Sharing graphemes. Unusual choices in Sabellian writing systems

The Sabines were the first Sabellian-speaking people to devise an alphabet for their own language. Their writing system had a strong influence on the way of writing all the other Sabellian languages. From the Archaic period onwards, Sabine graphemes were added to various other writing systems; the first example of this practice is a peculiar "Falisco-Sabine" alphabet, employed in some Archaic (and, maybe, post-Archaic) Sabellian inscriptions. Even more significant is the introduction of two Sabine graphemes into the Oscan alphabet, a particularly artificial creation of a relatively later age. The same graphemes were added even to the Latin alphabet, in the ephemeral attempt by the inhabitants of Capena to write their Sabellian language, when the destruction of Veii (396 BC) had dissolved the heavy cultural influence of this powerful Etruscan city. Sharing graphemes between writing systems which came to being independently from each other is an unparalleled phenomenon in the Classical world. It responded probably to cultural needs, rather than to linguistic ones, as is clearly demonstrated by the history of the Oscan alphabet, which adopted the Sabine graphemes about a century after its invention; their late introduction shows that the Oscan language could be equally written without them (as it actually was intended to, at least when the alphabet was first created). The migration of Sabine graphemes into other writing systems, therefore, was probably related to the diffusion of the mythical narrative which connected all Sabellian-speaking peoples to Sabine ancestry.