Note 1276 — Chapter XV

"Zur Paläoethnologie Mittel- u. Südeuropas" in Mitt. Wiener Anthrop. Ges. 1897, p. 18. It should here be noted that in his History of the Greek Language (1896) Kretschmer connects the inscriptions of the Veneti in north Italy and of the Messapians in the south with the Illyrian linguistic family, which he regards as Aryan intermediate between the Greek and the Italic branches, the present Albanian being a surviving member of it. In the same Illyrian family W. M. Lindsay would also include the "Old Sabellian" of Picenum, "believed to be the oldest inscriptions on Italian soil. The manifest identity of the name Aodatos and the word meitimon with the Illyrian names Αὐδάτα and Meitima is almost sufficient of itself to prove these inscriptions to be Illyrian. Further the whole character of their language, with its Greek and its Italic features, corresponds with what we know and what we can safely infer about the Illyrian family of languages" (Academy, Oct. 24, 1896). Cf. R. S. Conway, The Italic Dialects, 1897.