, now influenced by the culture of the urn fields, spread the Atestine culture, characterized by the deposition of ashes in bronze situlae. 

The macro-groups are identified through the isoglossal system, even at the laryngeal level, not only phono-component. In the distant Neolithic, in the heart of Europe there were the following macro-groups: between the Rhine and Elbe the one from which Proto-Latins (the future Romans) emerged, the Paleoveneti or Venetics (commonly called Veneti) and the Osco- Umbrian, bordering to the West and North respectively with proto-Celts and the group from which all the Germans, and to the East, beyond the Elbe with the proto-Illyrian macro-group, progenitor of the Sicilians; between Elba and Vistula there was the proto-Illyrian one, bordering to the north with the Germanic one, to the west with the groups of the eastern branch, precisely Indo-Iranian, to the south (as well as the macro-group from which the proto-Latins come) with the Proto-Hellenic / Macedonian / Peonius / Phrygian macro-group; the macro-group from which the Hellenes, bordering to the East with the whole eastern Arius branch, that satəm. Over time all these peoples have moved, always changing location and until reaching the final one, where we have known them historically. You have to imagine a chessboard of the game of checkers, where the black and white pawns must reach the goal on the opposite side, creating all that asymmetrical arrangement in the development of the game: like this all these Indo-European groups approached and moved away, exchanging isoglosses every time, the detection of which gives precise and unequivocal clues about the period and place in which the contact took place.

All Indo-European languages ​​are characterized by the consonant rotation (in our jargon Lautverschiebung), not being the prerogative of the Germanic group alone, and it is a phenomenon that is always in progress, caused by the phonetic traction or thrust chains. Therefore consonant rotations always act and are more than one. Even the Sanskrit it has had its consonant rotations and has innovated in the vowels, precisely because the vocalism is determined by the laryngal isoglosses. Those who think that Sanskrit is the closest Indo-European language to the original Indo-European, are unfortunately wrong. The ancient Greek, although it too had its consonant rotations, it presents the vocalism closest to the ancestral situation: the diphthongs, in fact, have been perfectly preserved.

The Illyrian macro-group is characterized by this phoneticism (here I present only a fraction of the characterizing phonetic spectrum for obvious reasons of space and above all of simplicity): d- dh-; -t- <-dh-; b- bh-; -b- <-bh-; k- kh-; -k- <-kh-. The Proto-Latin / Paleo Veneto / Osco-Umbrian macro-group gave the following result: in Proto-Latin f- dh-; -b- / -d- <-dh-; f- bh-; -b- <-bh-; k- kh-; -kh- <-kh-; in Paleoveneto f- dh-; -d- <-dh-; f- bh-; -b- <-bh-; k- kh-; -kh- <-kh-; in Osco-Umbrian f- dh-; -f- <-dh-; f- bh-; -f- <-bh-; k- kh-; -kh- <-kh-. The Proto-Hellenic / Macedonian / Peonius / Phrygian macro-group gave the following result: in Proto-Hellenic th- dh-; -th- <-dh-; f- bh-; -f- <-bh-; kh- kh-; -kh- <-kh-; in Macedonian and Peonio d- dh-; -d- / -t- <-dh-; b- bh-; -b- <-bh-; kh-/k- kh-; -kh- <-kh-; in Phrygian d- dh-; -d- / -t- <-dh-; b- bh-; -b- <-bh-; kh-/k- kh-; -kh- <-kh-. Keeping in mind that the following signs refer to: phoneme- '' proto-syllabic position ''; -phonema- '' infra-syllabic position ''.

And now a practical example: starting from the Indo-European bhrāίtēr '' brother '' we have the following attestations, in Latin frater ; in Venetic frater; in Osco-Umbrian frater; in Sicilian Brater (applies to other peoples of the same stock); in ancient Greek we have φρατρία (i.e. the well-known aristocratic camaraderie of the archaic period, to be compared with its corresponding Sanskrit bhrātrya-m, lemma that derives from the oldest and little known φράτηρ, an Attic form detectable in the Lexicon of Hesychius, and in the Ionic form φρήτηρ); but in Epirus, an area where the Pelasgian proto-Illyrian element was very influential we have βρα, transliterated bra, that is, the truncated form of Brater; in Macedonian / Peonio / Phrygian we have instead Brater; in Old Irish brath(a)ir; in Norse bróir/brǿðr; in Lithuanian brozis/brolis; in Sanskrit bhrātā < bhrāītar.

