This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
I am curious why there is no mention of Zacharie Mayani's suggestions about an Etruscan-Albanian connection, although there is an entry about him in Wikipedia. In spite of Hoxha's use of his work for political purposes, Mayani's suggestions have always seemed to me to have merit - some more believable than others. Jpaulm 18:35, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
I have removed the statement implying that vowel length must not have been contrastive in Etruscan because it wasn't indicated in the writing system. Both Latin and Ancient Greek had contrastive vowel length, but neither of them indicated the contrast in their writing system. There is no reason to suppose this couldn't have been the case in Etruscan too. In the absence of any evidence one way or the other, it's best not to mention vowel length at all. —
Angr 20:19, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Is it worth mention that this article is hopelessly disorganized?--
Poissonperdu 00:53, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Hi everyone! I don't want to provoke any discussion on this, but the article should mention the NEC hypothesis as well (e.g. Starostin & Orel's article - I can't remember the title, I haven't read that). There are a few scholars who still seem to be toying with this idea. Besides the quite promising Indo-Tyrrhenian (or, if you like, Eurasiatic/Nostratic) hypothesis (for which Glen Gordon and others have offered many interesting arguments, such as the typical Eurasiatic-looking /mi/ versus /mini/ in the 1st person pronoun), the NEC one also deserves some attention, I suppose (that Starostin's reconstruction of PNC is questionable is another problem, of course).-- Pet'usek petrdothrubisatgmaildotcom 13:34, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
In this section, we include without references the claim:
At [1] it is noted that this claim is oft-repeated but there seems to be no primary source for it. As the available evidence seems to indicate that Etruscan books were written on linen, that alone may be a sufficient explanation for none (or rather, very few) being extant several centuries after the death of the last person able to write them.
I wonder if this originated as a reference to Stilicho's alleged burning of the last Sibylline Books. If so, it should be pointed out that by Stilicho's time, the Sybilline Books kept in the temple of Apollo were not originals, and were written in Greek, not Etruscan.
So, in short, does anyone know of any supporting evidence for this claim? -- Securiger 12:36, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Etruscan words have been successfully explained from the resources of the Armenian, the Albanian, and the Rhaeto-Romansch languages.
How cryptic and strange! What on Earth is this supposed to mean? FilipeS ( talk) 21:12, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
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/.
I don't understand. What is supposed to be significant about these words? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.101.76.122 ( talk) 01:16, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't know who wrote the immediately preceding bit, but just because you think you can't pronounce something doesn't necessarily mean that someone else couldn't pronounce it. Most English speakers think that it is impossible to pronounce tl- or kn- at the beginning of a word, but many other languages do this just fine. It's a field called 'phonatactics.' Look it up. It's quite fascinating, if you have a taste for this kind of thing :) Johundhar ( talk) 22:16, 9 July 2022 (UTC)
I was reading along looking at the vocabulary list, thinking that there were remarkable parallels, in many cases, to other languages, sometimes of disparate groupings. Then I got to "taliθa" for "girl", and suddenly I lost all confidence in this article. Either somebody inserted "taliθa" to be funny, or there's an uncanny similarity between a three-syllable word (one which approaches "fundamental vocabulary") in Etruscan, and in Aramaic. If this isn't somebody's idea of a joke, please cite the source. Any Bible scholar knows Jesus' uttrance "Talitha, kumi" (Maid, arise!)...and I have to believe serious linguists are aware of this... which is why I am dumbfound to see no mention of a possible link to Aramaic made here. Mi/Mini, yeah, that reeks of a potential Indo-European or "Nostratic" link...but a three-syllable happenstance, not even cognate, same freaking word? That's not happenstance...if it's not a hoax, it's either borrowing [oh, how?] or a definitive link. What's shocking [and to me, therefore, unbelievable] is that nobody seems to have bothered to research it. Granted, the article contains a "Semitic hypothesis" section, which dismisses the idea out of hand (even using the editorializing word "fantastical" (in violation of both WP:NOR and WP:NPOV), and without bothering to cite more than a single solitary source less than 150 years old in support of that dismissal, I might add)... To be clear, I'm not trying to advocate an Etruscan-Semitic link here...my primary thrust is to make sure that the article isn't including pranksterism in its otherwise authoritative (if excessively vague, bar the lexicon portion) text. Gedächte? 71.87.23.22 ( talk) 06:00, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
There are many Phoenician, Arabic and other semitic words in Etruscan although it is an IE language. These may be explained as borrowings from early time direct contacts (when Etruscans lived in Anatolia or nearby) or later through Carthagenian. Zanzan1 ( talk) 05:20, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
Talitha sounds very much like a proto-Hellenic term, so no surprise if it turns up all around the Mediterranean, especially as so much boat travel (by Hellenes and Minoans and Phoenicians, who all spoke to each other) regarded collecting girls and goods, obviously. The word could have come into Semitic languages from the Greek/Etruscan, easily. The phonetic structure...etc.LeValley 00:08, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Speculative relationships should be lower down in the article. The following are elaborate fringe, bogus and mindlessnesses:
The following is serious, but maybe obsolete:
The following can be either, more citations needed:
The Tyrsenian family theory is about a slightly different topic (a narrower time frame and narrower set of languages), the Pelasgian theory (Tyrsenian langs + Pelasgian/Eteokretan/+???) also regards a family grouping.
I think the heading Speculative relationships now is too fringy; it should be split into serious and fringe/obsolete (the fringe/obsolete part can retain the name "Speculative relationships"), and the serious to something like "Relationships" or "Related languages", to contain at least the other Tyrsenian languages, down to carefully words about a possible far relationship to Indo-Yooropajjan (note my innovative spelling, isn't it cyoot?). Said: Rursus ☻ 10:22, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
there are indeed problems here. The Albanian and Hungarian stuff do not deserve their own section, a brief mention will be more than enough. The Indo-European (or Indo-Etruscan macro-family, if you prefer) hypothesis isn't that fringy, just very speculative. The Semitic theory is just of historical interest, but notable in that respect. -- dab (𒁳) 14:05, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
Hi Dieter, feel free to recategorize these hypotheses any way you want, but IMHO it does not seem that describing a hypothesis, no matter how fringy, violates NPOV. These hypotheses are part of the history of Etruscology. I can't really say that there is a "dispute" - look at the article in its present form. There are a couple of old hypotheses which are certainly looking very improbable now, but perhaps impossible to disprove or prove 100% - unless we find a copy of Claudius' dictionary! By the way, if Albanian is now accepted as part of the IE family, why should an Albanian hypothesis be treated differently from an IE hypothesis? Thanks! Jpaulm ( talk) 19:13, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
I think you want to read up WP:DUE and WP:FRINGE. The question is, how much weight does this stuff carry in relation to the topic of "Etruscan language". -- dab (𒁳) 16:27, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, Dieter, that helps! Also, I didn't realize that Smackbot changed your undue to NPOV - that seems strange! I could live with undue, but NPOV to me puts a different twist on things! Could we just remove the template, now that you have restored the due balance?! Jpaulm ( talk) 22:24, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
The suggestions in this section are all well-argued and tenable. I think the Proto-Boreal hypothesis (which places Hungarian/Altaic languages in the same root stock as Caucasian and Indo-European (and what used to be called Nostratic) is a useful term. The stem language would be so ancient that its traces could be weak or strong in a particular language; but the continguous nature of the languages is important. People have to come from somewhere, the linguistics and genetics need to line up. Recent work on genetics in Lombardy/Tuscany as compared to Rome or Venice may be useful, one day, in adding to the linguistic understanding.LeValley 07:38, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
there are many same characters in both of these alphabets, is there any serious research about it? see Old Turkic script—Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])
no relation. There are only so many shapes you can form by combining two or three straight strokes. -- dab (𒁳) 13:58, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
no realation? you didnt even compare them, i found 12 same characters.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.174.23.184 ( talk) 14:12, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
No relation. Etruscan used a variant of the Greek alphabet. -- Larth_Rasnal ( talk) 23:50, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
