Αίκουοι: Διαφορά μεταξύ των αναθεωρήσεων

Of the language spoken by the Aequi before the Roman conquest we have no record; but since the [[Marsi]], who lived farther east, spoke in the [[3rd century BC]] a dialect closely akin to Latin, and since the [[Hernici]], their neighbours to the south-west, did the same, we have no ground for separating any of these tribes from the [[Latini|Latian group]]. If we could be certain of the origin of the ''q'' in their name and of the relation between its shorter and its longer form (note that the ''i'' in Aequiculus is long--[[Virgil]], ''Aen.'' vii. 744--which seems to connect it with the locative of aequum "a plain," so that it would mean "dwellers in the plain"; but in the historical period they certainly lived mainly in the hills), we should know whether they were to be grouped with the ''q'' or the ''p'' dialects, that is to say, with Latin on the one hand, which preserved an original ''q'', or with the dialect of [[Velitrae]], commonly called Volscian (and, the [[Volsci]] were the constant allies of the Aequi), on the other hand, in which, as in the [[Iguvine Tables|Iguvine]] and Samnite dialects, an original ''q'' is changed into ''p''. There is no decisive evidence to show whether the ''q'' in Latin ''aequus'' represents an Indo-European q as in Latin ''quis'', Umbro-Volsc. ''pis'', or an Indo-European ''k + u'' as in ''equus'', [[Umbrian language|Umb.]] ''ekvo-''. The derivative adjective ''Aequicus'' might be taken to range them with the Volsci rather than the [[Sabini]], but it is not clear that this adjective was ever used as a real [[ethniconethnonym]]; the name of the tribe is always Aequi, or Aequicoli.