Languages in Iron Age Italy, 6th century BC

Etruscan was a language spoken and written in the ancient region of Etruria (current Tuscany plus western Umbria and northern Latium) and in parts of what are now Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna (where the Etruscans were displaced by Gauls), in Italy. However, Latin superseded Etruscan completely, leaving only a few documents and a few loanwords in Latin (e.g., persona from Etruscan phersu), and some place-names, like Parma. The area covered by the Etruscan civilzation. ... Satellite view of the Peninsula in spring The Italian Peninsula or Apennine Peninsula (Italian: Penisola italiana or Penisola appenninica) is one of the greatest peninsulas of Europe, spanning 1,000 km from the Alps in the north to the central Mediterranean Sea in the south. ... An extinct language (also called a dead language) is a language which no longer has any native speakers. ... The 1st century was that century which lasted from 1 to 100 according the Gregorian calendar. ... Current distribution of Human Language Families Most languages are known to belong to language families. ... A close relationship of the Etruscan language and the Rhaetic language has been established by Rix (1998), who together with the Lemnian language classifies them as Tyrsenian (Tyrsenisch, also Tyrrhenian), after the Tyrrhenoi. ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. ... ISO 639-3 is in process of development as an international standard for language codes. ... Not to be confused with the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone meaning sound, voice) is the study of the sounds of human speech. ... Unicode is an industry standard designed to allow text and symbols from all of the writing systems of the world to be consistently represented and manipulated by computers. ... This chart shows concisely the most common way in which the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is applied to represent the English language. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Image File history File links Iron_Age_Italy. ... Image File history File links Iron_Age_Italy. ... The area covered by the Etruscan civilzation. ... Tuscany (Italian: ) is one of the 20 Regions of Italy. ... Umbria is a region of central Italy, bordered by Tuscany to the west, the Marche to the east and Lazio to the south. ... Latium (Lazio in Italian) is a region of central Italy, bordered by Tuscany, Umbria, Abruzzo, Marche, Molise, Campania and the Tyrrhenian Sea. ... Lombardy (Italian: Lombardia, Lombard: Lumbardìa) is one of the 20 Regions of Italy. ... Vèneto is one of the 20 Regions of Italy. ... Emilia-Romagna is one of the 20 Regions of Italy. ... Map of Gaul circa 58 BC Gaul (Latin: ) was the name given, in ancient times, to the region of Western Europe comprising present-day northern Italy, France, Belgium, western Switzerland and the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the Rhine river. ... Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. ... A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one language from another with little or no translation. ... Parma is a medieval city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, with splendid architecture and a fine countryside around it. ...

History of the Etruscans

Drawing of the inscriptions on the Piacenza liver, see haruspex.

Main article: Etruscan civilization

The Etruscans are thought by some to be indigenous people of Italy, living there before the Indo-European migration and the arrival of the Latins, around 1000 BC. Herodotus (Histories I.94), however, describes the Tyrrhenians (in Herodotus' time the Greek name for the Etruscans) as immigrants from Lydia in western Anatolia, who, fleeing famine, were led west by their leader Tyrrhoeus, to settle in Umbria ^[1]. The Lydian origin has recently received compelling support from genetic analyses. ^[2] The Etruscan model of a sheep liver used by a haruspex, found at Piacenza File links The following pages link to this file: Haruspex Categories: Author died more than 100 years ago public domain images ... The Etruscan model of a sheep liver used by a haruspex, found at Piacenza File links The following pages link to this file: Haruspex Categories: Author died more than 100 years ago public domain images ... Piacenza (Placentia in Latin and old-fashioned English, Piasëinsa in the local dialect of Emiliano-Romagnolo) is a city in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. ... The bronze sheeps liver of Piacenza, with Etruscan inscriptions In Roman practice inherited from the Etruscans, a haruspex (plural haruspices) was a man trained to practice a form of divination called haruspicy or hepatoscopy. ... Map showing the extent of the Etruscan civilization and the twelve Etruscan League cities. ... Indo-Europeans are speakers of Indo-European languages. ... (Redirected from 1000 BC) Centuries: 12th century BC - 11th century BC - 10th century BC Decades: 1050s BC 1040s BC 1030s BC 1020s BC 1010s BC - 1000s BC - 990s BC 980s BC 970s BC 960s BC 950s BC Events and Trends 1006 BC - David becomes king of the ancient Israelites (traditional... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... The Tyrrhenians (Attic Greek TurrÄ“noi) or Tyrsenians (Ionic TursÄ“noi, Doric Tursānoi) is an exonym used by Greek authors to refer to a non-Greek people. ... Lydia (Greek ) is a historic region of western Anatolia, congruent with Turkeys modern provinces of Ä°zmir and Manisa. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... The Roman region of Umbria, Regio VI Umbria, was one of the fourteen regions into which Augustus divided Italy; it is named after a proto-Italic people, the Umbri, who were gradually subjected by the Romans in the 4th through the 2d centuries BC. Although it passed the name on...