"This theory has not been widely accepted in academic circles" But most of them are not against the uralic theory, just against the ugric therory. J. Martha: La langue étrusque - this was the first work, not the M. Alinei book. Macel Otte, Alexander Häusler, Xaviero Ballester assume this theory. I think this is an academic circle. (I dont want to write in the text because of my bad english, but please rename this subhead (ugric -> uralic) and delete this sentence) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.209.219.69 ( talk) 22:22, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Hm. No one has said much of anything on this split. So here goes. It should not be "Tyrsenian languages". There are some legitimate evidenced Tyrsenian languages and we have an article by that name. What the tag is on are the numerous speculative "decipherments" and proposed connections, which is not the same thing at all. Therefore I recommend the split but I suggest the name "Etruscan language proposed decipherments". So I am putting a new tag for it below the old for you to consider. I can hardly work on this until we decide on this. Dave ( talk) 19:24, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
The Tyrsenian languages article exists. I would argue that the more cranky suggestions (Ugric, Semitic) should go to the main article in the spirit of WP:SS, and only the serious points of debate should be kept (relation to Raetic, Indo-European yes or no? Particular relation to Anatolian yes or no?) -- dab (𒁳) 18:03, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
The word for grandmother, teta, reminded me of the affectionate word for grandmother in Lebanese Arabic, teta (pronounced tay-tah). Isn't this curious? Could there be a Semitic link? G. Csikos, 13 August 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.245.238.133 ( talk) 01:47, 14 August 2009 (UTC) You may be right, Etruscan has borrowed many Phoenician and Arabic words. Zanzan1 ( talk) 05:40, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
I wish to inform the English speaking readers of the work of the Italian scholar Bernardini Marzolla who in 1984 published a book entitled: "Etruscan, a found again language" (Mondadori, Milan). In his work by using a rigourous philologic method of analysis he proves, in my opinion beyond any doubt, the strict relationship of Etruscan and Sanscrit. He interprets many epigraphic monumenta in a compelling way. Furthermore he explains the precise original meaning of many Etrusacn words that had already been previously 'guessed' or given by the ancient glossae only approximately. He also identifies many Etruscan words as borrowed from ancient Farsi, Arabic, Phoenician and putting this info into perspective gives an explanation of the origin and wanderings of this people that broadly confirms the views of Herodotus that they came from Anatolia, although their origins should be traced to India. The stele of Lemnos too confirms this hypothesis in the author's view. The name Tyrhsenoi is the Sanscrit Turasena, Porsenna is Purasena, clan jilan (fetus), aisar ashura... By only using Sir Monier William's dictionary in his genial work he has solved one of the greatest mysteries of history and glottology. Zanzan1 ( talk) 04:51, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
I have not got the book on hand now, sorry. I read it in 1985 and as far as I remember Marzolla's method is very rigorous, systematic and consistent in the task of identifying word boundaries, sound changes, especially vowels, and syntax. Being a classic philologist he believes first of all in consistency in sound changes, and he sticks to this principle throughout his work. Whereas Sanscrit has a richer vowel system, Etruscan has undergone a great deal of change and his system is very 'corrupt' and many originally different sounds have turned into one, while other have been simply obliterated. This explains the long consonantic groupings typical of Etruscan. The phenomenon can be partly explained by strong accentuation of the language. Zanzan1 ( talk) 05:38, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the attention. Of course I am neither a sanscritist nor a glottologist. I did not quite get your previous remark about the 'voiced or murmured stops' Etruscan would not have if this hypothesis is correct. Could you please elaborate a bit on this for me? Thanks. Zanzan1 ( talk) 09:19, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
Yesterday I googled his name and discovered that professor Marzolla published in 2005 another book on the same subject entitled "La parola agli Etruschi" ETS. In the brief description given by the publisher it is stated that here he developes his previous discoveries and interprets a large amount of new inscriptions. He supports and develops his theory by showing that the phonetic changes underwent by Sanscrit and Greek origin words are the same in the Etruscan outcomes, that word formation, suffixes, prefixes and compounds in Sanscrit and Etruscan are identical, that the Sanscrit origin is further confirmed by the Etruscan being a Satem language as Sanscrit. He also advances the hypothesis that Etruscan might be the continuation of Indoaryan, a language attested with certainty even if poorly. Zanzan1 ( talk) 04:27, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
No, I am sorry, I have none on hand now. I shall try get them. Zanzan1 ( talk) 08:16, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
My aim here is not entering into a long, loud and tiresome argument. Neither is it my habit to exchange views with people who speak conceitedly and arrogantly. My only aim is to let the English speaking general public be informed of the existence of this theory. They should be allowed to have the opportunity to be informed and then make their ouwn judgement about its value by themselves.
Let me point out that:
1) Professor Marzolla is no ordinary guy. He graduated in classic philology at the Scuola Normale of Pisa, perhaps the best and most renowned Italian university. He is an ordinary of classic philology at the university.
2) His method of analysis is rigorously scientific. To be scientific a theory must meet certain criteria, ie validity, accuracy, replicability. His theory meets all these criteria. It has proven valid ie succesful in interpreting a large body of documents. I shall relate here what I remember. If an Etruscan word is supposed to be the outcome of a Sanscrit one it should be possible to recover the original Sanscrit word through a definite set of phonetic changes. By studying linguistic material in the two languages Marzolla defined such a set of changes (that should have occurred over time). Once defined this set of changes must of course be strictly adhered to in order to preserve the scientific value of the theory.
Well, by applying his method he made his first discovery that confirmed the validity of his theory beyond doubt, at least in this instance. He chose at random an inscritpion from Pallottino's TLE and transformed the Etruscan word x into the corresponding word *x' in Sanscrit through his method. Looking up in Sir Monier Williams's dictionary he found that the Sanscrit word *x' means magpie (a little bird). To his own surprise the day after he discovered that this inscription is indeed on a small statue of a magpie, the Volterra magpie. This pattern of events repeated dozens of times. May this all be by chance?
3) Experts who are allowed to publish on scientific periodicals. These people fall into 2 categories: etruscologists and glottologists. Etruscologists as usual do not know much glottology or linguistcs and give arbitrary, wavering interpretations, often based on folk etimology. Eg the 'published' Facchetti understands Selvans as Lat. Silvanus! Glottologist are very strict but often get baffled by their own narrowness of view. It is no use to compare Etruscan to Retic, Lydian, Lycian, Minoan since we have too little left of them. Marzolla acknowledged that Etruscan is cognate to Laemnian and Lycian but this is not of much help. Only a well known language can help us read the extant Etruscan documents. Better then the Caucasian hypothesis. However the most ancient best known IE language is Sanscrit and it was this fact that made Marzolla start his research on it. He got his convinction that E. is an IE language from 'itanim' a word found both in Russian and E. and apparently cognate with Lat. 'ita'.
4) I already said that word formation, affixes, phonetic changes are constant and consistent in Etruscan in reflecting the original. The assumption that Etruscan is an agglutinant language proves nothing. First it is just an assumption, ie it is by no means proved that E. is agglutinant, then flexive languages can change to agglutinant (see Armenian). But I said I do not want to enter a debate.
5) If Wikipedia has informed the public of M. Alinei's (a veteran linguist) theory that E. is a form of Hungarian, I do not see why it should not give info about Marzolla's view in this discussion section.
That said I do not want that this info gets into the text by all means. I am just trying and informing the interested people who happen to read this discussion. Zanzan1 ( talk) 09:20, 30 August 2009 (UTC) Zanzan1 ( talk) 10:10, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
I wish to apologize for the adverbs. I stand by my word on the content. If you hold unconventional and/or unaccepted ideas you have no chance of seeing your works published.
I found it interesting browsing the links you provide: Steinbauer looks serious and steadfast, as any German scholar. About Facchetti I have no idea but that he makes a common mistake ie that of relying on folk etimologies: Selvans as it is stated in Wikipedia and as it has been noticed by Marzolla is a civil God, He has to do with political life and cannot be interpreted as the Lat. Silvanus. BTW Wikipedia is self contradicting on this point and makes the same mistake too. Another common example of folk etim. is Tyrhsenos as related to 'turris' (and hence to the Sardinians etc.).
