The Etruscan language
Etruscan is a genealogically isolated language within the Mediterranean languages. It constitutes with Lemnian and Rhaetian the so-called Tyrsenian family. As for morphological typology, Etruscan is an agglutinative language and differs from the other languages of ancient Italy, which are fusional. Moreover, concerning phonology, its vowel system consists of four elements, the /o/ sound lacking, and plosives are only differentiated by the opposition voiceless unaspirated ~ aspirated, the sonority feature being not phonologically relevant.
Etruscans lived side by side with the Indo-European groups of ancient Italy: to the north with ancient Veneti and Lepontii; in the centre with Latins, Faliscans, Umbrian, Sabellians, Picens and Sabins (Paleo-Sabellians); to the south with Greek- and Oscan-speaking populations. Hence, the Etruscan language shares a great number of linguistic features with the neighbouring languages: for instance, Etruscan is likely to have borrowed given derivational morphemes from Sabellian languages. Among the languages of ancient Italy, before the appearance of the epigraphic documentation, a dense network of connection and influences was established due to geographical proximity, showing the features of a koine phenomenon.
Etruscan inscriptions cover a long time spanning from the 8th-7th cent. BC (mostly from Tarquinia and Cerveteri) to the 1st cent. AD. The latter inscriptions come from Etruria proper, bordered to south-east by the Tibur river and to north by the Arno river, and from Umbria, and from the expansion territories, i.e. Padanian Etruria (mostly from Emilia Romagna) and Campanian Etruria (mostly from Capua and Pontecagnano). Etruscan inscriptions have also been found outside Italy: in the region that will be known as Gallia Narbonense, mostly dating to the 6th century BC, the period of Etruscan maximum expansion, and more recently in Corsica (Aleria), where an Etruscan stable presence is witnessed, and in northern Africa, in the Carthaginian territories. The Liber Linteus Zagrabiensis, a long text written on the bandages of a mummy, suggests an Etruscan presence also in Egypt in the 2nd century BC, as also some Etruscan anthroponyms in the Greek inscriptions of Alexandria seem to confirm. The attestations in the Greek world and in Cyprus are rare.
The corpus of documents exceeds 10000 inscriptions, mostly funerary, which have been found between Chiusi and Perugia on urns, stones, stelae, sarcophagi, and tombs’ walls. Moreover, possession and sacred inscriptions are also documented. Nevertheless, since the language is isolated and the inscriptions are mostly short and with a formulaic text, language analysis and text comprehension remain incomplete.
The writing system derives from a Greek alphabet of the western colonies, mostly Euboean, adapted to the particular phonetic necessities of the Etruscan language. The Etruscan alphabet presents local variants, with different diachronic developments, and served as a model for the alphabets of other languages of ancient Italy: in the most archaic inscriptions, they maintain the Etruscan writing features, such as the absence of signs for representing the /o/ and the voiced stops sounds.
Bibliography
- Rix, H. 2004. «Etruscan». In The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World’s Ancient Languages, ed by R.D. Woodard, 943–966. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Benelli, E. 2020, Etrusco. Lingua, scrittura, epigrafia . Aelaw Booklet. Zaragoza: Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza.
- Belfiore, V. 2020, «Etrusco», Palaeohispanica 20: 199-262.
- Benelli, E. 2009. Thesaurus Linguae Etruscae. I. Indice lessicale. Seconda edizione, Pisa-Roma.
- Etruskische Texte. Editio minor. Teil I: Einleitung. Konkordanz. Indizes. Teil II: Texte, Auf Grundlage der Erstausgabe von †H. Rix, neu bearbeitet von G. Meiser, in Zusammenarbeit mit V. Belfiore und S. Kluge, Hamburg, 2014.
Last update
10.04.2021