If I take a verb having the same phonetic composition at the radical level and therefore coming from the same semantic field, such as '' to bring '', from the ancestral form bhéremi '' [I] bring '' we have the following attestations: in Latin fero; in Venetic fero; in Osco-Umbrian fero; in Sicilian drink me; in ancient Greek φέρω; in Macedonian / Peonio / Phrygian I will drink; in Old Irish blue; in Irish beir (with you); in Norse drink, in Gothic (East Germanic) baíran; in Sanskrit bhárami. And again, for the '' red '' color we have it from the ancestral root reudh-: in Latin ruber, but together with the Ausonius proto-Illyrian substratum of Rutilius (think of the ethnonym of the Rutuli, of Ausonian lineage) and the Oscan substratum of Rufus; in Sicilian rutus; in ancient Greek ἐρυϑρός (with e- prosthetic for concealing double aspiration in rh- and -th-); in Old Irish ruad; in Norse rjóða ''redden''; the Lithuanian raũdas/Red; in Sanskrit rakta(ḥ)/rudhira '' blood red '' / '' blood '' / '' ruby ​​red '' (in addition to the shape rṓhita-).

And finally I take for example a classic of comparison, the first person singular of the verb '' to be '', of which we have starting from the ancestral form is my '' [I] am '': in Latin catfish < that; in Venetico and Osco-Umbrian that (all three from an ancestral form typical of the macro-group in question exomes, presenting this o epentetic, that is of '' insertion '', in the vowel case called anaptissi, originating from the nasolabial sonante m̥); in Sicilian hemi > iemi, typically dialectal variant with aspiration of the Illyrian municipality emi (as in the Elimi), in turn from is my; in ancient Greek εἰμί (Ionic-Attic form); in Irish (OK) I; in Norse (ek) em; in Lithuanian (me) esu, in Sanskrit asthma. Think also of the phonetic comparison between the two weight systems in use in ancient times, respectively, between the Latin peoples of Lazio and the Sicilians in eastern Sicily: the prisca pound latina and the liter Sicilian. Pound Latin and liter sicula both come from the Indo-European root leudh- '' liberate '' (but also '' divide '' and '' break down into several parts / divide ''), the same semantic root from which the ethnic name of the Anatolian Indo-European Lydians comes.

And finally, the Indo-European root aidh- '' to turn on '' gave the following results: in ancient Greek αἴϑω (aitho) '' to burn ''; in Latin aedes '' hearth '', which later became a '' temple '' by synecdoche; in Sanskrit ēdhas '' fire '' and '' firewood ''; in Old English to ''heat''; in modern English heat '' light / heat '' or '' burn ''; and in Siculus hat-om ''hearth''. From the Sicilian radical form effect- derive both the toponym of my city, Noto, and the oronym of Etna. The toponym would have initially referred to a vicanic area known as hatom, the '' Focolare '', located in Contrada Aguglia, just above Contrada Testa dell'Acqua, towards Palazzolo Acreide, in a time of Sicilian prehistory referable to the Late Bronze Age; and subsequently to the new vicanic plant on Monte Alveria (Noto Antica), taking the new name Neuom Hatom, that is '' New Focolare ''. The Sicilians then came into contact (starting from the XNUMXth century BC) with the new arrivals, the Greek colonists, from whom they would have drawn another form of language, creating a situation of diglossia, which would have incorporated the toponym in its new Hellenic form Neon Aithon (Hellenic or Sicilian cast), but with the fall of the ending suffix -on in the first element and the subsequent crasis between the two lemmas, thus becoming Neathon.