Reading what is available on Wikipedia I met just one serious claim (by Bonfante) that may question the IE nature of E. ie the numerals that look from another family ( maybe centroasiatic, ie Turcomongolic?).
I am very ignorant in comparative linguistic, however I was able to identify at a glance many IE words in Steinbauer's vocabulary (and another) provided here:
ais, aisar god —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
220.163.7.98 (
talk) 05:25, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
cel earth
ushil sun
luri bright
thesan dawn Skr
mi I, me
sa self
marish male, husband
lasa nymph, wife, young woman
puia wife, woman
nefts nephew
tinia day, daylight
maru magistrate, priest
ita this, so
shpur city Skr
shuthi tomb Skr
Nethuns Skr
Menrva
Uni Skr
Sorry for being long and boring.
Zanzan1 (
talk) 10:56, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
I do not have any intention to offend anybody. I respect the work made, and I do not like people who ask corrections claiming against incompetents an so.... That said, I "feel" that this article could be very improved.
My first proposal is that the the sections 4. (Writing system) and 5. (The media) should be in their own article. There are not really linguistic or concerning the language and are the largest section.
The classification section is too large for the few real data that it affords. The other section could be deleted (maybe the Caucasian theory which I do not know enough to dismiss and is recent (I mean that there may have been no enough time for the Etruscan expert to write against or to support; but is Robertson's paper published or only a pdf internet?). Woudhuizen is secondary references; it seems that the only used references are those written in English; I miss the viewpoints of Steinbauer, Cristofani, or Facchetti (including the Minoan theory), all three reputed etruscologists!.
To the language description should be added the many more material that it is in the Italian version. A translator should be asked.
BTW: answering the still not asked obvious questions: a) my level of English is too poor for big additions; b) I have too few time available. I can only make little additions. Alas, so is life!-- Dumu Eduba ( talk) 16:19, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
The only approprate expression for that is "misuse"! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.221.253.31 ( talk) 12:33, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
There seems to have been very little talk about it since 2003, and still no mention of what is actually written. I'm starting to suspect this may be about as genuine as the Visoko "pyramids" in Serbia. After all, it's easy to claim that unnamed experts from wherever have verified its age. It's been almost seven years, more than enough time to give at least preliminary findings. Until more information becomes available, I think this book should be considered a modern forgery.
I saw the reference to "persona from Etruscan φersu", and wondered when that became generally accepted. When I was at school, we were taught that "persona" came from the masks that actors wore, that they "sounded through" (personare). Jpaulm ( talk) 18:32, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
Since some days ago a user Ornolfurk is making some editons with from dubious to silly editions. For example, (s)he claims a relation between etruscan verb cer and Latin facere dividing the Latin word as fa-cer. This is simply impossible since the Latin root is fac- and the -er appears in the infinitive which in old Latin (contemporary to the age of most Etruscan inscriptions) is -ese (>-ere), the same applies to other -s- in the verb. Other explanations are simply odd (as the theory of vowels moving such as for relating usil with solis (BTW inventing a Latin word **sulis); but the word is "sol being the -is the Genitive ending (that comes from an original -es), or explaining phersu as per sceane [sic] (real Latin per scaenam) and as Italic (when scaena is a Greek loanword), without even trying to explain the very dubious resemblance (for example, neither Etruscan, nor Latin lost the -c-). Of course these editions are done without sources or references.
I have being reverting these editions (even if I let one which was only dubious), but they are re-appearing. Can some administrator take a look on this question. Thanks. Dumu Eduba ( talk) 11:47, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
I've removed a few more dubious relationships from the vocabulary section:
— Eru· tuon 16:11, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
Usil is certainly related to Sabin ausil sun. Nero' was in use since ancient times for water in Greek. Zanzan32 ( talk) 05:15, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
Disagree. Present day nero' was in use much earlier in spoken Greek as well as many other words of common use, e.g. house no longer oikos in spoken language since Hellenistic times. Many words of Neoellenic are of obscure origin exactly because they are loans from now forgotten languages of ancient Asia Minor. Moreover nero' cannot derive from neeros "fresh" because of the phenomenon of itacism: i.e. it would now be pronounced niro'. As for usil-ausil I am not certain which of the two is a loan, given Skt. sura, surya. Cf. also Sabin Sora, soranus (hirpi sorani), Soractes. However aus- gives the idea of splendent as gold (aus-um), cf. aus-el-ius and aus-os-a dawn.
The word νερόν is listed in Glossarium Graeco-barbarum (1614) of Johannes Meursius,page. 365.Phrynicus the Bythenian (2 A.D) in his ΦΡΥΝΙΧΟΥ ΕΚΛΟΓΗ (see PHRYNICHI EKLOGAE NOMINUM ET VERBORUM ATTICORUM, LIPSIAE 1820) advises against calling υδωρ νηρον (fresh) used here as an adjective qualifing the word water:«Νηρόν ύδωρ μη είπης, αλλά πρόσφατον, ακραιφνές» (page 42). In northern dialects of modern Greek it IS pronounced niro 'νιρό'.In Thrace and Asia Minor in some places it was pronounced νιαρό .In Ioannina and Grevena νιρού and in the island of Lemnos νερού.Note that Lemnos is the island where an inscription in an unknown language thought by some to be connected with Etruscan,was found.The ancient pronounciaton of 'η' was something like a long 'ε'.Pontic greek has retained the original pronounciation of η.e.g πεγάδι,well, instead of standard greek pigadi πηγάδι.However,the word nero νερό might be vulgar greek,a loanword from other languages, since ancient times.It can be a direct loan from Etruscan neri or some other pregreek language.In dravidian languages the word for water in 'nir' or niru.Karnataka «niru», Tuluva «nir», Kurgi «niru», Toda «nir», Kota «nire», Badaga «niru», Malabar «nir», Malayalma «nir», Tamil «nir» (Sir William Wilson Hunter, A comparative dictionary of the languages of India and high Asia, London 1868, σελ. 164)..
Kitsof (
talk) 06:22, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
Very informative thank you. However I think this is a Greek word: since ancient times for wet: Brugmann 1889-90. Cf. Nereus god of the sea in Homer, Hesiod and his daughters the Nereids and Naiads: all from the stem root of neaoo I swim, Skt. snau (same source). So it is the Etruscans who borrowed it and not viceversa. Or it might be a case of alliance, i.e. realisation in different languages from a common root. Zanzan32 ( talk) 08:39, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Please refer also to the list of words of IE origin I mentioned above, based on the work of professor Marzolla:
Aisar god = Skt. ashura Avestic Ahura; luri light Lat. luridus light yellow,; shpur town Skt. pura; thesan dawn Skt.; shuthi tomb Skt. shuddi purification; etc.
I have already discussed the topic above with Dumu: I believe Marzolla is right: Etruscan at least received a strong influence from Indoiranian. It preserved too many words which are simply cognate of Vedic or even Hindi as well as Avestic and Pharsi. By far the largest part of its vocabulary. But it received influences from other ME languages e.g. Phoenician, Arabic, and ancient Anatolian languages. Zanzan32 ( talk) 13:53, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
I remember reading all this info on a Greek dictionary by G. Gemoll. Anyway nero' cannot derive from neeros because of itacism! Zanzan32 ( talk) 04:45, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
I asked a Greek friend for elucidations. The essay I read as a schoolboy was written by another scholar as an introduction to G. Gemoll's dictionary. As a rule an eta cannot result in an epsilon and should remain such, thence being pronounced as a iota, i.e. niro' .
As for ausel and ushil, here are the connexions:
aurum: old Lat. aus-um gold; Der. aur-el-ia golden chrysalis; aur-e-ola halo of golden light. Latte remarks the evoked idea in Latin was that of Glanz, shine citing Quint. XI 2, 31.
Aur-ora: old Lat. aus-osa dawn, Aeolic Gk. auoos dawn; Skt. ushaas dawn.
Aus-tr-um: Lat. wind of the South.
East: German Ostan, Icel. austr. Teut. type *aus-to or aust-ro, from IDG. * aus-ro; Cf. Lat. aus-osa dawn etc. above.
Easter: AS eeastre, goddess whose festival was at the vernal equinox (Beda de Temp. Rat. XV); Cf. Lith. auszra f. dawn; Skt. usra-, m. a ray.