Like Greek Art, Etruscan Art went through an "Orientalising phase" in the early 8th century BC, adopting a large number of Anatolian motifs, largely through the intermediary of the early Greek settlers in southern Italy. Distinctively Etruscan, however, is the votive art and the emphasis on augury and town planning. Graves became larger and more elaborate, signaling increased prosperity. Etruscan tombs include chariots, armour and weapons, suggesting inter-city warfare was common. Greece has a rich and varied artistic history, spanning some 4000 years and beginning in the Minoan prehistorical civilization, giving birth to Western classical art in the ancient period (and developing this during the Hellenistic Period), to taking in the influences of the East and the new religion of Christianity... Proto-Attic loutrophoros In the later part of the 8th century BCE, and for about a century, the Geometric Style began to give way to a different sensibility informed by the art of Syria and Phoenicia, the Orientalizing Period. ... In the practice of religion, a cult image is a man-made object that is venerated for the deity, spirit or daemon that it embodies or represents. ... Omens or portents are signs encountered fortuitously that are believed to foretell the future. ... Urban, city, or town planning, deals with design of the built environment from the municipal and metropolitan perspective. ...

Literacy was fairly widespread, as can be seen by the great number of short inscriptions (dedications, epitaphs etc). Although in the 1st century BC the Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus stated that the Etruscan language was unlike any other, the Etruscans had a rich literature, as noted by Latin authors. Inscriptions are words or letters written, engraved, painted, or otherwise traced on a surface and can appear in contexts both small and monumental. ... An epitaph ( literally: on the gravestone in ancient Greek) is text honoring the deceased, most commonly inscribed on a tombstone or plaque. ... (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium) The 1st century BC started on January 1, 100 BC and ended on December 31, 1 BC. An alternative name for this century is the last century BC. The AD/BC notation does not use a year zero. ... Dionysius Halicarnassensis (of Halicarnassus), Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, flourished during the reign of Augustus. ...

A Gaulish invasion of Senones in 390 BC saw the political eclipse of Etruria. The rise of the Roman Republic, which conquered Etruria, hastened the decline of Etruscan civilization. By AD 100, Etruscan had already been replaced by Latin except perhaps among some isolated mountain or fenland communities and, in a field that was more accessible to Latin authors, in the traditional contexts of religious cult. Only a few educated Romans with antiquarian interests, such as Varro, could read Etruscan. The last person known to have been able to read Etruscan was the Roman emperor Claudius (10 BC – AD 54), who — in the context of his work in twenty books about the Etruscans Tyrrenikà (now lost) — compiled a dictionary (also lost) by interviewing the last few elderly rustics who still spoke the language. By the second century Populonia was abandoned (as were other Etruscan cities, like Fiesole), reviving in importance only in modern times. The Senones were a Celtic people of Gallia Celtica, who in the time of Julius Caesar inhabited the district which now includes the departments of Seine-et-Marne, Loiret and Yonne. ... See also Roman Republic (18th century) and Roman Republic (19th century). ... -1... This article is becoming very long. ... Marcus Terentius Varro ([[116 BC]–27 BC), also known as Varro Reatinus to distinguish him from his contemporary Varro Atacinus, was a Roman scholar and writer, who the Romans came to call the most learned of all the Romans. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... For other persons named Claudius, see Claudius (disambiguation). ... Centuries: 2nd century BC - 1st century BC - 1st century Decades: 60s BC 50s BC 40s BC 30s BC 20s BC - 10s BC - 0s 10s 20s 30s 40s Years: 15 BC 14 BC 13 BC 12 BC 11 BC 10 BC 9 BC 8 BC 7 BC 6 BC 5 BC... Events October 13 - Roman Empire emperor Claudius dies after being poisoned by Agrippina, his wife and niece. ... Populonium (Etruscan Pupluna), an ancient seaport town of Etruria, Italy, at the north end of the peninsular of Monte Massoncello, at the south end of which is situated the town of Piombino. ... Florence as seen from Fiesole Fiesole is a town and comune (township) of Firenze province in the Italian region of Tuscany, 43°49N 11°18E, on a famously scenic height 346 m (1140 ft) above Florence, 8 km (5 mi) NE of that city. ...

Livy and Cicero were both aware that highly specialized Etruscan religious rites were codified in several sets of books written in Etruscan under the generic Latin title Etrusca Disciplina. The Libri Haruspicini dealt with divination from the entrails of the sacrificed animal, the Libri Fulgurales expounded the art of divination by observing lightning. A third set, the Libri Rituales, would have provided us with the key to Etruscan civilization: its wider scope embraced Etruscan standards of social and political life as well as ritual practices. According to the 4th century Latin writer Servius, a fourth set of Etruscan books existed, dealing with animal gods, but it is probably unlikely that any contemporary scholar could have read Etruscan at such a late date. Christian authorities collected such works of paganism and burnt them during the 5th century; the single surviving Etruscan book, Liber Linteus, being written on linen, survived only by being used as mummy wrappings. A portrait of Titus Livius made long after his death. ... Cicero at about age 60, from an ancient marble bust Marcus Tullius Cicero (IPA:Classical Latin pronunciation: , usually pronounced in English; January 3, 106 BC – December 7, 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, political theorist, philosopher, widely considered one of Romes greatest orators and prose stylists. ... This article is about the religious practice of divination. ... As a means of recording the passage of time, the 4th century was that century which lasted from 301 to 400. ... Maurus (or Marius) Servius Honoratius, Roman grammarian and commentator on Virgil, flourished at the end of the 4th century AD. He is one of the interlocutors in the Saturnalia of Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius, and allusions in that work and a letter from Quintus Aurelius Symmachus to Servius show that he... Europe in 450 The 5th century is the period from 401 - 500 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era. ... The Liber Linteus (Zagrabiensis) (also rarely known as Liber Agramensis) (Latin: Linen Book (of Zagreb) or Book of Agram) is the longest Etruscan text and the only extant linen book. ...

