Etruscan language

Etruscan
TheCippus Perusinus,a stone tablet bearing 46 lines of incised Etruscan text, one of the longest extant Etruscan inscriptions. 3rd or 2nd century BC.
Native to	AncientEtruria
Region	Italian Peninsula
Extinct	after AD 50
Language family	Tyrsenian Etruscan
Writing system	Etruscan alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	ett
Linguist List	ett
Glottolog	etru1241

Etruscan(/ɪˈtrʌskən/ih-TRUSK-ən)was the language of theEtruscan civilizationin the ancient region ofEtruria,inEtruria PadanaandEtruria Campanain what is nowItaly.Etruscan influencedLatinbut was eventually completely superseded by it. The Etruscans left around 13,000inscriptionsthat have been found so far, only a small minority of which are of significant length; some bilingual inscriptions with texts also in Latin,Greek,orPhoenician;and a few dozen purportedloanwords.Attested from 700 BC to AD 50, the relation of Etruscan to other languages has been a source of long-running speculation and study, with it mostly being referred to as one of theTyrsenian languages,at times as anisolateand a number of other less well-known theories.

The consensus among linguists and Etruscologists is that Etruscan was aPre-Indo-EuropeanandPaleo-European language,closely related to theRaetic languagethat was spoken in theAlps,and to theLemnian language,attested in a few inscriptions onLemnos.

The Etruscan alphabet is similar to the Greek one. Therefore, linguists have been able to read the inscriptions in the sense of knowing roughly how they would have been pronounced, but have not yet understood their meaning.A comparison between the Etruscan and Greek alphabets reveals how accurately the Etruscans preserved the Greek alphabet. The Etruscan alphabet contains letters that have since been dropped from the Greek alphabet, such as the digamma, sampi and qoppa.

Grammatically, the language isagglutinating,withnounsandverbsshowingsuffixedinflectionalendings and somegradation of vowels.Nouns show fivecases,singular andplural numbers,with agenderdistinction between animate and inanimate inpronouns.

Etruscan appears to have had a cross-linguistically commonphonologicalsystem, with fourphonemicvowelsand an apparent contrast betweenaspirated and unaspiratedstops.The records of the language suggest thatphonetic changetook place over time, with the loss and then re-establishment of word-internal vowels, possibly due to the effect of Etruscan's word-initialstress.

Etruscan religionwas influenced bythat of the Greeks,and many of the few surviving Etruscan-language artifacts are ofvotiveor religious significance.Etruscan was written inan alphabetderived from theGreek alphabet;this alphabet was the source of theLatin alphabet,as well as other alphabets in Italy and probably beyond. The Etruscan language is also believed to be the source of certain important cultural words ofWestern Europesuch asmilitaryandperson,which do not have obviousIndo-Europeanroots.

History of Etruscan literacy

Drawing of the inscriptions on theLiver of Piacenza;seeharuspex

Etruscan literacy was widespread over theMediterraneanshores, as evidenced by about 13,000inscriptions(dedications,epitaphs,etc.), most fairly short, but some of considerable length.They date from about 700 BC.

The Etruscans had a rich literature, as noted by Latin authors.LivyandCicerowere both aware that highly specialized Etruscan religious rites were codified in several sets of books written in Etruscan under the generic Latin titleEtrusca Disciplina.TheLibri Haruspicinidealt withdivinationbyreading entrailsfrom a sacrificed animal, while theLibri Fulguralesexpounded the art of divination by observinglightning.A third set, theLibri Rituales,might have provided a 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 AD Latin writerMaurus Servius Honoratus,a fourth set of Etruscan books existed, dealing with animal gods, but it is unlikely that any scholar living in that era could have read Etruscan. However, only one book (as opposed to inscription), theLiber Linteus,survived, and only because the linen on which it was written was used asmummywrappings.

By 30 BC,Livynoted that Etruscan was once widely taught to Roman boys, but had since become replaced by the teaching of Greek, whileVarronoted that theatrical works had once been composed in Etruscan.

Demise

The date of extinction for Etruscan is held by scholarship to have been either in the late first century BC, or the early first century AD. Freeman's analysis of inscriptional evidence would appear to imply that Etruscan was still flourishing in the 2nd century BC, still alive in the first century BC, and surviving in at least one location in the beginning of the first century AD;however, the replacement of Etruscan by Latin likely occurred earlier in southern regions closer to Rome.

In southernEtruria,the first Etruscan site to beLatinizedwasVeii,when it wasdestroyedand repopulated by Romans in 396 BC.Caere(Cerveteri), another southern Etruscan town on the coast 45 kilometers from Rome, appears to have shifted to Latin in the late 2nd century BC.InTarquiniaandVulci,Latin inscriptions coexisted with Etruscan inscriptions in wall paintings and grave markers for centuries, from the 3rd century BC until the early 1st century BC, after which Etruscan is replaced by the exclusive use of Latin.

In northern Etruria, Etruscan inscriptions continue after they disappear in southern Etruria. AtClusium(Chiusi), tomb markings show mixed Latin and Etruscan in the first half of the 1st century BC, with cases where two subsequent generations are inscribed in Latin and then the third, youngest generation, surprisingly, is transcribed in Etruscan.AtPerugia,monolingual monumental inscriptions in Etruscan are still seen in the first half of the 1st century BC, while the period of bilingual inscriptions appears to have stretched from the 3rd century to the late 1st century BC.The isolated last bilinguals are found at three northern sites. Inscriptions inArezzoinclude one dated to 40 BC followed by two with slightly later dates, while inVolterrathere is one dated to just after 40 BC and a final one dated to 10–20 AD; coins with written Etruscan nearSaenahave also been dated to 15 BC.Freeman notes that in rural areas the language may have survived a bit longer, and that a survival into the late 1st century AD and beyond "cannot wholly be dismissed", especially given the revelation ofOscanwriting inPompeii's walls.

Despite the apparent extinction of Etruscan, it appears that Etruscan religious rites continued much later, continuing to use the Etruscan names of deities and possibly with someliturgicalusage of the language. In lateRepublicanand earlyAugustantimes, various Latin sources includingCiceronoted the esteemed reputation of Etruscansoothsayers.An episode where lightning struck an inscription with the name Caesar, turning it into Aesar, was interpreted to have been a premonition of the deification ofCaesarbecause of the resemblance to Etruscanaisar,meaning 'gods', although this indicates knowledge of a single word and not the language. Centuries later and long after Etruscan is thought to have died out,Ammianus Marcellinusreports thatJulian the Apostate,the last pagan Emperor, apparently had Etruscan soothsayers accompany him on his military campaigns with books on war, lightning and celestial events, but the language of these books is unknown. According toZosimus,when Rome was faced with destruction byAlaricin 408 AD, the protection of nearby Etruscan towns was attributed to Etruscan pagan priests who claimed to have summoned a raging thunderstorm, and they offered their services "in the ancestral manner" to Rome as well, but the devout Christians of Rome refused the offer, preferring death to help by pagans. Freeman notes that these events may indicate that a limited theological knowledge of Etruscan may have survived among the priestly caste much longer.One 19th-century writer argued in 1892 that Etruscan deities retained an influence on early modern Tuscan folklore.