In conclusion Etruscan ushil sun , whatever the way of its derivation, must apparently be related to these words.
Marzolla in his last book La parola agli Etruschi, of which I have read only the presentation by the publisher, hypothesises Etruscan may have been influenced by an Indoiranian superstratum as the languages of the Mitanni-Hittite area of Anatolia and upper Mesopotamia. He also points to the same word construction of Sanskrit in the use of suffixes and prefixes and the same phonetic changes in Sanskrit and Greek derivate Etruscan words. Zanzan32 ( talk) 04:19, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for your comment.
On nero': I consulted Rocci's dictionary and I agree with you that possibly the solution of the problem lies in the original word i.e. nearos: Rocci says: neeros=nearos fresh Senocr.; subst. neron, neeros water Inscriptions (unspecified). In some cases the exit may have been epsilon. This leaves the possibility open of a Greek loan for E. neri' though.
On ushil: whereas the E. word has certainly no connection with Sk. surya I think I have sufficiently shewn here above that it may be allied to Sk. ushas dawn and Sk. usra- ray.
On ausel Sabin for sun: it is to be found in Varro's Ling. L. V in a passage where the text is corrupt: mss. au vel. Some editors correct ausel as Varro is talking of the words for sun, Lat. and Sab. I ignore if this word is attested anywhere else. The Aurelii were a gens of Sab. origin and they held a gentilician cult of the sun in Rome with the support of the state that assigned a plot of land for the purpose. However the question whether their name had to do with the sun is debated: Dumezil accepts the idea while Latte rejects it as I wrote above. Aus- sparked the image of something shining as gold: cf. old Lat. ausosa, ausum and the other instances I gave.
What I wrote comes from an etymological dictionary of English, no original research! Zanzan32 ( talk) 05:05, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for the reply. I did not succeeded yet in reading the PDF for technical reasons.
Yesterday I was writing by memory and now I checked the texts. As I wrote Dumezil makes reference to Sabine ausel talking of the gentilician cult of the sun of the Aurelii. He writes that ausel is an acceptable correction of mss. unreadable Solauel. The whole passage is as follows: "Solauel quod ita Sabini, vel quod solus ita lucet, ut ex eo deo dies sit." Ling. L. V 68. The text thence should read "Sol ausel quod ita Sabini...".
Now some editors, e.g. The Latin Library online correct the text thus: "Sol vel quod ita Sabini, vel quod solus ita lucet...". It seems to me that both corrections present difficulties. The first gives a Sabine word which is totally different from sol and thus the sense of Varro's passage is unclear. The second leaves the mistake of the amanuensis unexplained: it would not be possible for a simple phrase such the proposed one to run into a mistake.
Festus's gloss (p. 120 L 2nd) is thus quoted by Dumezil: "The Aurelia family of Sabine origin was thus named because the name of the sun, because the Roman people assigned to it at the expense of the state a plot of land in order to celebrate sacrifices to the sun; they were named with a derivate of the name of the sun, Aurelii". Of course the material you and me above have presented suggest rather a connexion with gold or golden shine, glittering.
On Sabine there is an old book in Italian: M.G. Tibiletti Bruno I Sabini e la loro lingus. Bologna 1969 2nd. Also can be worth seeing: Ancellotti & Cerri Le tavole di Gubbio e la civilta' umbra Perugia 1996. I have no access to a library, unfortunately...
On Nero' I think the connexion is very ancient given Neereus who was a god of the sea since Homer: Rocci writes: [snau, neoo, I swim] Homer halios Neereus marine (salty) N.
On the Indo-Aryan superastratum in Mitanni there is an article on Wiki. I also found a good work La diaspora etrusca unsigned online on the history of the E.-Pelasgians in ancient Greek sources. I shall translate some passages on the article E. civ. Zanzan32 ( talk) 03:40, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for the Dutch link, Dumu. This stuff looks good.
Chantraine does not look to be spot on: the connexion is not *sauel son but *ausel glitter, golden splendour, (see golden chrysalis above): ausum=gold, ausosa=dawn i.e. golden light. Zanzan32 ( talk) 10:22, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
I read Van der Meer 's whole article, partly because I am interested in the subject of Etruscan and Roman religion (I will read Versnel's too later) reading and guessing.
I have to qualify my earlier good impression: while some of the stuff he presents is quite interesting e.g. the lines from the bronze concerning Uni Thesan Tina Tanachvil Catha and connecting it to Mater Matuta and the Matralia (Pallottino AC 19 1967 p.367), if he is an authority in the field well... : he misread Dumezil, Grenier and did not read Hermanssen and more recent scholarship. He also calls Iohannes Lydus Laurentius?! I know the quotation : de Ostentis 2-3 in which he states the Greek consider Tages a chthonios Hermes. However is a quotable source and I understand your worries...
On the god names of the Piacenza Liver: Cislen is Nocturnus, Cel Terra, Mae Maia Bona Dea not Iuppiter, Tecum perhaps Tellus, Thuflthas perhaps Novensiles (Grenier), Tluscv Sancus (rootstem sak). All original research I must admit, but based on other published works.
Me too I am not clear on the meaning of Dutch het, it occurs very frequently and looks to be an article: wiki has a translation service. I shall ask the help desk.
That said I think his authority on Sabine Ausel is probably Varro LL V 68, passage I quoted above. If you have the opportunity please look up for the book by Tibiletti Bruno. It may be worth its while. Zanzan32 ( talk) 07:08, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
According to Versnel: gladius, sacer are Etruscan!
Zanzan32 (
talk) 08:45, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
Thank you. Yes I agree on ausel. Versnel's reading is great: he may be right but almost 3/4 of Roman civilisation is Etruscan in his view!
BTW one could also cite Latte Roem. Religionsgesch. p.45 n.1: "Das Sol Kult der aurelier mit den Staatskult des Sol Indiges etwas zu tun hatte, ist unbezeugt. Die Ableitung des Namens von Stamme *aus (der Glanz, nicht Sonne bedeutet) ist mehrdichtig. Quint. 11.2.31 zeigt dass der Roemer dabei an aurora oder Aurum dachte wenn er nicht die verrianische Etymol. Auselii zu sol meint. Vgl. noch Deubner A. Re. W. 33 1936. 12." Zanzan32 ( talk) 05:35, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
Reading the Pyrgi lamellae: "ita tmia icac Heram asva vatieche Uniastres..." ita apart (L. istod) tmia looks to be Greek temenos. Zanzan32 ( talk) 05:42, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
Versnel hints to a cult of Aeneas in Etruria. Also interesting the find of an inscription of the III cent. at Lavinium in 1958 "Lare Aineia". What does really Lar mean in Etrurian? So many people were named Larth: it must be a title of respect. Of course in Rome too Titus, Spurius Larcius... But does it have religious menaing too? Martianus: Lars Caelestis, L. Militaris, L. Omnium Cunctalis...In Rome too we have the Lares (gods) but Lar Aineias is Indiges Aeneas. See Livy I and Dion. Hal. I 64, 5. Zanzan32 ( talk) 08:44, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
Fully agree on Varro's dubious text and connexion between ausel with ausosa-ushas, not directly with Sk. word for sun. Please read what I wrote above on Varro's text: "Solavel quod ita Sabini...". However please note the connexion cited in the link you prvided: auos, uhas, usra and ush to burn: L. urere, ustio. Moreover your link states clearly both in Etr. and Sabine ushil-ausil meant morning and morning golden light, not sun! I also found that capra means goat according to a gloss (820) in Bonfante. Zanzan32 ( talk) 05:21, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
And also on the back of the Piacenza Liver with Tivr opposite=Moon ...There must have happened a semantic shift. Zanzan32 ( talk) 04:20, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
The Bonfante give Etr. aukelos for dawn as a gloss (from a Greek source: it is too bad they do not quote the source of glosses). So the cognate word to Sabine ausel seems to be this one with identical meaning. Or perhaps the gloss mixed up things.
