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Samnium ((イタリア語:Sannio)) is a Latin exonym for a region of Southern Italy anciently inhabited by the Samnites. Their own endonyms were ''Safinim'' for the country (attested in one inscription and one coin legend) and ''Safineis'' for the The language of these endonyms and of the population was the Oscan language. However, not all the Samnites spoke Oscan, and not all the Oscan-speakers lived in Samnium. The ancient geographers were unable to relay a precise definition of Samnium's borders. Moreover, the areas it included vary depending on the time period considered.〔. "The boundaries of Samnium, as of any other country, varied at different times in its history. No ancient writer has left a precise and accurate description of them."〕 The main configurations are the borders it had during the ''floruit'' of the Oscan speakers, from about 600 BC to about 290 BC, when it was finally absorbed by the Roman Republic. This originary Samnium should not be confused with the later territory of the same name. Rome's first Emperor, Augustus, divided Italy into 11 regions.〔Listed in the ''Descriptio Italiae'', lost to moderns, but serving as the basis of Pliny the Elder's description of Italy.〕 Although these entities only served administrative purposes, and were identified with the sole numeral, by scholarly convention the ''Regio IV'' has been dubbed "''Samnium''". Ancient Samnium had actually been split up into three of the Augustan regions.〔IV, II ("''Apulia et Calabria''"), and I ("''Latium et Campania''").〕 The name survives in Italian today, but it defines only a small portion of what it once was - virtually, only the Province of Benevento. ==Etymology== Etymologically the name Samnium is generally recognized to be a form of the name of the Sabines, who were Umbrians.〔.〕 From Safinim, Sabinus, Sabellus and Samnis an Indo-European root can be extracted, *sabh-, which becomes Sab- in Latino-Faliscan and Saf- in Osco-Umbrian: Sabini and *Safineis. The eponymous god of the Sabines, Sabus, seems to support this view. The Greek terms, Saunitai and Saunitis, remain outside the group. Nothing is known of their origin. At some point in prehistory, a population speaking a common language extended over both Samnium and Umbria. Salmon conjectures that it was common Italic and puts forward a date of 600 BC, after which the common language began to dialectize. This date does not necessarily correspond to any historical or archaeological evidence; developing a synthetic view of the ethnology of proto-historic Italy is an incomplete and ongoing task. The linguist, Julius Pokorny, carries the etymology somewhat further back. Conjecturing that the -a- was altered from an -o- during some prehistoric residence in Illyria he derives the names from an o-grade extension *swo-bho- of an extended e-grade *swe-bho- of the possessive adjective, *s(e)we-, of the reflexive pronoun, *se-, "oneself" (the source of English self). The result is a set of Indo-European tribal names (if not the endonym of the Indo-Europeans): Germanic Suebi and Semnones, Suiones; Celtic Senones; Slavic Serbs and Sorbs; Italic Sabelli, Sabini, etc., as well as a large number of kinship terms. The general concept is "our own kith and kin," Pokorny's "von eigener Art," "Gesamtheit der eigenen Leute," "Liebe," "Sippegenossen," "Sippenangehörigen," and the like.〔 under se.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Samnium」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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