Etruscan had some influence over Latin. A few dozen words were borrowed by the Romans and some of them can be found in modern languages.

Classification

The majority consensus is that Etruscan is related only to other members of what is called the Tyrrhenian language family which in itself is isolate, that is, unrelated to other language groups as far as we can tell. Since Rix (1998) it is widely accepted that Rhaetic and Lemnian together with Etruscan are part of this family. A close relationship of the Etruscan language and the Rhaetic language has been established by Rix (1998), who together with the Lemnian language classifies them as Tyrsenian (Tyrsenisch, also Tyrrhenian), after the Tyrrhenoi. ... Raetic is an obscure language of antiquity, which used to be spoken in the eastern Alps, to the north and west of Venetic. ... The Lemnian language is the language of a 6th century BC inscription found on a funerary stela on the island of Lemnos (termed the Lemnos stele, discovered in 1885 near Kaminia). ...

In his Natural History (1st century AD), Pliny wrote about Alpine peoples: "The Rhaetians and the Vindelicans border with these Noricans, all distributed in numerous cities. The Gauls maintain that the Raetians descend from the Etruscans, pushed back under the leadership of Raetus." Based on this and linguistic data it's clear that Etruscan ought to be related to Raetic. However, beyond these known facts, there is ample debate and hearsay that follows. The 1st century was that century which lasted from 1 to 100 according the Gregorian calendar. ... Pliny the Elder: an imaginative 19c portrait. ... Raetia as province of the Roman Empire, ca. ... In ancient geography, Vindelicia is a country bounded on the south by Raetia, on the north by the Danube and the Vallum Hadriani, on the east by the Oenus (Inn), on the west by the territory of the Helvetii. ... Noricum in ancient geography was a celtic kingdom in Austria and later a province of the Roman Empire. ... The Roman Empire ca. ...

Some modern scholars (Steinbauer 1999) have claimed that Etruscan as part of a larger Tyrrhenian family is distantly related to the Indo-European family, citing similarities in grammatical endings and vocabulary. Nothing yet can be ascertained considering the paucity of texts in general other than those of Etruscan. For now, many remain conservative and consider Tyrrhenian to be isolate. There are other attempts to prove that Etruscan is an Indo-European, even an Italic language, [4] [5] however, these inscriptions are likely not Etruscan at all, but rather other bona-fide Italic languages such as Faliscan. The Indo-European languages comprise a family of several hundred related languages and dialects [1], including most of the major languages of Europe, as well as many spoken in the Indian subcontinent (South Asia), the Iranian plateau (Southwest Asia), and Central Asia. ... Italic can refer to: Italic languages Italic scripts Italic means Of or from Italy; the usage is most commonly restricted to talking about the people and languages of what is now Italy from the historic period before the Roman Empire. ... Falisci, a tribe of Sabine origin or connections, but speaking a dialect closely akin to Latin, who inhabited the town of Falerii, as well as a considerable tract of the surrounding country, probably reaching as far south as to include the small town of Capena. ...

Other less accepted theories

The interest in Etruscan antiquities and the mysterious Etruscan language found its modern origin in a book by a Dominican monk, Annio da Viterbo, called "il Pastura", the cabalist and orientalist who guided Pinturicchio's allegorical frescoes for Pope Alexander VI's Vatican apartments. In 1498 Annio published his antiquarian miscellany titled Antiquitatum variarum (in 17 volumes) where he put together a fantastic theory in which both the Hebrew and Etruscan languages were said to originate from a single source, the "Aramaic" spoken by Noah and his descendants, founders of Etruscan Viterbo. Annio also started to excavate Etruscan tombs, unearthing sarcophagi and inscriptions, and made a bold attempt at deciphering the Etruscan language. Giovanni Nanni better known as Annio da Viterbo (1432 or 37 – November 13, 1502) was a Dominican friar notorious for his text depicting the topography and ancient history of Rome, from the most ancient authors. ... The tree of life. ... Orientalism is the study of Near and Far Eastern societies and cultures, by Westerners. ... The Crucifixion with Sts Jerome and Christopher (1471) Oil on wood, 59 x 40 cm Galleria Borghese, Rome Pinturicchio (1454-1513), Italian painter, whose full name was Bernardino di Betti. ... Pope Alexander VI (1 January 1431 – 18 August 1503), born Roderic Borja (Italian: Borgia), (reigned from 1492 to 1503), is the most controversial of the secular popes of the Renaissance and one whose surname became a byword for the debased standards of the papacy of that era. ... 1498 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Country Italy Region Lazio Province Viterbo (VT) Mayor Giampiero Gabbianelli Elevation 326 m Area 406,28 km² Population  - Total 60,537  - Density 148. ...