Zanzan32 (
talk) 10:57, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Thank you, I am sorry I forgot your quote. It looks D. J. Williams though gives an important piece of info here: this word aukelos-ausel stems from Sk. ush-allied to Lat. urere to burn. Never mind about Sabine ausel, Etr. ushil is certainly derived from it. Zanzan32 ( talk) 04:48, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for the explanantion. However what you say does not affect the derivation of Etr. ushil from IE rootstem *ews just as Lat. uro. I already implicitly acknowledged that Etr.-Sabine aukel-ausel is a different word, as you say stemmed from IE :aws.
The identification with Apolo is of course consequential as this is a Greek god commonly interpreted as the sun, i.e. a deity Etruscans borrowed.
The identification of aurora with Mater Matuta means she is the mother of the sun, probably an indigitation of Iuno-Uni: cf. Van der Meer's exposition. Zanzan32 ( talk) 03:13, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
I apologise to readers: Iohannes Lydus had Laurentius for second name, van der Meer is nort wrong. Zanzan32 ( talk) 08:32, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
It looks the question of the hirpi sorani is vexed. It is discussed in G. C. L. Bakkum The Latin Dialect of the Ager Faliscus 2009 online. He considers it to be a cult originating in Sabine territory and the families of these priests at Falerii as being descendents of Sabine immigrants. The ancient sources are Servius Aen. 11, 785 and 788 and Pliny NH 7, 2, 19. The first passage connects them to Dis Pater: "Sorani vero a Dite: nam Ditis Pater Soranus vocatur: quasi lupi Divis Patris". The second passage connects them to Apollo as does Pliny: "...Soractem Apollini super ambustam ligni struem...".
Bakkum thinks the word denoting them, sorex indeed means ghost. Hence stems the confusion made by Dumezil with the sun. Etr. Shura probably is a loan word from Sabine, contrary to what Versnel writes. Versnel also thinks Saturn is an Etr. name given as Satum, always meaning Dis Pater. Of course this idea could be easily supported from the archeological-topographical evidence in Rome. Zanzan32 ( talk) 04:09, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
A shared common ancestor language (proto-Indo-European or proto-Boreal or Nostratic - depending on the scholar speaking) is such an obvious possibility. Again, genes and archaeology, trade routes and material culture, should be invoked at some point. No point in talking loan words without considering ancestral languages and shared social contexts where certain loans would occur. LeValley 08:26, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Reading Versnel I found:
Lanista: trainer of gladiators (Isidorus X 159);
trossuli, flexuntes, celeres: military corps names;
tebenna : short toga:
arena: (Skeat gives as etym. Old L. hasena, from Sabine fasena though);
Idus: Etr. Itis: Iovis Fiducia (Macrob. I 15, 14) quoted by Bonfante as a gloss; perhaps tis an abbreviation for Tin(ia)s?
Camenae: Musae (Macrob. II 3,4)
Munth: mundus: Fowler cites Nettleship Contributions to Latin Lexicogr. p.258: from root MU enclose, fence. He adds Etr. origin is a similar word citing Mueller Deecke Die Etrusk. II p. 100 n. 65a; Dumezil cites E. Evangelisti in Studi ling. in on. di V. Pisani 1969 p. 347-366;
Porsenna: first;
Reading Defosse:
columna, santerna, mantisa, antemna, favisa, subulo, atrium, subura. It looks subura might derive from Etr. shpura city. It would imply that this region of Rome was an original site of th Etr. settlements: cf. however Varro on Caelius a Caele Vibenna.
Versnel also quotes from Ernout "Les elements etrusques du voc. lat." in Philologia Paris 1946 p. 21ff.:
satura satire, subulo flute, leno pimp, paelex concubine (Greeek via Etr.), taberna inn, cocistrio cook, caupio hotelier, sporta (Greek via Etr.) cotonea big cup, surenae, lucuns baked, vernae fermale domestic slaves, scurrae parasites.
According to Varro LL V:
Thebri(m) name of king of Veii that was given to the river Tiber, disputed by the Latins. Cf. Pyrgi lamellae: Thefariei Velianas.
Talking of the sacraria Argeorum and the 4 regions of Rome : first Suburana: ...parte princeps Caelius mons a Caele Vibenna, Tusco duce nobili, qui cum sua manu dicitur Romulo venisse auxilio contra Tatium regem. ...Vicus Tuscus... ibi Vortumnus deus Etr. princeps. Caeliolum locum: Caeliani qui a suspicione liberi essent traductos in eum locum qui vocatur Caeliolum. Zanzan32 ( talk) 05:52, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
From the Italian wiki lexic:
akvil gift alpanu homage alchuvaisera: gift of the gods: may be related to goddess Achaviser described by Benveniste in SE 3 1929 p. 249 ff. as the Samothracian Cabeirian goddess Axieros, depicted with Alpanu Persephone on a scene of a mirror.
Cape/caper capi container, cf. verb capio to contain Lat.
Ceru : founder cf. Cerus Manus in the carmen Saliare and Paulus 's Festi epitome p. 249L 2nd for god Ianus; Latin Goddess Ceres: both from IE rootstem KER I grow.
Zil to live, zusle animal: look related to IE, cf. Russian zhivoij, Greek zoon, allied to Zend ji IE rootstem GWEI.
sacni consecrated: cf. IE SAK
zina to produce: cf. gignoo Gr. Zanzan32 ( talk) 04:44, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
On numerals: L. Bonfante writes they are proof Etr. was not IE. There is a similar word for 8 cezp in some Uralic languages: Proto-Samic *kaekcee; Inari Sami kaeaevci; Baltic Proto-Finnic kahteksan; Komi koekjamis. For 3: Mari kum; Komi kuim. Zanzan32 ( talk) 04:48, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
On the hirpi sorani: Versnel says they were priests of death god Shuri, represented as wolfdemons on monuments. Dumezil thought they were adepts of the sun from Sabine root sor, Sora etc.
It is intriguing that death god Aite is represented wearing a wolf head hat. Also the Etr. word meaning to die is lupu, which might have engendered a folk etymology among Italic people. However this should have in turn influenced Etruscans and other later representations. Dumezil quotes a work by F. de Ruyt on the subject. Zanzan32 ( talk) 05:03, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Great citations/work, Zanzan. There needs to be more of this in the article - seems to me your citations are good and reveal some interesting parts of the history of etruscology's approach to linguistics. Too bad it's not in the article itself, in my view. LeValley 08:29, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Is rumon the word for river? I found this on the Italian Wiki, but not on the Bonfante's glossary. Servius said the first Etruscan name of the Tiber was rumon. Is it related with ruma breast? And with Gr. reoo I flow, ruma/reuma stream? Rocci says Skt. sru.
Skt. is sru indeed, though Greek and Italic start with r: cf. rio It. and Sp.; ancient rusa, rosa, It. roggia (this probably not IE). Zanzan32 ( talk) 03:36, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Leper occurs often in E. texts, e.g. the roll of Lars Pulena leprnal: E. Peruzzi Civilta' greca nel Lazio preromano identifies it with Liber (Bacchus) on VII century Faliscan inscriptions: also at Gabii the bacchic cult is attested since the same age. Cf. euoin and salvetod tita found on vases there. Needless to say this has great importance for the knowledge of early bacchism in Latium. Zanzan32 ( talk) 05:42, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
Zanzan32 ( talk) 05:29, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
There are many of them: alumnus, Vertumnus, Autumnus, columna, antemna, Pilumnus and Picumnus, Clitumnus. According to Versnel also Volturnus, Saturnus, Iuturna, would be Etr. However while e.g. alumn- is attested in Etr. on Lars Pulena's scroll, the word for Vortumuns was Velthuna. So the Latin ending does not look to reflect regularly an equivalent Etr. ending. Zanzan32 ( talk) 04:27, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
I don't know about -mn- in particular, but many words in Etruscan do end in -na: scuna "room"; thapna, culichna, fasena, zavena, thina (terms for various kinds of containers); mutna, hupnina "coffin" ; tusna "swan," and many more. Some etymologies for the English words for tavern, lantern, and cistern that have -na in their Latin form give Etruscan as the immediate source for them (though I don't think they are attested Etruscan forms), though some of these at least go back ultimately to Greek. http://etruskisch.de/pgs/vc.htm. And autumnus does seem to go back to an Etruscan atune (though as you see, in this case the -mn- seems to have developed in Latin, not Etruscan). Johundhar ( talk) 07:32, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
There is website that presents the work of these two scholars, very different from each other, together. Alinei's work looks of some interest. Latypov predicates well but seems to yield to easy language scrambling an fanciful ideas. Zanzan32 ( talk) 05:02, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
I found this listed as a feminine proper name on the glossary of Wiki.it. It looks to be the same as the Thuflthas of the Piacenza liver, the change from f to p being attested as a later development. This identification would support Grenier's interpretation of Thuflthas as Novensiles. In fact this name is to be found on the 2nd cell of the external ring of the liver which can be confronted directly with the dwellers of the 16 regions of heaven given by Martianus Capella (I 41 and 45-46). Now in region two there are just 3 possibly feminine gods, i.e. Fons, Lymphae and Novensiles. Of course one could choose any of the 3 however Latin sources, authors cited by Macrobius (Aelius Stilo and Granius Flaccus) had said the Novensiles were the 9 Musae.