Around 180 AD, the Latin authorAulus Gelliusmentions Etruscan alongside theGaulish languagein an anecdote.Freeman notes that although Gaulish was clearly still alive during Gellius' time, his testimony may not indicate that Etruscan was still alive because the phrase could indicate a meaning of the sort of "it's all Greek (incomprehensible) to me".

At the time of its extinction, only a few educated Romans with antiquarian interests, such asMarcus Terentius Varro,could read Etruscan. The Roman emperorClaudius(10 BC – AD 54) is considered to have possibly been able to read Etruscan, and authored theTyrrhenika,a (now lost) treatise onEtruscan history;a separate dedication made by Claudius implies a knowledge from "diverse Etruscan sources", but it is unclear if any were fluent speakers of Etruscan.Plautia Urgulanilla,the emperor's first wife, had Etruscan roots.

Etruscan had some influence on Latin, as a few dozen Etruscan words and names were borrowed by the Romans, some of which remain in modern languages, among which are possiblyvoltur'vulture',tuba'trumpet',vagina'sheath',populus'people'.

Maximum extent of Etruscan civilization and the twelve Etruscan League cities.

Geographic distribution

Inscriptions have been found in northwest and west-central Italy, in the region that even now bears the name of theEtruscan civilization,Tuscany(from Latintuscī'Etruscans'), as well as in modernLatiumnorth of Rome, in today'sUmbriawest of theTiber,in thePo Valleyto the north of Etruria, and inCampania.This range may indicate a maximum Italian homeland where the language was at one time spoken.

Outside Italy, inscriptions have been found inCorsica,Gallia Narbonensis,Greece,theBalkans.But by far the greatest concentration is in Italy.

Classification

Tyrsenian family hypothesis

Main article:Tyrsenian languages

Tyrrhenian language family tree as proposed by de Simone and Marchesini (2013)

In 1998,Helmut Rixput forward the view that Etruscan is related to other extinct languages such asRaetic,spoken in ancient times in theeastern Alps,andLemnian,to which other scholars addedCamunic language,spoken in theCentral Alps. Rix'sTyrsenian language familyhas gained widespread acceptance among scholars,being confirmed by Stefan Schumacher,Norbert Oettinger,Carlo De Simone,and Simona Marchesini.

Common features between Etruscan, Raetic, and Lemnian have been found inmorphology,phonology,andsyntax,but only a few lexical correspondences are documented, at least partly due to the scant number of Raetic and Lemnian texts.On the other hand, the Tyrsenian family, or Common Tyrrhenic, is often considered to bePaleo-Europeanand topredate the arrival of Indo-European languagesin southern Europe.Several scholars believe that theLemnian languagecould have arrived in theAegean Seaduring the LateBronze Age,when Mycenaean rulers recruited groups of mercenaries fromSicily,Sardiniaand various parts of the Italian peninsula.Scholars such as Norbert Oettinger, Michel Gras and Carlo De Simone think that Lemnian is the testimony of an Etruscan commercial settlement on the island that took place before 700 BC, not related to the Sea Peoples.

Archeogenetic studies

A 2021 archeogenetic analysis of Etruscan individuals, who lived between 800 BC and 1 BC, concluded that the Etruscans were autochthonous and genetically similar to the Early Iron AgeLatins,and that the Etruscan language, and therefore the other languages of the Tyrrhenian family, may be a surviving language of the ones that were widespread in Europe from at least the Neolithic period before the arrival of the Indo-European languages,as already argued by German geneticistJohannes Krausewho concluded that it is likely that the Etruscan language (as well asBasque,Paleo-SardinianandMinoan) "developed on the continent in the course of theNeolithic Revolution".The lack of recent Anatolian-related admixture and Iranian-related ancestry among the Etruscans, who genetically joined firmly to the European cluster, might also suggest that the presence of a handful of inscriptions found at Lemnos, in a language related to Etruscan and Raetic, "could represent population movements departing from the Italian peninsula".

Superseded theories and fringe scholarship

For many hundreds of years the classification of Etruscan remained problematic for historical linguists, though it was almost universally agreed upon that Etruscan was a language unlike any other in Europe. Before it gained currency as one of the Tyrrhenian languages, Etruscan was commonly treated as alanguage isolate.Over the centuries many hypotheses on the Etruscan language have been developed, most of which have not been accepted or have been considered highly speculative since they were published. The major consensus among scholars is that Etruscan, and therefore all the languages of the Tyrrhenian family, is neither Indo-European nor Semitic,and may be a Pre–Indo-European and Paleo-European language.At present the major consensus is that Etruscan's only kinship is with the Raetic and Lemnian languages.

Pre-Greek substrate hypothesis

The idea of a relation between the language of theMinoanLinear Ascripts was taken into consideration as the main hypothesis byMichael Ventrisbefore he discovered that, in fact, the language behind the laterLinear Bscript wasMycenean,aGreek dialect.It has been proposed to possibly be part of a wider Paleo-European "Aegean" language family, which would also includeMinoan,Eteocretan(possibly descended from Minoan) andEteocypriot.This has been proposed by Giulio Mauro Facchetti, a researcher who has dealt with both Etruscan and Minoan, and supported by S. Yatsemirsky, referring to some similarities between Etruscan and Lemnian on one hand, andMinoanand Eteocretan on the other. It has also been proposed that this language family is related to the pre-Indo-European languages of Anatolia, based upon place name analysis.The relationship between Etruscan and Minoan, and hypothetical unattested pre-Indo-European languages of Anatolia, is considered unfounded.