A French linguist, Zacharie Mayani, published a book, Les Étrusques commencent à parler (translated into English as The Etruscans Begin to Speak), which advocates the thesis that Etruscan was a member of the Illyrian family of languages, and furthermore that Albanian is a modern descendant of Illyrian which can be used to decipher Etruscan. While he presents a large number of decipherments in his book, these are not accepted by most linguists. (See Zacharie Mayani#Dismissed by most linguists) Zacharie or Zecharia Mayani (1899 - ) is a French author who has put forth a thesis according to which Albanian had ancient pre-Indo-European connections with the Etruscan language in The Etruscans Begin to Speak (1961, translated by Patrick Evans 1962). ... The Illyrian languages are a group of Indo-European languages that were spoken in the western part of the Balkans in former times by ethnic groups identified as Illyrians: Delmatae, Pannoni, Illyrioi, Autariates, Taulanti (see List of Illyrian tribes). ... Zacharie or Zecharia Mayani (1899 - ) is a French author who has put forth a thesis according to which Albanian had ancient pre-Indo-European connections with the Etruscan language in The Etruscans Begin to Speak (1961, translated by Patrick Evans 1962). ...

It was long ago proven that Etruscan can not possibly belong to the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family.^{[citation needed]} The discovery of texts in the Lemnian language backs up Herodotus' ancient account of an eastern origin of the Etruscans and their language. Furthermore, Etruscan is very different from Indo-European languages, having a first person singular nominative mi while Indo-European languages point to *h₁egô instead. It also lacks any pronominal endings, a thematic class of verbs in *-e-, ablaut between *e and *o in the verb stem, and other clear features that are specifically those of the Indo-European family. While there is debate about Etruscan and the Tyrrhenian family being related to Indo-European, the debate about Etruscan being an Indo-European language is very much dead now. The Anatolian languages are a group of extinct Indo-European languages, which were spoken in Asia Minor, the best attested of them being the Hittite language. ... The Lemnian language is the language of a 6th century BC inscription found on a funerary stela on the island of Lemnos (termed the Lemnos stele, discovered in 1885 near Kaminia). ... Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to the participant role of a referent, such as the speaker, the addressee, and others. ... In linguistics, grammatical number is a morphological category characterized by the expression of quantity through inflection or agreement. ... The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments. ... In linguistics, the term ablaut (from German ab- in the sense down, reducing + Laut sound) designates a system of vowel gradations in Proto-Indo-European and its far-reaching consequences in all of the modern Indo-European languages. ...

The obscurity of Etruscan's roots continue to attract further investigation. A recent (2003) study by linguist Mario Alinei has proposed the idea that Etruscan may have been an archaic form of Hungarian. Alinei's theory is based on similarities between certain words (magistrature names), agglutination, vowel harmony, construction of personal pronouns when used together with prepositions, etc. This theory has not been widely accepted in academic circles, and it has been rejected by practically all specialists of Uralic comparative linguistics. Critics accuse Alinei's work of being the product of mass comparison, a methodology that is not accepted by comparative linguists. Mario Alinei is Professor Emeritus at the University of Utrecht, where he taught from 1959 to 1987. ... Geographical distribution of Samoyedic, Finnic, Ugric and Yukaghir languages  Yukaghir  Samoyedic  Ugric  Finnic The Uralic languages (pronounced: ) form a language family of about 30 languages spoken by approximately 20 million people. ... Comparative linguistics (originally comparative philology) is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages in order to establish their historical relatedness. ... Mass lexical comparison or mass comparison is a highly controversial method developed by the well-known linguist Joseph Greenberg to find genetic relationships among languages in the remote past, beyond the limits of the traditional comparative method, or in situations where there are too many languages to practically apply the...

Geographic distribution

Etruscan was spoken in north-west and west-central Italy, in the region that even now bears their name, Tuscany (from Latin tuscī "Etruscans"), as well as in today's Latium north of Rome, in today's Umbria west of the Tiber, around Capua in Campania and in the Po valley to the north of Etruria. Tuscany (Italian: ) is one of the 20 Regions of Italy. ... Latium (Lazio in Italian) is a region of central Italy, bordered by Tuscany, Umbria, Abruzzo, Marche, Molise, Campania and the Tyrrhenian Sea. ... Umbria is a region of central Italy, bordered by Tuscany to the west, the Marche to the east and Lazio to the south. ... Tiber River in Rome The Tiber (Italian Tevere, Latin Tiberis), the third-longest river in Italy at 406 km (252 miles) after the Po and the Adige, flows through Rome in its course from Mount Fumaiolo to the Tyrrhenian Sea, which it reaches in two branches that cross the suburbs... Capua is a city in the province of Caserta, (Campania, Italy) situated 25 km (16 mi) north of Napoli, on the northeastern edge of the Campanian plain. ... Campania is a region of Southern Italy, bordering on Lazio to the north-west, Molise to the north, Puglia to the north-east, Basilicata to the east, and the Tyrrhenian Sea to the west. ... PO may stand for: Pareto optimality Parole Officer Per os, Latin for by mouth or orally Perfect Orange a third wave ska based in Knoxville, TN from 2002-2005 Petty Officer, a Non-Commissioned Officer Rank in many Navies Pilkington Optronics, now Thales Optronics Pilot Officer, a junior commissioned rank...

