alpus

Uncertain. Perhaps from Proto-Italic *alβos, from Proto-Indo-European *albʰós. Unusually, the term shows a /p/ as the reflex of Proto-Indo-European *bʰ in Sabellic should /f/ (compare Umbrian alfu). There are various separate explanations for this irregular phonological development:

• Perhaps the sound change is entirely regular for Sabine, though this would require Sabine to be separated from Sabellic and categorized as a separate branch of Italic. However, the linguist Annie Cecilia Burman considers it "unwarranted" to propose a new language branch based on exclusively one term.
• Perhaps it was influenced by an Ancient Greek term such as ἀλφός (alphós), with the sound change motivated by the spelling of Ancient Greek /pʰ/ as <p> in early Italic inscriptions. However, Burman criticizes this theory, arguing that it "relies on the primacy of writing."
• It could have been influenced by Etruscan, as Etruscan did not have a phonemic distinction between voiced and voiceless stops. Perhaps terms such as Etruscan alpna could be compared to the Sabine lexeme.
• Burman suggests that alpus may have originated as a variant pronunciation of Latin albus amongst native Etruscan speakers, who perhaps had difficulty properly pronouncing the difference between voiced and voiceless stops. It then would have been erroneously recorded as a Sabine term.
• Alternatively, Burman notes that the Faliscan script represented both /p/ and /b/ with the same sign. Therefore, ancient Roman scholars may have seen the term *alpus written on an inscription and interpreted it as Sabine.

alpus (nominative singular)

1. white

• De Vaan, Michiel (2008), “albus”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 32
• Peder Flemestad; Birgit Olsen (1 January 2017), “Sabellic Textile Terminology”, in Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD‎^[1], page 223
• Annie Cecilia Burman (24 March 2018), De Lingua Sabina: A Reappraisal of the Sabine Glosses‎^[2], →DOI, pages 88-90
• Festus, De Verborum Significatione F.4L:

  Album, quod nos dicimus, a Graeco, quod est ἀλφόν, est appellatum. Sabini tamen alpum dixerunt. unde credi potest, nomen Alpium a candore niuium uocitatum.

  • Translation by Annie Cecilia Burman

    Albus, which we say, is called that because of ἀλφός from the Greek. But Sabines said alpus. The name of the Alpes can be thought to be named after the whiteness of the snow.