Anatolian Indo-European family hypothesis

Some have suggested that Tyrsenian languages may yet be distantly related to earlyIndo-European languages,such as those of theAnatolian branch.More recently,Robert S. P. Beekesargued in 2002 that the people later known as the Lydians and Etruscans had originally lived in northwestAnatolia,with a coastline to theSea of Marmara,whence they were driven by thePhrygianscirca1200 BC, leaving a remnant known in antiquity as theTyrsenoi.A segment of this people moved south-west toLydia,becoming known as theLydians,while others sailed away to take refuge in Italy, where they became known as Etruscans.This account draws on the well-known story byHerodotus(I, 94) of the Lydian origin of the Etruscans or Tyrrhenians, famously rejected byDionysius of Halicarnassus(book I), partly on the authority of Xanthus, a Lydian historian, who had no knowledge of the story, and partly on what he judged to be the different languages, laws, and religions of the two peoples. In 2006, Frederik Woudhuizen went further on Herodotus' traces, suggesting that Etruscan belongs to theAnatolianbranch of the Indo-European family, specifically toLuwian.Woudhuizen revived aconjectureto the effect that the Tyrsenians came fromAnatolia,includingLydia,whence they were driven by theCimmeriansin the early Iron Age, 750–675 BC, leaving some colonists onLemnos.He makes a number of comparisons of Etruscan toLuwianand asserts that Etruscan is modified Luwian. He accounts for the non-Luwian features as aMysianinfluence: "deviations from Luwian [...] may plausibly be ascribed to the dialect of the indigenous population of Mysia."According to Woudhuizen, the Etruscans were initially colonizing the Latins, bringing the alphabet from Anatolia. For historical, archaeological, genetic, and linguistic reasons, a relationship between Etruscan and the Indo-European Anatolian languages (Lydian or Luwian) and the idea that the Etruscans initially colonized the Latins, bringing the alphabet from Anatolia, have not been accepted, since the account by Herodotus is no longer considered reliable.

Other theories

The interest in Etruscan antiquities and the Etruscan language found its modern origin in a book by a Renaissance Dominican friar,Annio da Viterbo,acabalistandorientalistnow remembered mainly for literary forgeries. In 1498, Annio published his antiquarian miscellany titledAntiquitatum variarum(in 17 volumes) where he put together a theory in which both theHebrewand Etruscan languages were said to originate from a single source, the "Aramaic" spoken byNoahand his descendants, founders of the Etruscan cityViterbo.

The 19th century saw numerous attempts to reclassify Etruscan. Ideas ofSemiticorigins found supporters until this time. In 1858, the last attempt was made byJohann Gustav Stickel,Jena Universityin hisDas Etruskische durch Erklärung von Inschriften und Namen als semitische Sprache erwiesen.A reviewerconcluded that Stickel brought forward every possible argument which would speak for that hypothesis, but he proved the opposite of what he had attempted to do. In 1861,Robert Ellisproposed that Etruscan was related toArmenian.Exactly 100 years later, a relationship withAlbanianwas to be advanced byZecharia Mayani,a theory regarded today as disproven and discredited.

Several theories from the late 19th and early 20th centuries connected Etruscan toUralicor evenAltaic languages.In 1874, the British scholarIsaac Taylorbrought up the idea of a genetic relationship between Etruscan andHungarian,of which alsoJules Marthawould approve in his exhaustive studyLa langue étrusque(1913).In 1911, the French orientalist Baron Carra de Vaux suggested a connection between Etruscan and theAltaic languages.The Hungarian connection was revived byMario Alinei,Emeritus Professor of Italian Languages at theUniversity of Utrecht.Alinei's proposal has been rejected by Etruscan experts such as Giulio M. Facchetti,Finno-Ugric experts such as Angela Marcantonio,and by Hungarian historical linguists such as Bela Brogyanyi.Another proposal, pursued mainly by a few linguists from the former Soviet Union, suggested a relationship withNortheast Caucasian(or Nakh-Daghestanian) languages.None of these theories has been accepted nor enjoys consensus.

Writing system

Alphabet

Main article:Etruscan alphabet

The Orator,ca. 100 BC, anEtrusco-Romanbronze sculpturedepicting Aule Metele (Latin:Aulus Metellus), anEtruscanman of Roman senatorial rank, engaging inrhetoric.The statue features an inscription in the Etruscan alphabet

TheLatin scriptowes its existence to the Etruscan alphabet, which was adapted for Latin in the form of theOld Italic script.The Etruscan alphabetemploys aEuboeanvariantof theGreek alphabetusing the letterdigammaand was in all probability transmitted throughPithecusaeandCumae,two Euboean settlements in southern Italy. This system is ultimately derived fromWest Semitic scripts.

The Etruscans recognized a 26-letter alphabet, which makes an early appearance incised for decoration on a smallbuccheroterracotta lidded vase in the shape of a cockerel at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, ca. 650–600 BC.The full complement of 26 has been termed the model alphabet.The Etruscans did not use four letters of it, mainly because Etruscan did not have the voiced stopsb,dandg;theowas also not used. They innovated one letter forf(𐌚).

Text

Writing was from right to left except in archaic inscriptions, which occasionally usedboustrophedon.An example found atCerveteriused left to right. In the earliest inscriptions, the words are continuous. From the 6th century BC, they are separated by a dot or a colon, which might also be used to separate syllables. Writing was phonetic; the letters represented the sounds and not conventional spellings. On the other hand, many inscriptions are highly abbreviated and often casually formed, so the identification of individual letters is sometimes difficult. Spelling might vary from city to city, probably reflecting differences of pronunciation.

Complex consonant clusters

Speech featured a heavy stress on the first syllable of a word, causingsyncopationby weakening of the remaining vowels, which then were not represented in writing:AlcsntreforAlexandros,RasnaforRasena.This speech habit is one explanation of the Etruscan "impossible" consonant clusters. Some of the consonants, especiallyresonants,however, may have been syllabic, accounting for some of the clusters (see below underConsonants). In other cases, the scribe sometimes inserted a vowel: GreekHēraklēsbecameHercleby syncopation and then was expanded toHerecele.Pallottino regarded this variation in vowels as "instability in the quality of vowels" and accounted for the second phase (e.g.Herecele) as "vowel harmony,i.e., of the assimilation of vowels in neighboring syllables ".

Phases

The writing system had two historical phases: the archaic from the seventh to fifth centuries BC, which used the early Greek alphabet, and the later from the fourth to first centuries BC, which modified some of the letters. In the later period, syncopation increased.

The alphabet went on in modified form after the language disappeared. In addition to being the source of the Roman and earlyOscanandUmbrianalphabets, it has been suggested that it passed northward intoVenetoand from there throughRaetiainto theGermaniclands, where it became theElder Futharkalphabet, the oldest form of therunes.

Corpus

The Etruscan corpus is edited in theCorpus Inscriptionum Etruscarum(CIE) andThesaurus Linguae Etruscae(TLE).

The Pyrgi Tablets, laminated sheets of gold with a treatise both in Etruscan and thePhoenician language,in theEtruscan Museum in Rome

Bilingual text

ThePyrgi Tabletsare a bilingual text in Etruscan andPhoenicianengraved on three gold leaves, one for the Phoenician and two for the Etruscan. The Etruscan language portion has 16 lines and 37 words. The date is roughly 500 BC.

The tablets were found in 1964 by Massimo Pallottino during an excavation at the ancient Etruscan port ofPyrgi,nowSanta Severa.The only new Etruscan word that could be extracted from close analysis of the tablets was the word for 'three',ci.