Related languages

One language likely to be very closely related to Etruscan is the language once spoken on the island of Lemnos before the Athenian invasion (6th century BC), aptly named Lemnian. A stone slab called the Lemnos stele was found there written with a script related to Etruscan and is dated to approximately 600 BC. We know that the inhabitants actually spoke this language due to the plethora of ceramic pieces with inscriptions written with this same alphabet. However, we do not know when or how speakers of this dialect arrived on this island. Lemnos (mod. ... (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium) The 6th century BC started on January 1, 600 BC and ended on December 31, 501 BC. // Monument 1, an Olmec colossal head at La Venta The 5th and 6th centuries BC were a time of empires, but more importantly, a time... The Lemnian language is the language of a 6th century BC inscription found on a funerary stela on the island of Lemnos (termed the Lemnos stele, discovered in 1885 near Kaminia). ... The Lemnian language is the language of a 6th century BC inscription found on a funerary stela on the island of Lemnos (termed the Lemnos stele, discovered in 1885 near Kaminia). ...

It is probable that Rhaetic, a language attested in Northern Italy, is also related to Etruscan, sharing with it some common features such as grammatical inflections and vocabulary, although the number of inscriptions in this language is small. Raetic is an obscure language of antiquity, which used to be spoken in the province of Raetia, in the eastern Alps, to the north and west of Venetic. ...

The most notable inscription in a language known to linguists as Eteocypriot is the Amathus Bilingual, so named because it bears a partially translated version of the Eteocypriot text in the ancient Attic dialect of Greek. Like Lemnian, it bears similarities in vocabulary and grammar to Etruscan and is likely to be part of the same family. Eteocypriot was a language spoken in Iron Age Cyprus. ...

Tentatively, some note a possible relationship with Minoan (aka Eteocretan) to Etruscan, written in the Linear A script. While this may seem too bold for some, this view would be perfectly in line with Herodotus' account in Histories that Etruscans originate from Asia Minor, suggesting that an entire family of now extinct languages may have once existed in the area extending from Greece and neighbouring islands to Western Turkey. Indeed, this in turn may remind us of the theory proposed by Beekes of a pre-Greek substrate present in some Greek words of otherwise obscure "non-Indo-European" origin. The Eteocretan (i. ... Linear A incised on tablets found in Akrotiri, Santorini. ... Author of many books about Proto-Indo-European, the reconstructed parent language of most of the European languages and of the languages of Central Asia and India (includes most or all of the languages of Iran, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

In all, the old view that Etruscan is an isolated language can be put to rest. In modern times we see that Etruscan is part of a larger linguistic family that is now known as Tyrrhenian, based on the Greek name for the Etruscans, "Tyrrhenoi".

Sounds

In the tables below, conventional letters used for transliterating Etruscan are accompanied by likely pronunciation in IPA symbols within the square brackets, followed by examples of the early Etruscan alphabet which would have corresponded to these sounds: Not to be confused with the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... Old Italic refers to a number of related historical alphabets used on the Italian peninsula which were used for some non-Indo-European languages (Etruscan and probably North Picene), various Indo-European languages belonging to the Italic branch (Faliscan and members of the Sabellian group, including Oscan, Umbrian, and South...

Vowels

Etruscan had a simple vowel system consisting of four distinct vowels. Vowels "o" and "u" appear to have not been phonetically distinguished based on the nature of the writing system where only one symbol is used to cover both in loans from Greek (e.g. Greek κωθων kōthōn > Etruscan qutun "pitcher"). Based on the same considerations, length contrast must also have been non-distinct. Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ...

	Front	Central	Back
High	i [i]		u [u]
Mid	e [e]
Low			a [ɑ]

Vowels Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel. ... A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. ... A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. ... A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. ... Image File history File links EtruscanI-01. ... -1... A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. ... Image File history File links EtruscanE-01. ... An open vowel is a vowel sound of a type used in most spoken languages. ... Rendered by User:Nohat File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ...

Consonants

The Etruscan consonant system primarily distinguished between aspirated and non-aspirated stops. Voiced stops such as English "b", "d" or "g" were non-distinct from [p], [t] and [k], respectively.