The Sicilians did not pronounce the aspirated sounds of primitive Indo-European and therefore the new toponym became Neaiton, as the literary tradition has always attested to it. It is thus in the case of Neaiton, of a Greek toponym coined on a cast of a previous Sicilian toponym, but in turn assimilated by the Sicilians themselves and according to the phonetic rules of the Sicilian language, which eliminated aspirations in certain phonetic contexts. The name of the Etna volcano also has the same root: in ancient Greek Αἴτνα (a form derived from a previous and more genuinely Hellenic Αἴθνα), the result of an acquisition and re-adaptation of the original Sicilian name Hatna.

But why then did many of these scholars do nothing but persevere with this Latin-Sicilian '' filiation ''? The answer is simple: they have read ancient sources without scrutinizing them with all scientific trappings. Now, the Ancients spoke the truth, but a truth overshadowed by the appearance that cloaked the reality of their time, seeing effects without contemplating the causes, or rather if not the intermediate causes and not those ab origine. That's all. I proceed in the demonstration, follow me. It is enough to read Varro's text, because the misunderstanding was born from there. 

Varro, in fact, it says in Of the Latin language (book V, 101): lepus quod Siculi quidam Graeci dicunt λέποριν: in Rome quod orti Siculi, ut annales veteres nostra dicunt, fortasse hinc illuc tulerunt et hic reliquerunt id nomen. '' The hare, which by the Sicilians like the Greeks [those Aeolians of which we will read below] was called leporin [acc. sing. of λέπυς / lépus]: since the Sicilians come from Rome, as our ancient annals tell, and probably from here [from Lazio] to there [in Sicily, where the Hellenes also settled] this name brought this name and here [in Lazio ] left him. '' And again Varrone in De re rustica (book III, 12, 6) says: λέποριν a Greek ancient word dicunt leporem, quod eum Aeoles Beotii λέποριν appellabant. ''leporin [acc. sing. by λέπυς /leper], from an ancient Greek gloss, they say the hare, because the Aeolians of Boeotia called it leporin [acc. sing. by λέπυς /lepus] ''.