Longer texts

According to Rix and his collaborators, only two unified (though fragmentary) long texts are available in Etruscan:

• TheLiber Linteus Zagrabiensis,which was later used for mummy wrappings inEgypt.Roughly 1,200 words of readable (but not fully translatable) text, mainly repetitious prayers probably comprising a kind of religious calendar, yielded about 50 lexical items.
• TheTabula Capuana(the inscribed tile fromCapua) has about 300 readable words in 62 lines, dating to the fifth century BC. It again seems to be a religious calendar.

Some additional longer texts are:

• The inscription of 59 words on theSarcophagus of Laris Pulenas,also known as The Magistrate, dating from the third century BC, discovered inTarquinia,now residing in Museo Nazionale Archeologico (Tarquinia, Viterbo, Lazio, Italy).
• The lead foils of Punta della Vipera have about 40 legible words having to do with ritual formulae. It is dated to about 500 BC.
• TheCippus Perusinus,a stone slab (cippus) found atPerugia,which probably functioned as a border marker, contains 46 lines and about 130 words. The cippus is assumed to be a text dedicating a legal contract between the Etruscan families of Velthina (from Perugia) and Afuna (from Chiusi), regarding the sharing or use of a property, including water rights, upon which there was a tomb belonging to the noble Velthinas.
• ThePiacenza Liver,a bronze model of a sheep's liver representing the sky, has the engraved names of the gods ruling different sections.
• TheTabula Cortonensis,a bronze tablet fromCortona,is believed to record a legal contract between Cusu family and Petru Scevas and his wife concerning a real estate settlement of some sort, with about 200 words. Discovered in 1992, this new tablet contributed the word for 'lake',tisś,but not much else.
• The Vicchiostele,found in the 21st season of excavation at the Etruscan Sanctuary atPoggio Colla,is believed to be connected with the cult of the goddessUni,with about 120 letters. Only discovered in 2016, it is still in the process of being deciphered.As an example of difficulties in reading this badly damaged monument, here is Maggiani's attempt at a transliteration and translation of a bit from the beginning of the third block of text (III, 1-3): (vacat) tinaś: θ(?)anuri: unial(?)/ ẹ ṿ ị: zal / ame (akil??) "for Tinia in the xxxx of Uni/xxxx(objects) two / must (akil?) be..."
• The badly damaged Saint Marinella lead sheet contains traces of 80 words, only half of which can be completely read with certainty, many of which can also be found in theLiber Linteus.It was discovered during the 1963-1964 excavations at a sanctuary near Saint Marinella near Pyrgi, now in the Villa Giulia Museum in Rome.
• TheLead Plaque of Maglianocontains 73 words, including many names of deities. It seems to be a series of dedications to various gods and ancestors.

Inscriptions on monuments

Tumulus on a street at Banditaccia, the main necropolis ofCaere

The main material repository ofEtruscan civilization,from the modern perspective, is its tombs, all other public and private buildings having been dismantled and the stone reused centuries ago. The tombs are the main source of Etruscan portables, provenance unknown, in collections throughout the world. Their incalculable value has created a brisk black market in Etruscanobjets d'art– and equally brisk law enforcement effort, as it is illegal to remove any objects from Etruscan tombs without authorization from the Italian government.

The magnitude of the task involved in cataloguing them means that the total number of tombs is unknown. They are of many types. Especially plentiful are thehypogealor "underground" chambers or system of chambers cut intotuffand covered by atumulus.The interior of these tombs represents a habitation of the living stocked with furniture and favorite objects. The walls may display paintedmurals,the predecessor of wallpaper. Tombs identified as Etruscan date from theVillanovanperiod to about 100 BC, when presumably the cemeteries were abandoned in favor of Roman ones.Some of the major cemeteries are as follows:

• CaereorCerveteri,aUNESCOsite.Three completenecropoleiswith streets and squares. Manyhypogeaare concealed beneathtumuliretained by walls; others are cut into cliffs. The Banditaccia necropolis contains more than 1,000 tumuli. Access is through a door.

• Tarquinia,Tarquinii or Corneto, aUNESCOsite:Approximately 6,000 graves dating from theVillanovan(ninth and eighth centuries BC) distributed innecropoleis,the main one being the Monterozzihypogeaof the sixth–fourth centuries BC. About 200 painted tombs display murals of various scenes with call-outs and descriptions in Etruscan. Elaborately carved sarcophagi of marble,alabaster,andnenfroinclude identificatory and achievemental inscriptions. TheTomb of Orcusat the Scatolini necropolis depicts scenes of theSpurinnafamily with call-outs.
• Inner walls and doors of tombs and sarcophagi, including theGolini Tomband theTomb of Orcus
• The Oratoris a bronze statue with a dedicatory inscription of about 13 words in Etruscan
• Engraved steles (tombstones)
• ossuaries

Inscriptions on portable objects

Votives

SeeVotive gifts.

One example of an early (pre-fifth century BC) votive inscription is on a bucchero oinochoe (wine vase):ṃiṇi mulvaṇịce venalia ṡlarinaṡ. en mipi kapi ṃi(r) ṇuṇai= “Venalia Ṡlarinaṡ gave me. Do not touch me (?), I (am)nunai(an offering?). "This seems to be a rare case from this early period of a female (Venalia) dedicating the votive.

Specula

Aspeculumis a circular or oval hand-mirror used predominantly by Etruscan women.Speculumis Latin; the Etruscan word ismalenaormalstria.Specula were cast in bronze as one piece or with a tang into which a wooden, bone, orivoryhandle fitted. The reflecting surface was created by polishing the flat side. A higher percentage oftinin the mirror improved its ability to reflect. The other side was convex and featuredintaglioorcameoscenes from mythology. The piece was generally ornate.

About 2,300 specula are known from collections all over the world. As they were popular plunderables, the provenance of only a minority is known. An estimated time window is 530–100 BC.Most probably came from tombs.

Many bear inscriptions naming the persons depicted in the scenes, so they are often called picture bilinguals. In 1979,Massimo Pallottino,then president of theIstituto di Studi Etruschi ed Italiciinitiated the Committee of theCorpus Speculorum Etruscanorum,which resolved to publish all the specula and set editorial standards for doing so.

Since then, the committee has grown, acquiring local committees and representatives from most institutions owning Etruscan mirror collections. Each collection is published in its own fascicle by diverse Etruscan scholars.

Cistae

A cista is a bronze container of circular, ovoid, or more rarely rectangular shape used by women for the storage of sundries. They are ornate, often with feet and lids to which figurines may be attached. The internal and external surfaces bear carefully crafted scenes usually from mythology, usually intaglio, or rarely part intaglio, partcameo.