On the other hand Varro says the Etr. called the 9 Musae Casmenae sot he issue is vexed. Zanzan32 ( talk) 03:56, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
There is a list on wiki, why is it so poorly edited. it would useful to collect all the words and list them with the indication of the provenance and interpretations of scholars. Zanzan32 ( talk) 08:56, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
there are many such links. I advice an overhauling. Zanzan32 ( talk) 05:05, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
Maris': quote from Wiki.en list of Etruscan theonyms: "...Pallottino refers to the formation of a god by "...fusing groups of beings...into one". Of Mars he says "...the protecting spirits of war, represented as armed heros, tend to coalesce into a single deity, the Etrusco-Roman Mars, on the model of the Greek god Ares".
Is not this pure speculation? Roman Mars is the Sabellic-Oscan Mamers or Mamurius (Properce IV 2 near the end) and it is apparent that the Etruscans borrowed their Maris' from other Italic people. Cf the Lapis Satricanus that cites Mamers along with P. Valerius Publicola, who was of Sabine descent. Zanzan32 ( talk) 05:05, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
Latin is Mavors I forgot. However I gathered Pfiffig 1975 has already proved that Maris' is not Mars. Zanzan32 ( talk) 15:09, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
The issue looks much more complex. Maris' may well be Mars. See G.Hermansen Ueber den italishen und den roemischen Mars 1940 pp.49-82; Dumezil quotes also J. Bayet Les origines de l' Hercule romain 1926 pp. 70-120 "Heracles Hercle dans le domain etrusque" and Hercle'. Etude critique des principaux monuments relatifs a'l'Hercule etrusque 1926 who supports strong influences from the Phoenician Melchart; F. de Ruyt "A' propos de l'interpretation du group etrusque Hercle'-Mlacukh" in Melanges F. Cumont 2, 1936 pp. 665-673. It appears also from Latin authors such as Macrobius Sat. III 12 5 ff. and Varro LL V 66 that Mars was identical with Hercules, especially in Etruria. Zanzan32 ( talk) 05:24, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
Read an article by G. Facchetti online reviewing a contribution by C. De Simone. I agree that the Tabula Cortonensis is a legal document (as far as I can read it) however Facchetti's assumption that Etruscan speaking Lemninas were Etruscan pirates come from Italy looks not well grounded. Lemnian-Etruscan objects and scattered inscriptions cover more 200 years. Also his assumption that Italian Etruscan religion was different in essence from the Cabirian religion is wrong. The Cabirian Mysteries date back to prehistoric times and form the core both of Greek and Italic religions. Ample proof of this is in the legend of Aeneas and the Roman Penates, the Mysteries of Thebae, Andania and Eleusis and Etruscan religious documents e.g. Lars Pulena's scroll where one can read the names of Hermes Pachanac and Leprnal. To this one can add the Latin testimonies on the Etruscan Penates to be found in Servius D. II 325, Arnobius Adv Nat. III 40 and 43, Festus sv. Tages (they were Fortuna, Ceres, Genius Iovialis and Pales i.e. Hermes). Callimachus said Hermes had Tyrrhenian charachters too in Diegesis VIII 33-40; cf. Varro LL VII 43 Servius D. Aen. XI 543; Macrobius Sat. III 8, 6. On Rome cf. Plutarch Numa XIII; Festus sv. Salio; Servius D. Aen. VIII 285; Dion. Hal. I 23; 69; II 22. The sacred objects taken to Italy by Aeneas were the images of the Great Gods worshipped at Samothrace. Dion. Hal. says the noble boys attending sacrifices were called Camilli by Romulus as those who by the Etruscans were named Cadmiloi and they celebrated the Mysteries in honour of the Curetes and the Great Gods. Dion. Hal. also mentions Myrisilos of Lesbos who wrote that the Etruscans practised the cult of the Great Gods. See also the name of the month Cabreas. Zanzan32 ( talk) 04:32, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
I apologise to readers. I misread the beginning of this article as I was reading from the screen. Facchetti here presents a view of De Simone's in order to reject it, i.e. he considers the above hypothesis on the origin of the Lemnians a wrong assumption. I agree with his view. On the second issue I reflected the author's views correctly even if he is quoting from Beschi. On the influence and relevance in Italy of the Samothrace Mysteries add Varro LL V 58 ff. in which the whole theological structure of Roman religion is founded on the Cabeirian Hermetism. Also VII 14 citing 3 fragments of Accius, who describes Lemnos as the island of the Cabirum and Volcanus and of the smoke of the furnaces. Zanzan32 ( talk) 08:24, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
I wish to signal this site because it makes available almost all the extant Etruscan texts and is a critical edition, giving variant readings for the disputed passages. It compares the major editions and is very critical of Rix's readings. Zanzan32 ( talk) 08:42, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
I hope to find time to do this, but if not, perhaps someone else will clean it up. Etruscan should be capitalized all the way through, for example. There are other punctuation and capitalization problems. LeValley 08:36, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
There are indicators of possible Asian influence in the names.
1. Etruscan an agglutinative language like Sumerian and Turkic languages.
2. Tarquinus is a possible cognate of "Tarkan" a common Turkic name.
3. Tyrhhenian a possible cognate of Turanian.
4. Rasena a link to Asena the she wolf legend of central Asia which interestingly appears in Etruscan legend also when Romulus and Remus are suckled by a she wolf.
Etruscan This could be an original research but some guy found a possibility that Etruscan is a secret language. Komitsuki ( talk) 03:17, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
This article uses non-reliable sources too heavily. For example, Woudhuizen and Robertson both appear to be unpublished. At least Woudhuizen's paper was accepted as a PhD dissertation from a reputable university. For Robertson, I see no indication at all of where this paper comes from or who Robertson is. Of course, this doesn't mean that they're wrong. But it does mean that the statements that are sourced from these works don't belong in Wikipedia. -- Macrakis ( talk) 22:39, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
^ Robertson, Ed (2006). Etruscan's genealogical linguistic relationship with Nakh–Daghestanian: a preliminary evaluation (PDF). Retrieved 2009-07-13.
I deleted the list of words supposed to be of Etruscan origin as I find the authority lacking. It looks as sheer speculation. I am learning little by little that the issue of ancient etymologies in the ancient Mediterranean is a highly specialstic and difficult topic, and the opinions expressed in the section look fanciful and childish. Aldrasto11 ( talk) 04:26, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
There is an article devoted to the (proposed) loanwords from Etruscan into Latin: Whatmough, M.M.T. (1997) "Studies in the Etruscan loanwords in Latin" (Biblioteca di 'Studi Etruschi' 33), Firenze. I'll see if I can get my hands on it and perhaps update that section based on it (but if anyone else has access to it, they should of course feel free to do the same). Johundhar ( talk) 17:42, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
Ah, I see that it is based on the author's dissertation, available here: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10121058/. Johundhar ( talk) 17:44, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
Subject Matter Experts - please see the Lead and the Classification and confirm this, or re-state along the lines that "a few new studies suggest ...." - thanks. HammerFilmFan ( talk) 22:54, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
I feel the present text is unbalanced and incomplete as far as the presentation of opinions is concerned.
