Messapic language
| Messapic | |
|---|---|
| Messapian | |
3rd–2nd century BC Messapic inscription | |
| Region | Apulian region of Italy |
| Ethnicity | Iapygians |
| Era | attested 6th to 2nd century BC |
Indo-European
| |
| Messapic alphabet | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | cms |
cms | |
| Glottolog | mess1244 |
Ethnolinguistic map of Italy in the Iron Age, before the Roman expansion and conquest of Italy | |
Messapic (/mɛˈsæpɪk, mə-, -ˈseɪ-/; also known as Messapian; or as Iapygian) is an extinct Indo-European Paleo-Balkanic language of the southeastern Italian Peninsula, once spoken in Salento by the Iapygian peoples of the region: the Calabri and Salentini (known collectively as the Messapians), the Peucetians and the Daunians. Messapic was the pre-Roman, non-Italic language of Apulia. It has been preserved in about 600 inscriptions written in an alphabet derived from a Western Greek model and dating from the mid-6th to at least the 2nd century BC, when it went extinct following the Roman conquest of the region.