Cistae date from theRoman Republicof the fourth and third centuries BC in Etruscan contexts. They may bear various short inscriptions concerning the manufacturer or owner or subject matter. The writing may be Latin, Etruscan, or both. Excavations atPraeneste,an Etruscan city which became Roman, turned up about 118 cistae, one of which has been termed "the Praeneste cista" or "the Ficoroni cista" by art analysts, with special reference to the one manufactured by Novios Plutius and given by Dindia Macolnia to her daughter, as the archaic Latin inscription says. All of them are more accurately termed "the Praenestine cistae".

Rings and ringstones

Among the most plunderable portables from the Etruscan tombs ofEtruriaare the finely engraved gemstones set in patterned gold to form circular or ovoid pieces intended to go on finger rings. Around one centimeter in size, they are dated to the Etruscan apogee from the second half of the sixth to the first centuries BC. The two main theories of manufacture are native Etruscanand Greek.The materials are mainly dark redcarnelian,withagateandsardentering usage from the third to the first centuries BC, along with purely gold finger rings with a hollow engravedbezel setting.The engravings, mainly cameo, but sometimes intaglio, depictscarabsat first and then scenes from Greek mythology, often with heroic personages called out in Etruscan. The gold setting of the bezel bears a border design, such as cabling.

Coins

Etruscan-minted coins can be dated between the 5th and 3rd centuries BC. Use of the 'Chalcidian' standard, based on the silver unit of 5.8 grams, indicates that this custom, like the alphabet, came from Greece. Roman coinage later supplanted Etruscan, but the basic Roman coin, thesesterce,is believed to have been based on the 2.5-denomination Etruscan coin.Etruscan coins have turned up in caches or individually in tombs and in excavations seemingly at random, and concentrated, of course, inEtruria.

Etruscan coins were in gold, silver, and bronze, the gold and silver usually having been struck on one side only. The coins often bore a denomination, sometimes a minting authority name, and a cameo motif. Gold denominations were in units of silver; silver, in units of bronze. Full or abbreviated names are mainly Pupluna (Populonia), Vatl or Veltuna (Vetulonia), Velathri (Volaterrae), Velzu or Velznani (Volsinii) and Cha for Chamars (Camars). Insignia are mainly heads of mythological characters or depictions of mythological beasts arranged in a symbolic motif:Apollo,Zeus,Culsans,Athena,Hermes,griffin,gorgon,malesphinx,hippocamp,bull, snake, eagle, or other creatures which had symbolic significance.

Functional categories

Wallace et al. include the following categories, based on the uses to which they were put, on their site: abecedaria (alphabets), artisans' texts, boundary markers, construction texts, dedications, didaskalia (instructional texts), funerary texts, legal texts, other/unclear texts, prohibitions, proprietary texts (indicating ownership), religious texts, tesserae hospitales (tokens that establish "the claim of the bearer to hospitality when travelling").

Phonology

In the tables below, conventional letters used for transliterating Etruscan are accompanied by likely pronunciation inIPAsymbols within the square brackets, followed by examples of the earlyEtruscan alphabetwhich would have corresponded to these sounds.

Vowels

The Etruscanvowel systemconsisted of four distinct vowels. The vowelsoanduappear to have not been phonetically distinguished based on the nature of the writing system, as only one symbol is used to cover both in loans from Greek (e.g. Greekκώθωνkōthōn> Etruscanqutun'pitcher').

Before thefront vowels⟨c⟩is used, while⟨k⟩and⟨q⟩are used before respectively unrounded and roundedback vowels.

Vowels

	Front	Back
		unrounded	rounded
Close	i [i]		o [u]
Open	e [e]	a [ɑ]

Consonants

Table of consonants

	Bilabial		Dental		Palatal	Velar		Glottal
Nasal	m [m]		n [n̪]
Plosive	p [p]	φ [pʰ]	t [t̪]	θ [t̪ʰ]		c, k, q [k]	χ [kʰ]
Affricate			z [t̪͡s̪]
Fricative	p² [ɸ]		s [s̪]		ś [ʃ]			h [h]
Approximant			l [l̪]		i [j]	v [w]
Rhotic			r [r̪]

Etruscan also might have had consonants ʧ and ʧʰ, as they might be represented in the writing by using two letters, like in the wordprumaθś('great-nephew' or 'great-grandson'). However, this theory is not widely accepted.

Absence of voiced stops

The Etruscan consonant system primarily distinguished between aspirated and non-aspirated stops. There were no voiced stops. When words from foreign languages were borrowed into Etruscan, voiced stops typically became unvoiced stops; one example is Greekthriambos,which became Etruscantriumpusand Latintriumphus.Such a lack of voiced stops is not particularly unusual; it is found e.g. in modernIcelandic,inScottish Gaelic,and in mostChinese languages.Even in English, aspiration is often more important than voice in the distinction offortis-lenispairs.

Syllabic theory

Based on standard spellings by Etruscan scribes of words without vowels or with unlikely consonant clusters (e.g.cl'of this (gen.)' andlautn'freeman'), it is likely that/m,n,l,r/were sometimes syllabicsonorants(cf. Englishlittle,button). Thuscl/kl̩/andlautn/ˈlɑwtn̩/.

Rix postulates several syllabic consonants, namely/l,r,m,n/and palatal/lʲ,rʲ,nʲ/as well as a labiovelar fricative/xʷ/,and some scholars such asMauro Cristofanialso 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 asamφare/amφiare,larθal/larθial,aranθ/aranθiia.

Morphology/Grammar

Etruscan was anagglutinative language,varying the endings of nouns, adjectives, pronouns and verbs with discrete endings for each function. It also had adverbs and conjunctions, whose endings did not vary.

Nouns

Etruscan substantives had five cases—nominative,accusative,genitive,dative,andlocative—and two numbers: singular and a plural. Not all five cases are attested for every word. Nouns merge the nominative and accusative; pronouns do not generally merge these. Gender appears in personal names (masculine and feminine) and in pronouns (animate and inanimate); otherwise, it is not marked.

Unlike theIndo-European languages,Etruscan noun endings were moreagglutinative,with some nouns bearing two or three agglutinated suffixes. For example, where Latin would have distinct nominative plural and dative plural endings, Etruscan would suffix the case ending to a plural marker: Latin nominative singularfili-us,'son', pluralfili-i,dative pluralfili-is,but Etruscanclan,clen-arandclen-ar-aśi.Moreover, Etruscan nouns could bear multiple suffixes from the case paradigm alone: that is, Etruscan exhibitedSuffixaufnahme.Pallottino calls this phenomenon "morphological redetermination", which he defines as "the typical tendency... to redetermine the syntactical function of the form by the superposition of suffixes."His example isUni-al-θi,'in the sanctuary of Juno', where-alis a genitive ending and-θia locative.

Steinbauer says of Etruscan, "there can be more than one marker... to design a case, and... the same marker can occur for more than one case."

