Italic peoples

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The concept of Italic peoples is widely used in linguistics and historiography of ancient Italy. In a strict sense, commonly used in linguistics, it refers to the Osco-Umbrians and Latino-Faliscans, speakers of the Italic languages, a subgroup of the Indo-European language family. In a broader sense, commonly used in historiography, all the ancient peoples of Italy are referred to as Italic peoples, including the non-Indo-European ones, such as Rhaetians and Etruscans. The Italic peoples emerged from the Urnfield and Tumulus groups, who spread across Italy during the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age. Their distinctive material culture, known as the proto-Villanovan culture, appeared in parts of the Italian peninsula in the first half of the 12th century BC. As the Latins achieved a dominant position among these groups, by virtue of the expansion of the Roman civilization, the other Italic peoples adopted the Latin language and culture as part of the process of Romanization.

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