To which is added the testimony of Dionysus of Halicarnassus in book I of Roman antiquities (20, 1-4) about the '' presumed '' derivation of the Latin language from a specific Hellenic dialect spoken in the Peloponnese, complete with a comparative scheme between corresponding glosses both phonetically and semantically (Peloponnesian dialect in turn associated with Pelasgic and 'Enotrio), in which' 'to a Hellenic / Pelasgic-enotria gloss beginning with a vowel very often corresponds in Latin the exact same one beginning in u'', i.e. in the known digamma (w) indoeuropeo: (20, 1) Ἐλθοῦσι δὴ τοῖς Ἀβοριγῖσι σὺν πολλῇ στρατιᾷ ἱκετηρίας οἱ Πελασγοὶ προτείνοντες ὁμόσε χωροῦσιν ἄνοπλοι φράζοντές τε τὰς ἑαυτῶν τύχας καὶ δεόμενοι πρὸς φιλίαν δέξασθαι σφᾶς συνοίκους οὐ λυπηροὺς ἐσομένους, ἐπεὶ καὶ τὸ δαιμόνιον αὐτοὺς εἰς τήνδε μόνην ἄγει τὴν χώραν, ἐξηγούμενοι τὸ λόγιον. (2) Τοῖς δὲ Ἀβοριγῖσι ταῦτα πυθομένοις ἐδόκει πείθεσθαι τῷ θεοπροπίῳ καὶ λαβεῖν συμμαχίαν Ἑλληνικὴν κατὰ τῶν διαφόρων σφίσι βαρβάρων, πονουμένοις τῷ πρὸς τοὺς Σικελοὺς πολέμῳ. Σπένδονταί τε δὴ πρὸς τοὺς Πελασγοὺς καὶ διδόασιν αὐτοῖς χωρία τῆς ἑαυτῶν ἀποδασάμενοι τὰ περὶ τὴν ἱερὰν λίμνην, ἐν οἷς ἦν τὰ πολλὰ ἑλώδη, ἃ νῦν κατὰ τὸν ἀρχαῖον τῆς διαλέκτου τρόπον Οὐέλια ὀνομάζεται. (3) Σύνηθες γὰρ ἦν τοῖς ἀρχαίοις Ἕλλησιν ὡς τὰ πολλὰ προτιθέναι τῶν ὀνομάτων, ὁπόσων αἱ ἀρχαὶ ἀπὸ φωνηέντων ἐγίνοντο, τὴν <ου> συλλαβὴν ἑνὶ στοιχείῳ γραφομένην. ? (4) Ἔπειτα μοῖρά τις αὐτῶν οὐκ ἐλαχίστη, ὡς ἡ γῆ πᾶσιν οὐκ ἀπέχρη, πείσαντες τοὺς Ἀβοριγῖνας συνάρασθαί σφισι τῆς ἐξόδου στρατεύουσιν ἐπὶ τοὺς Ὀμβρικοὺς … '' (20, 1). "In fact, when the Aborigines arrived with so many militias, the Pelasgians raised olive branches and unarmed presented themselves, telling of their fate and praying that they would welcome them with friendship in those places, to live there with them, without being a burden, since the oracle there precisely he directed them and there the oracle exhibited. (2) Hearing this from the Aborigines, it seemed to them that they obeyed the oracle and received so many Greeks as allies against their barbarian enemies, now weary of the war against the Sicilians. They therefore came to the sacred pacts with the Pelasgians and dividing themselves of it, they divided their land around that sacred lagoon, swampy in many places, which is still called from the ancient dialect Velia [what in ancient Greek was Elijah]. (3) In fact, in the ancient dialect the Greeks used to place one before it if a word began with a vowel u, figured with a single sign, which was twice the size of a range [F]: it means a straight line with two crosspieces in front, as the voices have it Felene, Fanax, Foikos, Faer [ie Uelene, Uanax, Uoikos, Uaer] and many others. (4) After that, a not small part of the Pelasgians, since the land was not enough for everyone, persuaded the Aborigines to join in the battle that led to the Umbrians ... '' [all translations in articles signed by the author are always by the author himself; this, in particular, can be read in the essay Indo-European Sicilians. The Nordic origins of Ethnos. Volume I].

It was easy for these ancient scholars to determine a genealogy between the languages ​​of their time, in this case between Latin, Sicilian and various Hellenic dialects. In this we must never forget that the physical type, that is the phenotype, also played an important part: they perceived them as similar in appearance and costumes, as well as in language, just as today a Norwegian would do towards a Swede. or a Dane. The Romans and the Greek-speaking historians who lived there like Dionysus of Halicarnassus could not fail to notice that the Latin language had many phonetic and even syntactic similarities with both the languages ​​of the Hellenes and that of the Sicilians; and their historical documents provided very important support in this regard, since all these documents synoptically stated that in Lazio, homeland of the Romans, both Sicilians and Hellenes lived there in the most ancient times. Of course, however, the Romans could never imagine that these similarities, that is, this passage of isoglosses actually dated back to the time of their Central European settlement and not to their chance second meeting in the Italian peninsula.

The fact is that in the first Central European settlement all these macro-groups would have exchanged isoglosses, precisely because the effect of migration creates this phenomenon; but this would have been impossible in their second meeting, here in Italy, to be exact in Lazio, as this would have created a creolization effect that would be very evident today. But it is true that Sicilians and Hellenes inhabited Lazio until the Bronze Age (in the Hellenic case even later), as there are archaeological evidence, in addition to the historical ones preserved by the Romans of the XNUMXst century. BC This is evident, but how could the Romans of the XNUMXst century ever know? BC than I am showing now? They were not linguists, archaeologists or anthropologists. But the reality did not escape them because they were very intelligent.