E. g. Marcantonio explicitly writes many Etruscan words cited by Alinei are in fact Turkic, not Hungarian.
At any rate the Turkic connection should be mentioned for two reasons:
1) Tatar-Turkish etruscologist Adile Ayda published many books both in French and in Turkish arguing for the Turkish origin of the Etruscans.
2) Genetic research conducted a few years ago on the DNA both living people from Tuscan Murlo and of ancient Etruscans by geneticians Piazza and Barbuiani support a highly significant presence of Turkish genes.
Of course the Turks of those times were not living in Anatolia, apart maybe the forefathers of the Etruscans, but in Central Asia. See also article on Scythian religion, section on goddess Tabiti. Aldrasto11 ( talk) 09:24, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to one external link on
Etruscan language. Please take a moment to review
my edit. If necessary, add {{
cbignore}}
after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{
nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}}
to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers. — cyberbot II Talk to my owner:Online 00:44, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
I am no expert, but I know that Irish and Scots have the word 'clan' as child and 'clanna' as children. This would appear similar to the Etruscan 'Clan' for son and 'clannar' for sons. No doubt someone has already looked into this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.179.190.193 ( talk) 23:30, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
However, the Etruscan obsession with haruspicy (their liver-reading priests were called 'maru') (Akkadian 'baru') and certain name forms seem to indicate a possible link with Akkadian or Sumerian. Maybe they were refugees or settlers from Babylon who came to italy via Lemnos (based on Lemnian language links and their patheon). ??who knows. It may be a fruitful avenue of enquiry. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.179.190.193 ( talk) 09:04, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
Just to point out that Irish and Scottish Gaelic 'clann' is a Latin loan, from Latin 'planta' (giving 'plant' in English). The Goidelic languages turned virtually all 'p' into 'c', giving Old Irish 'cland'. So no connection whatsoever to Etruscan. Jeppiz ( talk) 18:45, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
I'm not interested (because I'm not able) in wading into the isolate controversy to any great degree. I just want to note that the article itself is contradictory.
Current lead: "Attested from 700 BC to AD 50, the language is not related to any living language, and has historically been referred to as an isolate, but consensus now holds that it is one of the Tyrsenian languages,"
Isolate hypothesis: "Etruscan is traditionally considered to be a language isolate. Bonfante, a leading scholar in the field, says "... it resembles no other language in Europe or elsewhere ...".
Tyrsenian family hypothesis: "Rix's Tyrsenian family of languages, composed of Rhaetic and Lemnian together with Etruscan, has gained acceptance among some scholars."
And then of course we have the massive "Other hypotheses" section which, although safely labelled as "other" does of course cast aspersions by its very existence on the other two (and some of those in turn are labelled as having less weight, implying that the others then have more).
I'm going to edit the intro to make it vague and neutral in this regard, until such time as a properly-attested consensus throughout the article can be properly represented in the lead. As it is, the lead is staking a claim the rest of the article does not back up, the very opposite of what a lead should do. Palindromedairy ( talk) 19:08, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Etruscan language. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit User:Cyberpower678/FaQs#InternetArchiveBot*this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at {{
Sourcecheck}}
).
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— cyberbot II Talk to my owner:Online 02:47, 4 June 2016 (UTC)
Various news stories report an ancient gold book on display in Bulgaria that is claimed to be Etruscan [3]. However, I cannot find any images of the text, or any indication that it has been studied by scholars knowledgeable in the Etruscan language. Does anyone have additional info on this? -- Amble ( talk) 02:45, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Etruscan language. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
An editor has reviewed this edit and fixed any errors that were found.
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 07:54, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
The table gives "Χ" as the glyph for kh, usually translitterated as "χ". However, other sources give "𐌙" instead. According to those sources, "Χ" was an archaic letter that signified "ks", and was eventually dropped from the alphabet; but was retained as a numeric symbol for "10" (pronounced "tsar"). In fact, this numeral symbol may have developed independently from the alphabet. -- Jorge Stolfi ( talk) 02:48, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
I think we should consider transliterating the aspirate series ⟨𐌘⟩ ⟨𐌈⟩ ⟨𐌙⟩ using either ⟨pʰ⟩ ⟨tʰ⟩ ⟨kʰ⟩ as in phonetic transcription or ⟨ph⟩ ⟨th⟩ ⟨kh⟩ as in Greek and Coptic transliteration. Using Greek letters interspaced with Latin ones doesn’t make things any more clear for readers who are not familiar with Ancient Greek orthography. Furthermore, the Modern Greek and International Phonetic Alphabet values of ⟨φ⟩ ⟨θ⟩ ⟨χ⟩—which readers are more likely to be familiar with—are different from the values of these Etrucan letters ([ɸ] [θ] [χ] vs. [pʰ] [tʰ] [kʰ]). I’m also not sure of the reasoning behind transliterating ⟨𐌅⟩ with ⟨v⟩ when digamma had this value in neither Latin nor Greek, although it did represent [w] in Greek as it does in Etruscan. Rhemmiel ( talk) 03:18, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
There are sources that say that adjectives were inflected for case, but this article say that it was totally noninflected. There are no sources shown it in the "adjective" section of the article. Any ideas? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amiothenes ( talk • contribs) 13:35, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
At the vowels section, I saw that "a" in Etruscan was represented by this - "ɑ" - sign, the open back unrounded vowel. Yet there is no source that I have found, not a single one, that backs up this edit. It is safe to say that the Etruscans did not pronounce their "a" as "ɑ". Whomever made this edit is either a troll, a vandal, or a twit, or maybe all three. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.36.35.81 ( talk) 06:35, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
——What about the Es?
Mel Copeland and his "research" on "Etruscan" is the most unreliable source I have ever seen on the Etruscan language. He is an utter fraud; he invents these words based on Latin ones and dresses them up as "Etruscan", and none of his works are peer-reviewed. The McCallisters' sources as well are of dubious validity——they know too much, it seems, and a great many of their supposed Etruscan words and meanings I cannot find anywhere else. — Preceding unsigned comment added by My name Lɑrth ( talk • contribs) 06:49, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
The subsection "Present active" in particular seems to convey a rather misleading impression of the nature of Etruscan verbal morphology:
"Etruscan used a verbal root with a zero suffix or -a without distinction to number or person: ar, ar-a, "he, she, we, you, they make"."
