Oscans (Lat. Osci or Opsei; Gr. Opikoi), the name of an Italian people, who at an early period occupied Campania, and were either closely allied to or the same race as the Ausones. Subsequently (about 423 B.C.) Samnites from the hilly districts to the north overran the country, and amalgamated with the inhabitants whom they had subjugated; and the names Osci and Oscan language were subsequently applied to all the other races and dialects whose origin was nearly or wholly the same. The Oscan language was not substantially different from the Latin, but only a ruder and more primitive form of the same central Italic tongue. By the victories of the Romans over the Samnites, and the conferring of the civitas on all the Italians (88 B.C.), an end was put to the official use of the Oscan tongue; nevertheless, in the time of Varro (1st century B.C.) it was still used by the people. During its most flourishing period it was something more than a country patois; it is even possible that the Oscans had a literature and art of their own (see ATELLANÆ). Besides a considerable number of coins with Oscan legends, there are still extant a number of inscriptions in the Oscan tongue (see INSCRIPTIONS).
See Mommsen's Oskische Studien (1845), and Untertalischen Dialekte (Leip. 1850); Zvetaieff's Sylloge Inscr. Oscarum (Petersb. 1878).