WestItalisch

WestItalisch (West Italic) is a historical term used in the study of Italic languages to designate the western branch of the Italic language family. The concept groups languages thought to have originated in the western portion of the Italic-speaking area, as opposed to East Italic languages such as Osco-Umbrian.

Unambiguously, the best-attested West Italic languages are Latin and Faliscan. Latin became the dominant language of much of the Italian peninsula, while Faliscan is known from a smaller corpus of inscriptions from the region west of Rome. Other western varieties are poorly documented, and their precise classification is a matter of scholarly debate.

Proto-West Italic is reconstructed by some scholars as the common ancestor of Latin and Faliscan, diverging from East Italic branches in the early first millennium BCE. The evidence comes from comparative phonology, morphology, and a limited set of inscriptions. Because Latin has far more documentation, West Italic studies are largely driven by Latin data, with Faliscan contributing important but fragmentary corroboration.

Today the term West Italic is less prominent in some classifications, where Latin and Faliscan are placed in Latino-Faliscan, and East Italic languages form a separate branch. Nevertheless, West Italic remains a useful historical concept for tracing early divergence within the Italic group and for understanding the prehistory of Latin and its closest relatives.