Faliscan

Part of speech: adjective, noun

Definitions

1. Relating to the ancient Italic people of Falerii in central Italy or to their language, which was closely related to Latin
2. Describing the ancient inhabitants of Falerii, a town north of Rome, or the extinct Italic tongue they spoke
3. Characterizing the people, culture or language of the old Italic region around Falerii in pre-Roman Italy

Etymology: Faliscan is the adjective for the Falisci, an ancient people of central Italy who lived around the town of Falerii, north of Rome, and spoke a language related to Latin. The English word is formed directly from the Latin adjective "Faliscus," itself derived from the people's name, with the English suffix "-an" added to mark a person or thing connected with them. The same pattern gives many other English demonyms, so the word's construction is simple even though the people themselves have largely vanished from view. In its noun use, "Faliscan" can refer to a member of that people, or to their language. Scholars today know the Faliscan language mainly from inscriptions, many of them short dedications and funerary texts, which survive from roughly the seventh to the third centuries BCE. Because the Falisci were absorbed into Roman territory, their culture is preserved mostly in the material record and in Roman writers' accounts of them.