Nominative/accusative case

No distinction is made between nominative and accusative of nouns. The nominative/accusative could act as the subject of transitive and intransitive verbs, but also as the object of transitive verbs, and it was also used to indicate duration of time (e.g.,ci avil'for three years').

Common nouns use the unmarked root. Names of males may end in-e:Hercle(Hercules),Achle(Achilles),Tite(Titus); of females, in-i,-a,or-u:Uni(Juno),Menrva(Minerva), orZipu.Names of gods may end in-s:Fufluns,Tins;or they may be the unmarked stem ending in a vowel or consonant:Aplu(Apollo),Paχa(Bacchus), orTuran.

Genitive case

The genitive case had two main functions in Etruscan: the usual meaning of possession (along with other forms of dependency such as family relations), and it could also mark the recipient (indirect object) in votive inscriptions.

Pallottino defines two declensions based on whether the genitive ends in-s/-śor-l.In the-sgroup are most noun stems ending in a vowel or a consonant:fler/fler-ś,ramtha/ramtha-ś.In the second are names of females ending iniand names of males that end ins,thorn:ati/ati-al,Laris/Laris-al,Arnθ/Arnθ-al.Afterlorr-usinstead of-sappears:Vel/Vel-us.Otherwise, a vowel might be placed before the ending:Arnθ-alinstead ofArnθ-l.

According to Rex Wallace, "A few nouns could be inflected with both types of endings without any difference in meaning. Consider, for example, the genitivescilθσ'fortress (?)' andcilθl.Why this should be the case is not clear. "

There is apatronymicending:-saor-isa,'son of', but the ordinary genitive might serve that purpose. In the genitive case, morphological redetermination becomes elaborate. Given two male names,VelandAvle,Vel Avleśmeans 'Vel son of Avle'. This expression in the genitive becomeVel-uś Avles-la.Pallottino's example of a three-suffix form isArnθ-al-iśa-la.

Dative case

Besides the usual function as indirect object ('to/for'), this case could be used as the agent ('by') in passive clauses, and occasionally as a locative.The dative ending is-si:Tita/Tita-si.(Wallace uses the term 'pertinentive' for this case.)

Locative case

The locative ending is -θi:Tarχna/Tarχna-l-θi.

Plural number

Nouns semantically [+human] had the plural marking-ar:clan,'son', asclenar,'sons'. This shows bothumlautand an ending-ar.Plurals for cases other than nominative are made by agglutinating the case ending onclenar.Nouns semantically [-human] used the plural-chveor one of its variants:-cvaor-va:avil'year',avil-χva'years';zusle'zusle(pig?)‐offering',zusle-va'zusle‐offerings'.

Pronouns

Personal pronouns refer to persons; demonstrative pronouns point out Englishthis,that,there.

Personal

The first-person personal pronoun has a nominativemi('I') and an accusativemini('me'). The third person has a personal forman('he' or 'she') and an inanimatein('it'). The second person is uncertain but some scholars, such as the Bonfantes, have claimed a dative singularune('to thee') and an accusative singularun('thee').

Demonstrative

The demonstratives,caandta,are used without distinction for 'that' or 'this'. The nominative–accusative singular forms are:ica,eca,ca,ita,ta;the plural:cei,tei.There is a genitive singular:cla,tla,caland pluralclal.The accusative singular:can,cen,cn,ecn,etan,tn;pluralcnl'these/those'. Locative singular:calti, ceiθi, clθ(i), eclθi;pluralcaiti, ceiθi.

Adjectives

Though uninflected for number, adjectives were inflected for case, agreeing with their noun:mlaχ'good' versus genitivemlakas'of (the) good...'

Adjectives fall into a number of types formed from nouns with a suffix:

• quality, -u, -iuor -c:ais/ais-iu,'god/divine';zamaθi/zamθi-c,'gold/golden'
• possession or reference, -na, -ne, -ni:paχa/paχa-na,'Bacchus, Bacchic';laut/laut-ni,'family/familiar' (in the sense of servant)
• collective, -cva, -chva, -cve, -χve, -ia:sren/sren-cva:'figure/figured';etera/etera-ia,'slave/servile'

Adverbs

Adverbs are unmarked:etnam,'again';θui,'now, here';θuni,'at first' (compareθu'one'). MostIndo-Europeanadverbs are formed from the oblique cases, which become unproductive and descend to fixed forms. Cases such as theablativeare therefore called adverbial. If there is any such widespread system in Etruscan, it is not obvious from the relatively few surviving adverbs.

The negative adverb isei(for examples, see below in Imperative moods).

Conjunctions

The two enclitic coordinate conjunctions‐ka/‐ca/‐c'and' and-um/‐m'and, but' coordinated phrases and clauses, but phrases could also be coordinated without any conjunction (asyndetic).

Verbs

Verbs had anindicative mood,animperative moodand others. Tenses werepresentandpast.The past tense had anactive voiceand apassive voice.

Present active

Etruscan used a verbal root with a zero suffix or-awithout distinction to number or person:ar,ar-a,'he, she, we, you, they make'.

Past or preterite active

Adding the suffix-(a)ce'to the verb root produces a third-person singular active, which has been called variously a "past", a "preterite", a "perfect." In contrast to Indo-European, this form is not marked forperson.Examples:tur'gives, dedicates' versustur-ce'gave, dedicated';sval'lives' versussval-ce'lived'.

Past passive

The third-person past passive is formed with -che:mena/mena-ce/mena-che,'offers/offered/was offered'.

Imperative mood

The imperative was formed with the simple, uninflected root of the verb:tur'dedicate!',σ́uθ'put!',trin'speak!' andnunθen'invoke!').

The imperativecapi'take, steal' is found in so‐called anti‐theft inscriptions:

mi χuliχna cupe.s..a.l.θ.r.nas.e.i minipic̣api...(Cm 2.13; fifth century BC)

'I (am) the bowl of Cupe Althr̥na. Don’tstealme!'

Other modals

Verbs with the suffix‐aindicated thejussive mood,with the force of commanding, or exhorting (within a subjunctive framework).

ein θuiaraenan

'No oneshould put/make(?) anything here (θui).'

Verbs ending in‐rireferred to obligatory activities:

celi. huθiσ. zaθrumiσ. flerχva. neθunσl.σucri. θezeric

'On September twenty six, victims must beoffered(?) andsacrificed(?) to Nethuns.'

Participles

Verbs formed participles in a variety of ways, among the most frequently attested being-uinlup-u'dead' fromlup-'die'.

Participles could also be formed with‐θ.These referred to activities that were contemporaneous with that of the main verb:trin‐θ'(while) speaking',nunθen‐θ'(while) invoking', andheχσ‐θ'(while) pouring (?)'.

