Old Italic refers to several now extinct
alphabet systems used on the
Italian Peninsula in ancient times for various Indo-European (predominantly
Italic) and non-Indo-European (e.g.
Etruscan) languages.
The alphabets derive from the Euboean Greek Cumaean alphabet, used at Ischia and Cumae in the Bay of Naples in the eighth century BC. Cumaean, in turn, showed strong similarities to the Phoenician alphabet, lending support to theories of Phoenician influence in the West-Central Mediterranean region.
Various Indo-European languages belonging to the Italic branch (Faliscan and members of the Sabellian group, including Oscan, Umbrian, and South Picene, and other Indo-European branches such as Venetic and Messapic) originally used the alphabet. Faliscan, Oscan, Umbrian, North Picene, and South Picene all derive from an Etruscan form of the alphabet.
The Germanic runic alphabet was most likely derived from one of these alphabets in about the 2nd century.