This isoglossal system actually formed during the Neolithic, setting the first wave Kurgan of the Eastern Indo-European branch in the mid-fifth millennium BC In fact, the Sicilians themselves began to migrate from the Balkans to central Italy during the Eneolithic, therefore between the second half of the fourth millennium BC and the first half of the third millennium BC But proto-Latins and Sicilians met again in Lazio during the fifteenth sec. BC, and with the Hellenes starting from the final Bronze, ie from the XNUMXth century. BC, when most of the Sicilians had already occupied eastern Sicily. But it is surprising how someone like Dionysus of Halicarnassus made a excursus on digamma, which among other things was no longer present, or rather evident, both in the Latin language and in the Greek idiom of its time. But he detected it and was able to make a comparative scheme between the two languages, making them related. You see, Sicilian cannot be placed in the family tree alongside Latin and Osco-Umbrian, because the relative phonetic spectra are different, although deriving from a common one. 

---

APPENDIX:
Personal searches in the area of ​​Monte Finocchito

Before moving on to anything else, I want to add something of my own, completely personal. This is an anticipation of my research, often conducted on sunny Sundays, the last of which fruitfully conducted in Contrada Pantanello, at the foot of the Mount Finocchito, and surroundings. TO Contrada Pantanello, always looking for ancient vestiges of Sicilian settlements, for years I have stopped to enjoy the coolness within one Paleochristian catacomb of the IV-V century. (it was vulgar, of course), developing in two lines of about 10 m. and about 2 m wide. (now in a state of enlargement due to the reuse of the environment as a stable or sheepfold).

The necropolis has two entrances, one leading to a circular chamber of about 8 m. in diameter and anti-entry of 3 m. approximately. In the main room, which in the external adjacency has a kind of arcosolium which recalls in the layout a tomb with an artificial Sicilian cave, evacuated and readapted as a small room for prayer and offerings, or perhaps as an area reserved for the keeper, several arcosoli have been excavated inside it (burial areas whose entrance is constituted from a natural arch, obtained from the chiselling of the rock wall), 4 to be precise and quite large, a room, two of which are equipped with stone beds and niches. Then follows the first aisle, about 10 m long. and flanked by both walls by stacks of rectangular section niches and arcosoles perhaps polysomes, which are in turn surmounted by other niches (the arcosoles are perhaps all polysomes, given their width, and have different depths (up to 3 o 4 m. And a width of 2 m .; the niches have a length that varies between 1,60 m. And 1,90 m. Approximately, therefore for female and male individuals, but there are also small for the unripe).

We come to the second lobby, thus ending the path alongside a chamber tomb supported by a pillar (therefore with two entrances) and equipped with oculus both at the entrance and inside to receive sunlight directly from the outside; from there the atrium flanks a second to the left large room equipped with oculus, today partitioned by masonry in limestone blocks of more recent construction; a new arcosolium follows inwards, flanked by an anti-chamber equipped with stacks of niches; then the second corridor, whose distance is equal to the first and is also flanked by a series of arcosoli and stacks of niches (however larger niches, 1,90 m. each, while the arcosoli have the same dimensions as those of the first corridor) . The orientation of the catacomb is as follows: main entrance to the north; second entrance to the East; first West-East corridor (ending in the second entrance); second corridor to the South-West. In the plan it is presented in the shape of a V. 

In the district above (whose name I do not yet know, also because there are many, sometimes not coinciding in the name derived from the cadastral tables with that learned from the chat with the residents) there are traces of Sicilian settlements of the age of faces del Monte Finocchito: traces of circular huts of about 10 m. in diameter. This is 2 clan huts today separated by the uphill dirt road, of which the one to the north has a rectangular entrance, like a kind of walkway. Both huts have the ruins of an ancient elevation on a foundation (modeled limestone marl and following the best practices) consisting of large irregular blocks of calcareous marl, as well as the holes where the supporting wooden poles stood; a little further on, towards the South-West, there is a rectangular layout, probably the vestiges of a Anaktoron, a noble palace, where the Dux (the Sicilians did not have the `` King '', but a council of elders of high lineage who elected as primus inter pares un Dux, as told by Diodorus Siculus on the escort of Antiochus and Philistus of Syracuse), with light between the foundation curbs carved into the calcareous marl of about 10 m. and traces of holes in the bearing pole with a center distance of about 3 m; each hole for supporting pole has a diametrical width of 18,5 cm. x 22 cm.