Postpositions

Typical ofSOVagglutinative languages, Etruscan had postpositions rather than prepositions, each governing a specific case.

Syntax

Etruscan is considered to have been aSOVlanguage with postpositions, but the word order was not strict and the orders OVS and OSV are, in fact, more frequent in commemorative inscriptions from the archaic period, presumably as a stylistic feature of the genre.Adjectives were usually placed after the noun.

Vocabulary

Borrowings from and to Etruscan

Only a few hundred words of the Etruscan vocabulary are understood with some certainty. The exact count depends on whether the different forms and the expressions are included. Below is a table of some of the words grouped by topic.

Some words with corresponding Latin or other Indo-European forms are likelyloanwordsto or from Etruscan. For example,neftś'nephew', is probably from Latin (Latinnepōs,nepōtis;this is a cognate of GermanNeffe,Old Norsenefi). A number ofwords and namesfor which Etruscan origin has been proposed survive in Latin.

At least one Etruscan word has an apparent Semitic/Aramaic origin:talitha'girl', that could have been transmitted by Phoenicians or by the Greeks (Greek:ταλιθα). The wordpera'house' is afalse cognateto theCopticper'house'.

In addition to words believed to have been borrowed into Etruscan from Indo-European or elsewhere, there is a corpus of words such asfamiliawhich seem to have been borrowed into Latin from the older Etruscan civilization as asuperstrateinfluence.Some of these words still have widespread currency inEnglishandLatin-influencedlanguages. Other words believed to have a possible Etruscan origin include:

Main article:List of English words of Etruscan origin

arena

fromarēna'arena' <harēna,'arena, sand' < archaichasēna< Sabinefasēna,unknown Etruscan word as the basis forfas-with Etruscan ending-ēna.

belt

frombalteus,'sword belt'; the sole connection between this word and Etruscan is a statement byMarcus Terentius Varrothat it was of Etruscan origin. All else is speculation.

market

from Latinmercātus,of obscure origin, perhaps Etruscan.

military

from Latinmīles'soldier'; either from Etruscan or related to Greekhomilos,'assembled crowd' (comparehomily).

person

from Middle Englishpersone,from Old Frenchpersone,from Latinpersōna,'mask', probably from Etruscanphersu,'mask'.

satellite

from Latinsatelles,meaning 'bodyguard, attendant', perhaps from Etruscansatnal.Whatmough considers Latinsatteles"as one of our securest Etruscan loans in Latin."

Etruscan vocabulary

Numerals

Main article:Etruscan numerals

Much debate has been carried out about a possibleIndo-Europeanorigin of the Etruscan cardinals. In the words of Larissa Bonfante (1990), "What these numerals show, beyond any shadow of a doubt, is the non-Indo-European nature of the Etruscan language".Conversely, other scholars, includingFrancisco R. Adrados,Albert Carnoy, Marcello Durante, Vladimir Georgiev, Alessandro Morandi and Massimo Pittau, have proposed a close phonetic proximity of the first ten Etruscan numerals to the corresponding numerals in other Indo-European languages.

The lower Etruscan numerals are:

1. θu
2. zal
3. ci
4. huθ
5. maχ
6. śa
7. semφ
8. cezp
9. nurφ
10. śar

It is unclear which ofsemφ,cezp,andnurφare 7, 8 and 9.Śarmay also mean 'twelve', withhalχfor 'ten'.

For higher numbers, it has been determined thatzaθrumis 20,cealχ/*cialχ30,*huθalχ40,muvalχ50,šealχ60, andsemφalχandcezpalχany two in the series 70–90.Śranis 100 (clearly <śar10, just as Proto-Indo-European*dḱm̥tom-100 is from*deḱm-10). Further,θun-z, e-sl-z, ci-z(i)mean 'once, twice, and thrice' respectively;θun[š]naand*kisna'first' and 'third';θunur, zelur'one by one', 'two by two'; andzelarve-andśarveare 'double' and 'quadruple'.

Core vocabulary

Etruscan	English
Family
apa	father
apana	paternal
papa, papacs	grandfather
ati, ativu	mother
ati nacna	grandmother
puia	wife
tusurθir	married couple
clan, clenar (plural)	son
papals, papacs	of the grandfather, grandson
sec, sech	daughter
ruva	brother
neftś, nefś, nefiś	nephew (Latin:nepot-)
prumaθ, prumaθś, prumats, prumts	great-nephew or great-grandson
nene
snenaθ, snenath	maid, companion
hus-	youth
husiur	children
pava	boy
taliθa	girl or more likely a proper name (attested only once in a mirror, 400-350 BC from Vulci. Likely a proper name rendering of the accusative case of the Greektalis,Τάλις.Greek:Talitha,ταλιθα,Aramaic:talitha)
lautun, lautn	gens, people (IE*h₁lewdʰ-,'people')
lautni	freedman (IE*h₁léwdʰ-eros,'free', 'pertaining to the people')
lautniθa, lautnita	freedwoman
etera, eteri	foreigner, slave, client (Greekἕτερος)
afr-	ancestors
nacnvaia	those who come next (that isposterity)
Society
aesar	god
Rasenna,Rasna	Etruscans?
meχl Rasnal	Etruria?, or equivalent to Latinres publica
pes	land
tul	stone
tular, tularu	boundaries
tular rasnal	public boundaries
tular spural	city boundaries
vaχr	contract
tudthi, tuθiu, tuθi, tuti	state
tuθin, tuθina	public
mech	people
meχl, meθlum	nation, league, district
spur, śpur	civitas,populus
spureni, spurana	civic
θruna	sovereignty
lucair	to rule
lauχum	king, prince
lauχumna	regal, palace
tenve, tenine, tenu, tenθas	hold office
zil, zilac, zilc, zilaχ, zilath	praetor
camthi	unknown magistrates or magistracies
ceχase
parniχ
macstreve
maru, marunu, marniu, marunuχ, maruχva
purθ, purθne
tamera
cepen, cipen	priest
cepen tutin	village priest?
cepen ceren	tomb priest
cepen θaurχ	tomb priest
cepen cilθ-cva	priest of the citadel-s/hilltop-s
cepen cnticn-θ	local priest?
cepen χuru	arch-priest?

