It has been preserved in about 600 inscriptions written in an alphabet derived from a Western Greek model and dating from the mid-6th to at least the 2nd century BC, when it went extinct following the Roman conquest of the region.

[10][1][2] The term 'Messapic' or 'Messapian' is traditionally used to refer to a group of languages spoken by the Iapygians, a "relatively homogeneous linguistic community" of non-Italic-speaking tribes (Messapians, Peucetians and Daunians) dwelling in the region of Apulia before the Roman conquest.

[11][12][13][14] Modern archeological and linguistic research and some ancient sources hold that the ancestors of the Iapygians came to Southeastern Italy (present-day Apulia) from the Western Balkans across the Adriatic Sea during the early first millennium BC.

[19] Hyllested & Joseph (2022) identify Messapic as the closest language to Albanian, with which it forms a common branch titled Illyric.

[32] Other linguistic elements such as particles, prepositions, suffixes, lexicon, but also toponyms, anthroponyms and theonyms of the Messapic language find singular affinities with Albanian.

[34][35] Regarding the verbal system, both Messapic and Albanian have formally and semantically preserved the two Indo-European subjunctive and optative moods.

If the reconstructions are correct, we can find, in the preterital system of Messapic, reflections of a formation in *-s- (which in other Indo-European languages are featured in the suffix of the sigmatic aorist), as in the 3rd sg.

However, except for the dorsal consonant rows, these similarities do not provide elements exclusively relating Messapic and Albanian, and only a few morphological data are comparable.

[44] The relationship between Messapians and Tarantines deteriorated over time, resulting in a series of clashes between the two peoples from the beginning of the 5th century BC.

[41] After two victories of the Tarentines, the Iapygians inflicted a decisive defeat on them, causing the fall of the aristocratic government and the implementation of a democratic one in Taras.

The second great Hellenizing wave occurred during the 4th century BC, this time also involving Daunia and marking the beginning of Peucetian and Daunian epigraphic records, in a local variant of the Hellenistic alphabet that replaced the older Messapic script.

[50] The Proto-Indo-European (PIE) vowel /o/ regularly appears as /a/ in inscriptions (e.g., Venas < *Wenos; menza < *mendyo; tabarā < *to-bhorā).

[56][58][46] Some longer texts are also available, including those recently found in the Grotta della Poesia (Roca Vecchia), although they have not been fully exploited by scholars yet.

Proto-Albanian: *bardza; Albanian: bardhë/bardhi, Bardha ('white', found also in anthroponyms, e.g., Bardh-i, Bardhyl) Taotor (name of a god) Since its settlement, Messapic was in contact with the Italic languages of the region.

The creation of Roman colonies in southern Italy after the early 4th century BCE had a great impact in the Latinization of the area.

They include baltea from balta (swamp), deda (nurse), gandeia (sword), horeia (small fishing boat), mannus (pony/small horse) from manda.

In literature, Horace and Ennius who came from the region are the only authors of Roman antiquity who have preserved the non-Italic word laama (swamp) which might be Messapic.

[123] It coincides with the Proto-Albanian *apro dītā 'come forth brightness of the day/dawn', which could be the original source of the Ancient Greek Aphrodite, and which is preserved in the Albanian phrase afro dita 'come forth the day/dawn', referring to the planet Venus,[124] and also used to refer to Prende, the dawn goddess, goddess of love, beauty, fertility, health and protector of women, in the Albanian pagan mythology, the equivalent of Ancient Greek Aphrodite.