TESTI EPIGRAFICI E SOCIOLINGUISTICA STORICA: LE ‘DEFIXIONES’ SANNITE

Abstract

This paper aims at distinguishing what pertains to stylistic varieties and what to sociolects in historical linguistics. Several texts in Oscan language containing curses (defixiones), both in enchoric and Greek scripts, have been analyzed, in order to ascertain the efficacy of modern sociolinguistic categories within a traditional diachronic frame. On the grounds of thorough inspection of specific markers, such as the presence of right dislocation, the dropping of final /m/, of anteconsonantal /n/, of final /d/ and of semiconsonantal /j/ in the long diphthong /o:j/, all occurring in the so-called Vibia’s curse, the defixio Vetter 6 is interpreted as a typical product of a low variety of Oscan from the sole diastratic point of view.