Italic (ancient Italian style)

Refers to the cultures and styles that existed on the ancient Italian peninsula before the development and expansion of the Roman culture. It includes cultures of numerous tribes who spoke around forty different languages or dialects, and whose cultures varied greatly. The term excludes Greeks who colonized the area, and it generally excludes the Etruscans. In the strictest sense, the term only refers to cultures that spoke Italic languages, including Latin, Faliscan, Osco-Umbrian, South Picene, and Venetic, which are generally held to be Indo-European languages that share many common features, and are distinct from Etruscan and Greek. In some contexts the term includes Etruscans along with other pre-Roman cultures.