Etruscan language

The language of the Etruscans, like the people themselves, has remained somewhat mysterious and has yet to be fully understood. The alphabet used a western Greek script, but the language has presented difficulties to scholars because it is unrelated to contemporary Indo-European languages and the surviving examples of it are largely limited to very short inscriptions, the majority of which are proper names. Letters, pronunciation, general sentence structure and many proper nouns are generally understood, but the meaning of many more words which can not be inferred from context, loan words in other languages, and appearance in parallel texts, etc. remain the biggest stumbling block to fully deciphering the language. What is clearer from the vast number of surviving inscriptions is that a limited literacy was relatively common, including amongst women, and was widespread over the whole of Etruria.

You are reading: Etruscan language

Origins & Sources

Etruscan was a relatively isolated language not connected with the Indo-European languages of Italy, and with only two known related languages considered to have derived from the same common parent source. These are Raetic, spoken in the alpine region north of Verona, and the language spoken on Lemnos before Greek, both with very limited surviving text examples, and the latter probably derived from Etruscan traders. It seems that the 1st-century BCE historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus was entirely justified in claiming that the Etruscans were “a very ancient people resembling no other either in language or customs” (Heurgon, 1). Etruscan was spoken throughout Etruria, that is western central Italy from Rome in the south to the Po River Valley in the north where the Etruscans founded colonies.

Read more: Al‑Anon / Alateen Conference Approved Literature, Alateen Literature

There are over 13,000 individual examples of Etruscan text, which cover the major period of the civilization from the 8th to 1st century BCE.

There are over 13,000 individual examples of Etruscan text, which cover the major period of the civilization from the 8th to 1st century BCE. Most are from Etruria itself, but there are additional sources from southern and northern Italy, Corsica, and North Africa. The texts take the form of, mostly short and often fragmentary, inscriptions on pottery and metal or stone tablets. One of the most important and useful are the three gold sheet tablets from Pyrgi, the port of Cerveteri, which had the same information (albeit in a different context) in both Etruscan and the Phoenician alphabet. Discovered in the foundations of a temple and dating to c. 500 BCE, it describes a dedication of a sacred area to Astarte and was probably once pinned to the temple wall.

Read more: The Longman Anthology Of British Literature, Volume 2C, The Longman Anthology Of British Literature

Artworks and such everyday objects as mirrors, weapons and armour, especially those left as votive offerings at sanctuaries are another source. A typical example of these short snippets of text is the following from a small terracotta flask:

Aska mi eleivana, mini mulvanike mamarce velchana

(I am an oil bottle and Mamarce Velchana donated me)

Pottery, funerary urns and wall paintings in tombs frequently carry short inscriptions, too. Unfortunately, there are very few surviving extensive written records and no books written by the Etruscans in their own language, although it is known that the Etruscans did create books made of folded linen pages (liber linteus), and those extracts which do survive point to a rich Etruscan literature. One example, with around 1500 words, the longest surviving text, survives indirectly and incompletely as the binding of an Egyptian mummy in the National Museum of Zagreb. It described various ritual procedures and ceremonies dictated by the calendar used in the Etruscan religion.

Categories: literature