Old Italic

The Old Italic Unicode block unifies several related alphabets that were used historically (700-1 BCE) on the Italian peninsula. The alphabets include archaic Etruscan (7th-5th centuries BCE), neo- and late-Etruscan (4th-1st centuries BCE), Faliscan, Messapic, Middle Adriatic, Oscan, North Picene, South Picene, and Umbrian. Language-specific fonts must be used in order to get the right alphabet. Also, writing direction (right-to-left, left-to-right, or boustrophedon) varies based on the language and even the time period. For simplicity most scholars use left-to-right and this is the Unicode default direction for the Old Italic block.

• Font sizes for the various fonts above were adjusted to make them roughly the same size for the sake of comparison.
• The characters used for the font samples do not necessarily form words but were chosen for visual variety:
  𐌀𐌂𐌈𐌇𐌌𐌙𐌘𐌎