Sabine

Sabine refers to a number of related topics centered on the ancient Sabines, an Italic people who inhabited the central Apennine region of Italy in the early first millennium BCE. They were neighbors of the Latins and Etruscans, and they appear in Roman history through records of wars and alliances with Rome, including the legendary episode often called the Rape of the Sabine Women.

The Sabine language is the extinct Italic language spoken by the Sabines. It is classified within the Sabellian group of the Osco-Urmic branch of Italic languages and is known from a limited corpus of inscriptions and onomastic evidence. In linguistic studies, it is compared with related Sabellian languages such as Umbrian and Oscan to understand contact among ancient Italic peoples.

Geographically, the name Sabine remains in modern places and features. The Sabine River forms part of the border between Texas and Louisiana. There is a Sabine Parish in Louisiana and a Sabine County in Texas, among other geographic usages that derive from the river and the historic region associated with the Sabines.

Sabine is also used as a given name, primarily feminine in German-speaking countries and in France, rooted in the ethnonym of the ancient people. It may also appear as a surname in some instances. The term therefore spans ancient history, linguistics, geography, and contemporary onomastics.