	Bilabial		Dental		Alveolar	Palatal	Velar		Glottal
Stops	p [p]	φ [pʰ] Φ	t, d [t]	θ [tʰ] Θ			c, k, q [k]	χ [kʰ]
Fricatives	f [ɸ]		s [s]		ś [ʃ]				h [h]
Affricates			z [ʦ]
Nasals	m [m]		n [n]
Laterals			l [l]	r [r]
Approximants	v [w]					i [j]

Based on standard spellings by Etruscan scribes that appear otherwise to lack vowels or that have strings of clusters that as they occur seem phonetically impossible to pronounce, as seen in words like cl "of this (gen.)" and lautn "freeman", it is likely that "m", "n", "l" and "r" were sometimes written for syllabic resonants. Thus cl /kl̩/ and lautn /'lɑwtn̩/. In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. ... Dentals are consonants such as t, d, n, and l articulated with either the lower or the upper teeth, or both, rather than with the gum ridge as in English. ... Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets) of the superior teeth. ... Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the middle or back part of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth). ... Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum). ... The vocal cords, also known as vocal folds, are composed of twin infoldings of mucous membrane stretched horizontally across the human larynx. ... A stop or plosive or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ... Image File history File links EtruscanP-01. ... Image File history File links EtruscanT-01. ... Image File history File links EtruscanD-01. ... Image File history File links EtruscanC-01. ... Image File history File links EtruscanK-01. ... Image File history File links EtruscanQ-01. ... Image File history File links EtruscanX-01. ... Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ... Image File history File links EtruscanF-01. ... Image File history File links EtruscanS-01. ... Image File history File links Phoenician_sade. ... Image File history File links EtruscanH-01. ... An affricate is a consonant that begins like a stop (most often an alveovelar, such as [t] or [d]) and that doesnt have a release of its own, but opens directly into a fricative (or, in one language, into a trill). ... Image File history File links EtruscanZ-01. ... A nasal consonant is produced when the velum—that fleshy part of the palate near the back—is lowered, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. ... Image File history File links EtruscanM-01. ... Image File history File links EtruscanN-01. ... The term lateral can refer to: an anatomical definition of direction. ... Image File history File links EtruscanL-01. ... Image File history File links EtruscanR-01. ... Approximants are speech sounds that could be regarded as intermediate between vowels and typical consonants. ... Image File history File links EtruscanF-01. ... Image File history File links EtruscanI-01. ...

Rix (see Refs.) postulates several syllabic consonants, namely /l, r, m, n/ and palatal /lʲ, rʲ, nʲ/ as well as a labiovelar spirant /xʷ/ and some scholars such as Mauro Cristofani also view the aspirates as palatal rather than aspirated but these views are not shared by most Etruscologists. Rix supports his theories by means of variant spellings such as amφare/amφiare, larθal/larθial, aranθ/aranθiia. Mauro Cristofani is a linguist and researcher in Etruscan studies Categories: People stubs ...

Texts

Helmut Rix, Etruskische Texte, works as a kind of incomplete thesaurus, a main key to studying the Etruscan language.

First of all Rix and his collaborators present the only two unified (though fragmentary) texts available in Etruscan: the Liber Linteus used for mummy wrappings (now at Zagreb, Croatia) and the Tabula Capuana (the inscribed tablet from Capua). The Liber Linteus (Zagrabiensis) (also rarely known as Liber Agramensis) (Latin: Linen Book (of Zagreb) or Book of Agram) is the longest Etruscan text and the only extant linen book. ... Zagreb (pronounced ZAH-greb) is the capital city of Croatia. ... The Tabula Capuana (Tegola di Capud Etruscophiles like to call it), now conserved in Berlin, represents the second most extensive surviving Etruscan text, after the linen book the (Liber Linteus) used in Egypt for mummy wrappings, now at Zagreb. ... Capua is a city in the province of Caserta, (Campania, Italy) situated 25 km (16 mi) north of Napoli, on the northeastern edge of the Campanian plain. ...

All the rest of the recovered inscriptions follow, grouped according to the localities in which they were found: Campania, Latium, Falerii and Ager Faliscus, Veii, Caere, Tarquinia, Ager Tarquinensis, Ager Hortanus, and finally, outside Italy, in Gallia Narbonensis, in Corsica and in North Africa. (Two inscriptions from Sardinia, published in 1935, escaped Rix.) Campania is a region of Southern Italy, bordering on Lazio to the north-west, Molise to the north, Puglia to the north-east, Basilicata to the east, and the Tyrrhenian Sea to the west. ... Latium (Lazio in Italian) is a region of central Italy, bordered by Tuscany, Umbria, Abruzzo, Marche, Molise, Campania and the Tyrrhenian Sea. ... Falerii (now Cività Castellana), one of the twelve chief cities of Etruria, situated about one mile west of the ancient Via Flaminia, 32 miles north Rome. ... Veii - or Veius - was in ancient times, an important Etrurian city 18 km NNW of Rome, Italy. ... Caere is the Latin name given by the Romans to one of the larger cities of Southern Etruria approximately 50-60 kilometres north (NNW) of Rome. ... Tarquinia, formerly Corneto and in Antiquity Tarquinii, is an ancient city in the province of Viterbo, Lazio, Italy. ... Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis, 120 AD Gallia Narbonensis was a Roman province located in what is now Languedoc and Provence, in southern France. ... (Territorial collectivity flag) (Territorial collectivity logo) Location Administration Capital Ajaccio President of the Executive Council Ange Santini (UMP) (since 2004) Departments Corse-du-Sud Haute-Corse Arrondissements 5 Cantons 52 Communes 360 Statistics Land area1 8,680 km² Population (Ranked 25th)  - January 1, 2006 est. ...  Northern Africa (UN subregion)  geographic, including above North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, generally divided by the formidable barrier of the Sahara from Sub-Saharan Africa. ... Sardinia (pronounced ; Italian: ; Sardinian: or Sardinna) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea (after Sicily). ...

