The Etruscan language was spoken by the Étrusques on the territory about old the Étrurie, in Italy central, corresponding roughly speaking to current the Toscane (which owes him its name), starting from the VIII E, until its extinction as a living language in the neighborhoods of the 2nd century} of the Christian era.

There exists a corpus , that is to say a whole of inscriptions in Etruscan language preserved so far, duly indexed and coming for the majority of them from Campanie, of the Latium, of Falerii and Faliscus, Véies, Caere , Tarquinia and neighborhood, but also of places more moved away, out of the Étrurie, and with which this one maintained close diplomatic or commercial reports/ratios: what will become at the time Roman the Gallia Narbonensis (the Narbonnaise ), but also the Corsica , the Sardinia and the North Africa where Carthage was sovereign.

The only attested language with which one found a relationship with the Etruscan is that which was spoken in the island about Lemnos, before the Athenian invasion (VI E), where steles were found, comprising inscriptions written with characters close to those used by the Etruscans.

Texts

In addition to the epigraphic Alphabetical S and inscriptions (see Etruscan Alphabet) which one finds on quantity of objects like the potteries or the mirrors of bronze, on the walls of the tombs or the sarcophagi, inscriptions generally short and limited to the name and filiation of the people to which these objects or these burials belonged, the longest texts and most important are the following:

The tile of Capoue

A text of ten divided paragraphs each one by an horizontal line and comprising sixty two lines where three hundred readable words were preserved. It is about a text of religious nature reporting a ritual containing of the regulations relative to funeral rites. Discovered in 1899.

The “stele” of Perugia

Forty six lines and a hundred words, relative to a contract signed between two families in connection with the limits of the respective fields (it is more about a terminal of a stele). Discovered in 1822.

Four inscriptions on lead shelves

Those were found:

• the first in the neighborhoods of Rome with Sta. Marinella, eleven lines and approximately words readable, oracular answer or formula of ritual nature;
• the second with Magliano, in the Maremme, incised in spiral and referring to the offerings in the honor of several divinities;
• the third with Volterra comprising thirteen lines and approximately sixty words, of probably magico-ritual nature;
• the fourth with Campiglia Marittima in the north of Maremme, comprising ten lines and about fifty words, corresponding to a curse launched by one freed against several people.

Shelves of Pyrgi

Incisions on gold plates found in the sanctuary dedicated to Astarté, two interesting inscriptions in what they were found with a third written in punic language (Phénicien), bilingual inscription thus. The first contains the dedication, on behalf of some Thefarie Velianas , “magistrate” or “lord” of Caere with the here comparable goddess with Uni (Hera-Junon), as well as a formula augurale. The second fact allusion to the ceremonies which must be accomplished in its honor. Discovered in 1964.

The mummy of Zagreb

The most important text which was found, from the length and consequently the contents, considering the scarcity and the brevity of the texts which arrived to us and which it is agreed to call the Liber linteus . It is about a “book”, manuscript on fabric of flax, being used as strips wrapping a mummy found in Egypt and preserved at the National museum of Zagreb, from where its name. Dating from the 1st century approximately and at the latest, it is about a text penmanship in red and black in a dozen vertical columns and, on the 230 lines containing approximately 1.200 readable words, a hundred which it is possible to deduce from the context, five hundred original words emergent taking into account the typical repetitions of the formulas and ritual invocations. One could define this book a kind of religious calendar evoking certain divinities and the ceremonies to be achieved with the places and dates indicated. Discovered in 1868 (bought in Egypt in 1848-49).

The gold book

Thus let us call the six plates connected by rings, recently found in Bulgaria and preserved at the National museum of Sofia, since they re-appeared in a rather rocambolesque way. They had, appears it, discovered about 1940 in a tomb during the excavation of a channel in the south-west of this country, then preserved secretly, and anonymously bequeathed, in these first years two thousand, by its 87 years old and alive owner in Macedonia.

They are plates comprising the low-reliefs of a rider, of a Sirène, a toothing-stone, and a text (these gold sheets present same manner that those of Pyrgi and have same appearance). There exists thus about thirty gold sheets, according to the person in charge of the department of archeology of the museum of Sofia. The text being under study in London, the experts did not publish the report of their research yet.

Linguistic classification

There is not consensus, currently, on the possible link of the Etruscan language with the family of the Indo-European Langues (the Indo-European is a language supposed and recomposed, artificial in fact, rebuilt at the XXe century by the linguists) which have the characteristic to be flexional (see inflected Language), whereas the Etruscan is a agglutinant Langue, like the élamite, its contemporary which forever been able to be related to the close Semitic languages, nor with the Indo-European languages.

Certain linguists, consider indeed that the bond between Etruscan and proto-indo-European is not proven and that it must thus be rejected until fuller informed. In particular, the Etruscan lexicon does not have, according to these researchers, of identifiable common point with the rebuilt Indo-European roots. It is for example the position of Bader , Sergent , and others.

Other linguists advance convincing arguments in favor of a bond between Indo-European Etruscan and languages. They are first of all correspondences in certain grammatical features: formations of the genitive, even of other cases of the nominal inflection, word order, certain prepositions ( hintha : below) or particles ( - C : and; cf Indo-European **kwe from which Latin is resulting - that ). But they are also correspondences in the lexicon (in contradiction with the linguists mentioned above). Thus, D.E. Perrotin brings closer the Etruscan clan (wire) indisputably, often quoted like proof of the character not-indo-European of the Etruscan, of forms Celte S and Tokharien born, whose geographical distance guarantees the Indo-European origin (for example Irish clan : children, family; tokharien B kliye : woman).

