Sabellian

Sabellian, a term used in both ethnography and linguistics, refers to two related concepts connected with ancient Italy. In ethnographic usage, it designates the peoples of central Italy who spoke Sabellian languages, especially the Sabines, and more broadly the Italic tribes of the Apennine region. The label is largely historical and is supplanted in contemporary scholarship by more precise ethnonyms.

In linguistics, Sabellian (often written as Sabellic) is a traditional branch of the Italic languages. This group includes the Osco-Umbrian languages, most notably Oscan and Umbrian, and several other extinct, poorly attested languages of central and southern Italy. In modern classifications, many scholars prefer the term Osco-Umbrian to describe this subgroup, with Sabellian/Sabellic appearing mainly in older literature.

The Sabellian languages are characterized by shared phonological developments and lexical features that set them apart from other Italic branches, though the exact internal classification has varied over time as new inscriptions and texts have been discovered. The use of the label reflects historical efforts to categorize the diverse Italic languages before the rise of Latin as the dominant language of the Italian peninsula.

Today, the ethnographic and linguistic senses of Sabellian are treated separately: the term remains a historical reference to certain central Italian peoples, and in linguistics it is largely superseded by the more widely adopted designation Osco-Umbrian. Still, Sabellian/Sabellic appears in many surveys of ancient Italic languages and their development.