Less precisely identified inscriptions follow, and finally inscriptions on small movable objects: bronze mirrors and cistae (boxes), on gems and coins.

Archeological inscriptions in Etruscan include inner walls and doors of tombs, engraved stele, ossuaries, mirrors and votive gifts. An ossuary is a chest, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. ... A votive deposit or votive offering is an object left in a sacred place for ritual purposes. ...

Inscriptions are highly abbreviated and often casually formed, so that many individual letters are in doubt among the specialists.

The Pyrgi Tablets are a short bilingual text in Etruscan and Phoenician engraved on three gold leaves. The Pyrgi Tablets, found in an excavation of a sanctuary of that town in Italy, a port of the southern Etruscan town of Caere, are three golden leaves that record a dedication made around 500 BC by Thefarie Velianas, king of Caere, to the Phoenician goddess ‘Ashtart. ... Phoenician was a language originally spoken in the coastal region of what is now Lebanon. ...

A document of dubitable authenticity^{[citation needed]} is the "book" of gold sheets bound with gold rings which went on display in May 2003 at the National History Museum in Sofia, Bulgaria. It consists of six bound sheets of 24-carat (100%) gold, with low-reliefs of a horseman, a mermaid, a harp and soldiers, with text. It was claimed to have been discovered about 1940 in a tomb uncovered during digging for a canal along the Strouma river in south-western Bulgaria, kept secretly and anonymously donated by its 87-year-old owner, living in Macedonia. BBC News report National Theatre, Sofia Alexander Nevski Cathedral The city of Sofia (Bulgarian: София), at the foot of the Vitosha mountain, has a population of 1,208,930 (2003), and is the capital of the Republic of Bulgaria. ... Carat is a measure of the purity of gold and platinum alloys. ... A mermaid(from the Middle English mere in the obsolete sense sea + maid(en)) is a legendary aquatic creature with the head and torso of human female and the tail of a fish. ... The Struma (Bulgarian: Струма, Greek: Strimonis, Turkish: Karasu (meaning black water in Turkish)) is a river in Bulgaria and Greece. ...

Vocabulary

See the list of Etruscan words and list of words of Etruscan origin at Wiktionary, the free dictionary and Wikipedia's sibling project

Due to its isolation, few certain translations have been produced yet; however, we can be fairly certain of how the language was pronounced, as the Etruscan speakers wrote using an alphabet closely related to the Greek alphabet. It has been suggested that French Wiktionary be merged into this article or section. ... The Greek alphabet is an alphabet that has been used to write the Greek language since about the 9th century BCE. It was the first alphabet in the narrow sense, that is, a writing system using a separate symbol for each vowel and consonant alike. ...

The value of some words attested in many short inscriptions are known with certainty because the correctness of their meaning can be so easily cross-verified:

Those words that appear to have corresponding Latin or other Indo-European forms are likely due to borrowings to and from Etruscan. One example, clan "son", is similar to Old Irish cland "offspring" (from which our word "clan" comes), and neftś "nephew" is apparently also a borrowing from Indo-European languages (Latin nepōs, nepōtis; German neffe, Old Norse nefi). The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

The Etruscan numerals are known although debate lingers about which numeral means "four" and which "six" (huth or śa). Thanks to neighbouring Latin, a few dozen loanwords from Etruscan are purported to survive, many of them related to culture, like elementum (letter), litterae (writing), cera (wax), arena, etc. Some of these words can be found in modern languages, especially in Romance languages. Some English words derived from Latin — e.g. people, person, population — are theorized to be of Etruscan origin. The Etruscan numerals were used by the ancient Etruscans. ... A loanword (or a borrowing) is a word taken in by one language from another. ... The Romance languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, comprise all languages that descended from Latin, the language of the Roman Empire. ... A person is defined by philosophers as a being who is in possession of a range of psychological capacities that are regarded as both necessary and sufficient to fulfill the requirements of personhood. ...