Etruscan	English
Time
tin-	day; cf.Tinia
θesan	morning, day; cf.Thesan
uslane	at noon
tiur, tivr, tiu	month, moon
avil	year
ril	at the age of
Velcitna	March
c-Apre-	April
Ampile	May
Acale	June
Hermi	August or summer?
Celi	September
Chosfer	October
Masan, Masn	unknown month?
Nature
anθa	northwind, eagle (Latin:aquila)
arac	sparrow-hawk, falcon (possibly Greekἱέραξ)
arim	monkey
capu	falcon
falatu	sky
hiuls	screech-owl
leu	lion (Latin:leo)
pulumχva	stars
thamna	horse
thevru	bull (Latin:taurus)
tisś	lake
tiu	moon
θi	water
usil	sun (Latin:sol); Cf.Usil
vers-	fire
Vessels
aska	Greekἄσκοςáskos'wineskin'
aska eleivana	olive oil flask
cape, capi	container (perhaps Latincapio'take' orcapis'one-handled bowl')
capra	urn
cletram	Umbriankletra,a basin or basket
culiχna	κύλιξ,a large wine-cup
cupe	κύπηor Latincūpa,Englishcup
leχtum	λήκυθος,a small bottle
leχtumuza	a small lechtum
patna	πατάνη,a bowl
pruχ, pruχum	πρόχоυς,a ewer
qutun, qutum	κώθων,a vessel ofLaconia
qutumuza	small qutum
θafna	chalice
θina, tina	derived fromθi'water'
Common verbs
a-cas	to make (an offering...)
am-	to be
ar	to make sacred
ara	to dedicate
cenu	(is) obtained
cer-	to make, construct
cesu	to place, lay, deposit
lupu	to die
mal-	(over)see; reflect?
mene-	make (a dedication?)
mulu-	to offer, give
nunθe-	invoke, offer
pi-cas-	make (an offering) (comparea-cas-above)
sac-	carry out a sacred act; consecrate
ścu-	make good, finish (compareścuna"(proper) use" )
sval	to live
thamu-	establish, erect
trin-	to say
trut	officiate
tur-	to give
zin	to work, decorate
zivas	to live
ziχ-	to write, engrave

Sample texts

FromTabula Capuana: (/ indicates line break; text from Alessandro MorandiEpigrafia ItalicaRome, 1982, p.40)

First sectionprobably forMarch(lines 1–7):

...vacil.../2ai savcnes satiriasa.../3...[nunθ?]eri θuθcu

vacil śipir śuri leθamsul ci tartiria /4 cim cleva acasri halχ tei

vacil iceu śuni savlasie...

m/5uluri zile picasri savlasieis

vacil lunaśie vaca iχnac fuli/6nuśnes

vacil savcnes itna

muluri zile picasri iane

vacil l/7eθamsul scuvune marzac saca⋮

Start of second sectionforApril(apirase) (starting on line 8):

iśvei tule ilucve apirase leθamsul ilucu cuiesχu perpri

cipen apires /9 racvanies huθ zusle

rithnai tul tei

snuza in te hamaiθi civeis caθnis fan/10iri

marza in te hamaiθi ital sacri utus ecunza iti alχu scuvse

riθnai tu/11 l tei

ci zusle acun siricima nunθeri

eθ iśuma zuslevai apire nunθer/i...

See also

• Combinatorial method (linguistics)
• Corpus Inscriptionum Etruscarum
• Etruscan alphabet
• Etruscan civilization
• 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-Phoeniciangolden leaves.
• Etruscan mythology
• Etruscan numerals
• Lemnian language
• List of English words of Etruscan origin
• Raetic language
• Helmut Rix
• Tyrsenian languages

Notes and references

Bibliography

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• Rix, Helmut(1991).Etruskische Texte.G. Narr.ISBN3-8233-4240-1.2 vols.
• Whatmough, M.M.T. (1997) "Studies in the Etruscan loanwords in Latin" (Biblioteca di 'Studi Etruschi' 33), Firenze.
• Rix, Helmut (1998).Rätisch und Etruskisch.Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft.ISBN3-85124-670-5
• Rix, Helmut(2004)."Etruscan".In Woodard, Roger D. (ed.).The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 943–966.ISBN978-0-521-56256-0.
• Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco (2005). "El etrusco como indoeuropeo anatolio: viejos y nuevos argumentos" [Etruscan as an Indoeuropean Anatolian Language: Old and New Arguements].Emerita(in Spanish).73(1): 45–56.doi:10.3989/emerita.2005.v73.i1.52.hdl:10261/7115.
• Steinbauer, Dieter H. (1999).Neues Handbuch des Etruskischen.Scripta Mercaturae.ISBN3-89590-080-X.
• Torelli, Marco, ed. (2001).The Etruscans.London: Thames and Hudson.ISBN9780500510339.
• Wallace, Rex E.(2008).Zikh Rasna: A Manual of the Etruscan Language and Inscriptions.Beech Stave Press.ISBN978-0-9747927-4-3.
• Wallace, Rex E. (2016). "Language, Alphabet, and Linguistic Affiliation".A Companion to the Etruscans.pp. 203–223.doi:10.1002/9781118354933.ch14.ISBN978-1-118-35274-8.
• Wylin, Koen (2000).Il verbo etrusco. Ricerca morfosintattica delle forme usate in funzione verbale[The Etruscan Verb. Morphosyntactical Research of the Forms Used in Verbal Function] (in Italian). Rome: "L' Erma" di Bretschneider.ISBN8882650847.

Further reading

• Carnoy, A. (1952). "La langue étrusque et ses origines".L'Antiquité classique.21(2): 289–331.doi:10.3406/antiq.1952.3451.

External links

General

• Etruscan News Online,the Newsletter of the American Section of the Institute for Etruscan and Italic Studies.
• Etruscan News back issues,Center for Ancient Studies at New York University.
• Etruscology at Its Best,the website of Dr. Dieter H. Steinbauer, in English. Covers origins, vocabulary, grammar and place names.
• Viteliu: The Languages of Ancient Italyat theWayback Machine(archived December 7, 2002).
• The Etruscan LanguageArchived2012-02-11 at theWayback Machine,the linguistlist.org site. Links to many other Etruscan language sites.
• Materials for the Study of the Etruscan Languageprepared by Murray Fowler and Richard George Wolfe. University of Wisconsin Press: 1965.

Inscriptions

• TM Texts EtruscanA list of all texts in Trismegistos.
• ETP: Etruscan Texts ProjectA searchable database of Etruscan texts.
• Etruscan Inscriptions in the Royal Ontario Museum,article by Rex Wallace displayed at the umass.edu site.

Lexical items

• Etruscan Vocabulary,a vocabulary organized by topic by Dieter H. Steinbauer, in English.
• An Etruscan Vocabularyat theWayback Machine(archived December 13, 2002). A short, one-page glossary with numerals as well.
• "Etruscan–English Dictionary".Archived fromthe originalon September 27, 2007.RetrievedMay 1,2007..An extensive lexicon compiled from other lexicon sites. Links to the major Etruscan glossaries on the Internet are included.
• Paleoglot: Online Etruscan-English dictionary; summary of Etruscan grammar.A searchable Etruscan-to-English dictionary applet and a summary of Etruscan grammar.

Font

• Etruscan font download sitewith unicode information
• Etruscan and Early Italic Fonts by James F. Patterson