Editing Samnites (section)

== Etymology ==
{{Main|Oscan language}}[[File:OsqueBritishMuseum.jpg|thumb|[[Oscan language|Oscan]] inscription. From right to left it reads: "V[ibius] Popidius, son of V[ibius], chief magistrate, was responsible for this work and approved it."]]
The [[Proto-Indo-European language|Indo-European]] [[Root (linguistics)|root]] ''Saβeno'' or ''Sabh'' evolved into the word ''Safen'', which later became ''Safin''. The word ''Safin'' may have been the first word used to describe the Samnite people and the Samnite Kingdom.<ref name=":2">Edward Togo Salmon (1967). ''Samnium and the Samnites''. Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-521-06185-8}}.</ref><ref>Bakkum, Gabriël C. L. M. (2009). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=vUvIWIQMDokC The Latin Dialect of the Ager Faliscus: 150 Years of Scholarship]''. [[Amsterdam University Press]]. p. 66 {{ISBN|978-90-5629-562-2}}.</ref><ref name=":37">Stuart-Smith, Jane (2004-06-17). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=TFUTDAAAQBAJ Phonetics and Philology: Sound Change in Italic]''. OUP Oxford. pp. 28, 139 {{ISBN|978-0-19-925773-7}}.</ref>  Etymologically, this name is generally recognized to be a form of the name of the [[Sabines]], who were [[Umbri]]ans.{{sfn|Salmon|1967|p=29}} From ''Safinim'', ''Sabinus'', ''Sabellus'' and ''Samnis'', an [[Indo-European language|Indo-European]] root can be extracted, *''sabh''-, which becomes ''Sab-'' in [[Latino-Faliscan]] and ''Saf-'' in [[Osco-Umbrian]]: ''Sabini'' and *''Safineis''.{{sfn|Salmon|1967|p=30}} Some archaeologists believe ''Safin'' refers to all the people of the Italian peninsula, others say just the people of [[Molise]].<ref name=":33">Evans, Jane DeRose (2013). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=lY9BXrGjxXAC&q=Safin A Companion to the Archaeology of the Roman Republic]''. John Wiley & Sons. {{ISBN|978-1-118-55716-7}}.</ref><ref name=":4">Scopacasa, Rafael (2015). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=nq07CQAAQBAJ&q=Safin Ancient Samnium: Settlement, Culture, and Identity between History and Archaeology]''. OUP Oxford. pp. 18–295 {{ISBN|978-0-19-102285-2}}.</ref> It could also be an [[adjective]] used to describe a group of people. It appears on graves near [[Abruzzo]] from the 5th century, as well as [[Oscan language|Oscan]] inscriptions and slabs in [[Penna Sant'Andrea]].<ref name=":33" /> The last known usage of the word is on a coin from the [[Social War (91–87 BC)|Social War]].<ref name=":4" />

''Safin'' would go through a series of changes culminating in ''Safinim'', the Oscan word for Samnium, meaning "cult place of the ''Safin'' people''.''"<ref name=":53">{{Cite journal |last=Scopacasa |first=Rafael |date=2014 |title=Building Communities in Ancient Samnium: Cult, Ethnicity, and Nested Communities |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ojoa.12027 |journal=Oxford Journal of Archaeology |volume=John Wiley and Sons |pages=70–72|doi=10.1111/ojoa.12027 |url-access=subscription }}</ref> This became the word for the Samnite people, ''Safineis''.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":38">Sonnenschein, E. A. "[https://www.jstor.org/stable/691532 Sabellus: Sabine or Samnite?]" ''The Classical Review'', vol. 11, no. 7, Cambridge University Press, 1897, pp. 339–340, {{JSTOR|691532}}.</ref><ref name=":32">{{Cite book |last=Heitland |first=William Everton |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DllkAgAAQBAJ&dq=Safineis&pg=PA13 |title=The Roman Republic |year=2014 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-65347-4 |page=13 |language=en}}</ref> as well as other words in Greek such as ''Saini'', ''Saineis'', ''Samnītēs,'' ''Sabellī,'' and ''Saunìtai''.  These terms likely originated in the 5th century BC and derive from ''saunion'', the Greek word for [[javelin]].<ref name=":0">Farney, Gary D.; Bradley, Guy (2017-11-20). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=UElADwAAQBAJ The Peoples of Ancient Italy]''. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. pp. 70–71, 420 {{ISBN|978-1-5015-0014-5}}.</ref>

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 separate into dialects. 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.{{sfn|Salmon|1967|pp=29–30}}

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]] as well as [[Swedes]]; Celtic [[Senones]]; Slavic [[Serbs]] and [[Sorbs]]; Italic [[Sabelli]], [[Sabini]], etc., as well as a large number of kinship terms.{{sfn|Pokorny|1959|pp=882–884}}