Writing system

The Latin alphabet that is used in English owes its existence to the Etruscan writing system, which was adapted for Latin in the form of the Old Italic alphabet. The Etruscan alphabet employs a Euboean variant of the Greek alphabet using the letter digamma (or "F") and was in all probability transmitted through Pithecusae and Cumae, two Euboean settlements in southern Italy. This system is ultimately derived from West Semitic scripts. The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... Euboea or Negropont (Modern Greek: Εύβοια Evia, Ancient Greek Εúβοια Eúboia; see also List of traditional Greek place names), is the largest island of the Greek archipelago. ... The Greek alphabet is an alphabet that has been used to write the Greek language since about the 9th century BCE. It was the first alphabet in the narrow sense, that is, a writing system using a separate symbol for each vowel and consonant alike. ... Digamma (upper case , lower case ) is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet, used primarily as a Greek numeral. ... The history of the alphabet begins in Ancient Egypt, more than a millennium into the history of writing. ...

Notes

1. ^ [1]
2. ^ [2] [3]

References

• Bonfante, Giuliano; Bonfante, Larissa (2002). The Etruscan Language: an Introduction. Manchester: University of Manchester Press. ISBN 0-7190-5540-7. 
• Mario Alinei (2003). Etrusco: una forma arcaica di ungherese. Bologna: Le edizioni del Mulino. 
• Cristofani, Mauro; et al (1984). Gli Etruschi: una nuova immagine. Firenze, Giunti Martello. 
• Cristofani, Mauro (1979). The Etruscans: A New Investigation (Echoes of the ancient world). Orbis Pub. ISBN 0-85613-259-4. 
• Rix, Helmut (1991). Etruskische Texte. G. Narr. ISBN 3-8233-4240-1.  2 vols.
• Steinbauer, Dieter H. (1999). Neues Handbuch des Etruskischen. Scripta Mercaturae. ISBN 3-89590-080-X. 

Giuliano Bonfante (born August 6, 1904 in Milan, Italy; died September 9, 2005 in Rome, Italy) was a linguistics scholar and expert on the language of the Etruscans and other Italic peoples. ... Mario Alinei is Professor Emeritus at the University of Utrecht, where he taught from 1959 to 1987. ... Mauro Cristofani is a linguist and researcher in Etruscan studies Categories: People stubs ... Mauro Cristofani is a linguist and researcher in Etruscan studies Categories: People stubs ... Helmut Rix (1926 – December 3, 2004) was a German linguist and professor of the Sprachwissenschaftliches Seminar of Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg, Germany. ...

See also

• Etruscan civilization
• Etruscan numerals
• Etruscan alphabet
• Aegean languages — Language family to which Etruscan belongs.
• Etruscan documents
  • Liber Linteus — An Etruscan linen book that ended as mummy wraps in Egypt.
  • Tabula Cortonensis — An Etruscan inscription.
  • Cippus perusinus — An Etruscan inscription.
  • Pyrgi Tablets — Bilingual Etruscan-Phoenician golden leaves.
• Lemnian language
• Eteocypriot
• Eteocretan
• Cortona — Ancient Etruscan city (Curtun).

Map showing the extent of the Etruscan civilization and the twelve Etruscan League cities. ... The Etruscan numerals were used by the ancient Etruscans. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... The Aegean languages are a presumed language family originally spreading horizontally from Greece to Western Turkey and vertically from the southern Grecian coastline, across the Aegean islands, to Crete sometime before 1200 BCE. It is certain that Etruscan, Rhaetic and Lemnian are part of this grouping. ... The Liber Linteus (Zagrabiensis) (also rarely known as Liber Agramensis) (Latin: Linen Book (of Zagreb) or Book of Agram) is the longest Etruscan text and the only extant linen book. ... Torn linen cloth, recovered from the Dead Sea Linen is a material made from the fibers of the flax plant. ... The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. ... The Cippus Perusinus or Cippus of Perugia is a stone tablet discovered on the hill of San Marco, near Perugia, Italy, in 1822. ... The Pyrgi Tablets, found in an excavation of a sanctuary of that town in Italy, a port of the southern Etruscan town of Caere, are three golden leaves that record a dedication made around 500 BC by Thefarie Velianas, king of Caere, to the Phoenician goddess ‘Ashtart. ... Phoenician was a language originally spoken in the coastal region of what is now Lebanon. ... The Lemnian language is the language of a 6th century BC inscription found on a funerary stela on the island of Lemnos (termed the Lemnos stele, discovered in 1885 near Kaminia). ... Eteocypriot was a language spoken in Iron Age Cyprus. ... The Eteocretan (i. ... André Rieu Concert in Piazza Della Republica, Cortona Cortona is a small town in Tuscany, Italy. ...

External links

• The Etruscan Texts Project A searchable database of Etruscan texts.
• Etruscan News Online, the Newsletter of the American Section of the Institute for Etruscan and Italic Studies.
• Etruscan and Early Italic Fonts, for the digital transcription of Etruscan inscriptions.
• Etruscan grammar (pdf) The Pyrgi bilingual by Michael Weiss of Cornell University.
• The Languages of Ancient Italy
• An Etruscan Glossary
• Etruscan Glossary
• Another Glossary
• Etruscans on the Web: Language links here are divided between 'Mainstream' with the professional linguists, and 'Alternative,' where you can read up on connections between Etruscan and Ukrainian, Turkish, or Slovenian.
• The Etruscan Cryptolect
• Argument that Etruscan is a Dravidian language