Certain researchers clarify the point of fastening of the Etruscan to the Indo-European: for Adrados and Faucounau , the Etruscan is related with the Lycien, language Indo-European of the Anatolian group, groups regarded as most antiquated (i.e. in the past detached of the joint base). This political alliance would consist in thinking that the Etruscan was detached from the Indo-European joint base even earlier than the Anatolian (for Faucounau, and contrary with the general consensus, it is also the case of the lycian). For others, the proximity of the Etruscan to the Anatolian group would be clearer if one takes into account, following Hérodote, the Lydien (and not the lycian), spoken language in the area of the Lydie. But the idea is the same one: the Etruscan would be a language resulting from the Indo-European branch before even the Anatolian group.

According to certain British linguists, it would belong to a “super-family” that those name “nostratic” or Eurasian. Such an origin would indeed suppose to go up in times more moved back much than it is generally usual to make it when one has until now sought this one. Also it would more not act as well an Indo-European language, as pre-indo-European, proto-indo-European in its most advanced stage. This would explain the many resemblances which one could find with the Etruscan language with either certain languages of the circumference of the Black Sea for example, or with languages defined as nonIndo-European such as the Finno-ugric Langues (Finnish) or the Basque (the latter undoubtedly oldest being spoken on the continent of Europe). For some, they would be then more pre-indo-European languages that nonIndo-European, spoken about the Atlantic in Indus, crystallized at this stage, and knowing an autonomous evolution thereafter.

It should be noted that a certain number of words, definitely minority, do not belong directly to the Etruscan language; they are loans, “etrusquized”, made with the languages of various the other people which the Etruscans côtoyaient.

The debate is sometimes distorted by the fact that many polemics agitated the linguists about this language under the terms of the ideological connotation that with been able to take for some the “Indo-European” term. This is quite regrettable because on the one hand, that contributed to throw a shade on a civilization which, in oneself, is never but one age of the ancient world among the others, and on the other hand because, beyond the fact of knowing if one must classify it or not among the Indo-European languages, it would be more interesting to know than tells us the texts. However this language which is the Etruscan is sufficiently known so that one can propose translations (not always consensual) of the texts arrived to us; as a whole, one knows what speaks a given text.

Small comparison test

If one compares, like J does it. - P. Mallory in its work In search off the Indo-Europeans , Etruscan numeration ( ðu 1; zal 2; Ci 3; its 4; maχ 5; huð 6; sar 10) like some words relating to the family ( ruva , brother; seχ , sister; clan , wire) with their Latin equivalents ( unus , duet , very , quattuor , quinque , sex , decem , frater , soror , filius ) and Indo-European * ( oinos , duwo , treyes , kwetwores , penkwe , S (W) eks , dekmt , bhrater , dhugeter , sunus ), it as well as possible seems difficult to make derive the Etruscan corpus from the primitive Indo-European. Knowing that numeration and the names having milked with the family count among those which are the least likely to be borrowed from primitive substrates because of their importance and their daily employment, one can only examine with more the greatest caution one loan of numeral with a not-indo-European language aboriginal. Moreover, no language Indo-European known, present or last, was classified like agglutinant; contrary, the existence of the Basque, not-indo-European language agglutinant, probably older than the Etruscan, reinforces the opinion that agglutinant idioms preexisted on arrival of Indo-European in the south of Europe. There exists moreover a rather important sum of Neolithic vestiges in the vicinity of Étrurie, as well as traces of nonIndo-European languages in toponymy (Ligure).

Currently, according to Mallory, the most economic assumption consists in seeing in the Etruscans native-born people, of not-indo-European language, having undoubtedly maintained the commercial links with the east of the Mediterranean basin. But the facts are obstinate and the last research carried out by the geneticists seems to prove that the Etruscans from well Asia Mineure like had written Hérodote. The specialist in comparative literature Michel Morvan (specialist in the Basque and etymologist) proposes to bring the number three Etruscan ( Ci ) of that closer to the hourrite ( ki ).

The Etruscan, language of Tyrréniens

The Tyrréniens being a component, the third and last, of the Etruscan people, sought by the author of a thesis, discussed when with the method of research known as “citophonetic”, through the roots of their language. According to its author, A. Di Mario, left Asia Mineure, corroborating the legend of the Énéide according to which those came from Troy following Énée, and more precisely of Datassa/Darhutassa, “Dardanelles”, they would have emigrated, furrowing the Aegean Sea, leaving trace of their passage and permanence to Lemnos, in Crete and through the Hellade, in Corsica Sardinia and before unloading in the Latium pout to found Rome there, not far from the city of the Sabins autochtones, bearing with them them language, which the author defines anatolic and pre-Greek.

Called “Tyrsenoi”, Tyrréniens, by their Greek neighbors, they named themselves Rasna (a term shown by Etruscan inscriptions like meχl rasnal , “of the Tyrrhénien people”).

Some known words of the Etruscan language

Some first names revealed by the epigraphy

• female: RAM (a) HT has; CH illa tanned; Velia; Lar HT ia;
• male: Lar HT ; HT (Re) (Setrius); Aruns; Vel.

Numeration

The first ten figures, registered on the dice:

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

Names of the gods

They come from the Pantheon Hourrite and pre-Greek. Teshub for example, Tarhui Hatti become Tarhund/Tarchun at the Hittites becomes Tarchonte (Archonte) /Tagete (Tagès) at the Etruscans. The same applies to other gods: Turan “goddess of the sky” (Venus); Laran “god of the storm” (Mars); Fufluns “god sun”; Thesan “goddess of the light” (Dawn).

See too

Internal bonds

• Etruscan
• Etruscan Alphabet
• Etruscan Mythology
• Charun
• Vanth
• Culture of Villanova, Etruscan Historiography
• Tyrrhenian

External bonds

• the alphabet and the language Etruscans by Jean-Paul Thuillier, Professor with the National university.

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