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Reference.org
List of ancient peoples of Italy
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<p>This list of ancient peoples living in <a href="/facts/Italy_(geographical_region)/WoDX0QBM">Italy</a> summarises the many different Italian populations that existed in antiquity. Among them, the <a href="/facts/Roman_people/3UUhAFTy">Romans</a> succeeded in <a href="/facts/Romanizing/a4fl8fee">Romanizing</a> the entire Italian peninsula following the <a href="/facts/Roman_expansion_in_Italy/InNRVKou">Roman expansion in Italy</a>, which provides the time-window in which the names of the remaining ancient Italian peoples first appear in documentation. Many names are <a href="/facts/Exonym/8pyd1nE9">exonyms</a> assigned by the ancient writers of works in <a href="/facts/Ancient_Greek/LIK7NlUh">ancient Greek</a> and <a href="/facts/Latin/pM3Kge85">Latin</a>, while others are scholarly inventions. </p><p>Nearly all of these peoples and tribes spoke <a href="/facts/Indo-European_language/L34TfgSr">Indo-European languages</a>: <a href="/facts/Italic_peoples/MqnfE6ew">Italics</a>, <a href="/facts/Celts/eMCVYAFz">Celts</a>, <a href="/facts/Ancient_Greeks/PTVBrWXq">Ancient Greeks</a>, and tribes likely occupying various intermediate positions between these language groups. On the other hand, some Italian peoples (such as the <a href="/facts/Rhaetians/rtFzGUTn">Rhaetians</a>, <a href="/facts/Camuni/tUmUc7rJ">Camuni</a>, <a href="/facts/Etruscans/yw3dmLgd">Etruscans</a>) likely spoke <a href="/facts/Pre-Indo-European_languages/2dM0Ts17">non- or pre-Indo-European languages</a>. In addition, peoples speaking languages of the <a href="/facts/Afro-Asiatic/fzqjWd0q">Afro-Asiatic</a> family, specifically the largely <a href="/facts/Semitic_language/WCYrz4Qm">Semitic</a> <a href="/facts/Phoenicians/6GXLneNU">Phoenicians</a> and <a href="/facts/Ancient_Carthage/5BFU7yB5">Carthaginians</a>, settled and colonized parts of western and southern <a href="/facts/Sardinia/7GGJNHCx">Sardinia</a> and western <a href="/facts/Sicily/E6fug03z">Sicily</a>. </p>