Consider on the contrary the following rather more nuanced summary discussion of present scholarly knowledge, and lack thereof, of Etruscan verbal morphology:
"The repetitive nature of most Etruscan inscriptions is such that very few distinctively different verb forms are available for analysis. Indeed, probably the only really certain verbal suffix is -ce. It must not be assumed, however, that the paucity of the verbal data from inscriptions reflects an impoverished verb system in the language; indeed, judging from the variety of verbal stems to which the recurring -ce is added, it is more likely that the Etruscan verb had a more complicated structure than the noun." ( https://www.britannica.com/topic/Etruscan-language/Grammatical-characteristics )
I think a summary in this article along the lines of the above paragraph of the britannica.com article would be much more accurate than the current content of the "Verbs" section, and especially of the "Present active" section, of the article. Skummafremdygest ( talk) 17:00, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
There have been a lot of advances in our understanding of Etruscan in the last few decades that don't seem to be reflected in the bit from Britannica. Have you read any of the recent scholarship in the field, or are you for some reason just assuming that the EB is the sum total of everything that can be known about anything? Johundhar ( talk) 03:39, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
The consensus (reflected in the relevant articles) seems to be that culturally, Urnfield -> Proto-Villanovan -> Villanovan -> Etruscan. But there is also a consensus that Urnfield is Indo-European (maybe Proto-Celtic, or perhaps preceding the split between Celtic and Italic), while Etruscan is non-Indo-European, and apparently that any Indo-European borrowings were relatively late. This leads to a puzzle: what were the Villanovan and Villanovan languages? Does anyone know of any genetics from the period that night illuminate this? Also, if cultural innovations came to Etruria indirectly from Urnfield, even if there was large-scale linguistic and population turnover, we might expect at least some of the Etruscan words for the relevant innovations (such as wheels, iron technologies) to be old adoptions from Indo-European - is there any hint of this? Urilarim ( talk) 22:54, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
𐌑𐌀𐌓 SergioDiaz1 ( talk) 15:12, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
The short paragraph detailing the Piacenza Liver is corrupt. The paragraph's second sentence comprises irrelevant matter apparently derived from the Cippus Perusinus. If no-one else alters it, I may edit and rewrite the section myself. Nuttyskin ( talk) 14:15, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
I saw that in a revision on July 19, User:Salpynx removed the letter D from table of consonants simply with explanation "Etruscan only has voiceless stops". I will not dispute that statement which is indeed correct, but using that to argue removal of D is a non sequitur - the table previously said that Etruscan used both T and D to represent phoneme /t/ (like it used three letters C, K, Q to represent one phoneme /k/, in an identical manner to Latin). The graphic used ( ) was apparently created after a source that is now long dead so I can't confirm anything. For the time being I've thought to restore the table back to how it was before but it would be good to find sources which support or reject the usage of D as an optional letter for /t/, as well as maybe a short explanation after the table on the usage (was it a positional variant? or did some inscriptions use T and others D?) 178.58.48.102 ( talk) 08:08, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
Are helleno-pelasgians. Their language is an ancient greek dialect. The Tyr in Tyrrhenian and the tru in Etruskian is the same... For to rub. Helleno-pelasgian TYR TOR TRO TUR : TURn, TURbo, TORture, turban, Tour, torbulent, ...able to build castles and towers you need to rub, destroy stones. The E in Etruskian is the same like the et in Eteokretes, etymology, veteran, eternal, ethnos , for well known for long time, true....etc... 77.13.149.98 ( talk) 15:40, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
"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 for person."
Which is it? Is it 'a third-person singular active', or is it 'not marked for person'? 62.73.69.121 ( talk) 21:47, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
I am curious why there is no mention of Zacharie Mayani's suggestions about an Etruscan-Albanian connection, although there is an entry about him in Wikipedia. In spite of Hoxha's use of his work for political purposes, Mayani's suggestions have always seemed to me to have merit - some more believable than others. Jpaulm 18:35, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
I have removed the statement implying that vowel length must not have been contrastive in Etruscan because it wasn't indicated in the writing system. Both Latin and Ancient Greek had contrastive vowel length, but neither of them indicated the contrast in their writing system. There is no reason to suppose this couldn't have been the case in Etruscan too. In the absence of any evidence one way or the other, it's best not to mention vowel length at all. —
Angr 20:19, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Is it worth mention that this article is hopelessly disorganized?--
Poissonperdu 00:53, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Hi everyone! I don't want to provoke any discussion on this, but the article should mention the NEC hypothesis as well (e.g. Starostin & Orel's article - I can't remember the title, I haven't read that). There are a few scholars who still seem to be toying with this idea. Besides the quite promising Indo-Tyrrhenian (or, if you like, Eurasiatic/Nostratic) hypothesis (for which Glen Gordon and others have offered many interesting arguments, such as the typical Eurasiatic-looking /mi/ versus /mini/ in the 1st person pronoun), the NEC one also deserves some attention, I suppose (that Starostin's reconstruction of PNC is questionable is another problem, of course).-- Pet'usek petrdothrubisatgmaildotcom 13:34, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
In this section, we include without references the claim:
At [1] it is noted that this claim is oft-repeated but there seems to be no primary source for it. As the available evidence seems to indicate that Etruscan books were written on linen, that alone may be a sufficient explanation for none (or rather, very few) being extant several centuries after the death of the last person able to write them.
I wonder if this originated as a reference to Stilicho's alleged burning of the last Sibylline Books. If so, it should be pointed out that by Stilicho's time, the Sybilline Books kept in the temple of Apollo were not originals, and were written in Greek, not Etruscan.
So, in short, does anyone know of any supporting evidence for this claim? -- Securiger 12:36, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Etruscan words have been successfully explained from the resources of the Armenian, the Albanian, and the Rhaeto-Romansch languages.
How cryptic and strange! What on Earth is this supposed to mean? FilipeS ( talk) 21:12, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
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/.
I don't understand. What is supposed to be significant about these words? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.101.76.122 ( talk) 01:16, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't know who wrote the immediately preceding bit, but just because you think you can't pronounce something doesn't necessarily mean that someone else couldn't pronounce it. Most English speakers think that it is impossible to pronounce tl- or kn- at the beginning of a word, but many other languages do this just fine. It's a field called 'phonatactics.' Look it up. It's quite fascinating, if you have a taste for this kind of thing :) Johundhar ( talk) 22:16, 9 July 2022 (UTC)
I was reading along looking at the vocabulary list, thinking that there were remarkable parallels, in many cases, to other languages, sometimes of disparate groupings. Then I got to "taliθa" for "girl", and suddenly I lost all confidence in this article. Either somebody inserted "taliθa" to be funny, or there's an uncanny similarity between a three-syllable word (one which approaches "fundamental vocabulary") in Etruscan, and in Aramaic. If this isn't somebody's idea of a joke, please cite the source. Any Bible scholar knows Jesus' uttrance "Talitha, kumi" (Maid, arise!)...and I have to believe serious linguists are aware of this... which is why I am dumbfound to see no mention of a possible link to Aramaic made here. Mi/Mini, yeah, that reeks of a potential Indo-European or "Nostratic" link...but a three-syllable happenstance, not even cognate, same freaking word? That's not happenstance...if it's not a hoax, it's either borrowing [oh, how?] or a definitive link. What's shocking [and to me, therefore, unbelievable] is that nobody seems to have bothered to research it. Granted, the article contains a "Semitic hypothesis" section, which dismisses the idea out of hand (even using the editorializing word "fantastical" (in violation of both WP:NOR and WP:NPOV), and without bothering to cite more than a single solitary source less than 150 years old in support of that dismissal, I might add)... To be clear, I'm not trying to advocate an Etruscan-Semitic link here...my primary thrust is to make sure that the article isn't including pranksterism in its otherwise authoritative (if excessively vague, bar the lexicon portion) text. Gedächte? 71.87.23.22 ( talk) 06:00, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
There are many Phoenician, Arabic and other semitic words in Etruscan although it is an IE language. These may be explained as borrowings from early time direct contacts (when Etruscans lived in Anatolia or nearby) or later through Carthagenian. Zanzan1 ( talk) 05:20, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
Talitha sounds very much like a proto-Hellenic term, so no surprise if it turns up all around the Mediterranean, especially as so much boat travel (by Hellenes and Minoans and Phoenicians, who all spoke to each other) regarded collecting girls and goods, obviously. The word could have come into Semitic languages from the Greek/Etruscan, easily. The phonetic structure...etc.LeValley 00:08, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Speculative relationships should be lower down in the article. The following are elaborate fringe, bogus and mindlessnesses:
The following is serious, but maybe obsolete:
The following can be either, more citations needed:
The Tyrsenian family theory is about a slightly different topic (a narrower time frame and narrower set of languages), the Pelasgian theory (Tyrsenian langs + Pelasgian/Eteokretan/+???) also regards a family grouping.
I think the heading Speculative relationships now is too fringy; it should be split into serious and fringe/obsolete (the fringe/obsolete part can retain the name "Speculative relationships"), and the serious to something like "Relationships" or "Related languages", to contain at least the other Tyrsenian languages, down to carefully words about a possible far relationship to Indo-Yooropajjan (note my innovative spelling, isn't it cyoot?). Said: Rursus ☻ 10:22, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
there are indeed problems here. The Albanian and Hungarian stuff do not deserve their own section, a brief mention will be more than enough. The Indo-European (or Indo-Etruscan macro-family, if you prefer) hypothesis isn't that fringy, just very speculative. The Semitic theory is just of historical interest, but notable in that respect. -- dab (𒁳) 14:05, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
Hi Dieter, feel free to recategorize these hypotheses any way you want, but IMHO it does not seem that describing a hypothesis, no matter how fringy, violates NPOV. These hypotheses are part of the history of Etruscology. I can't really say that there is a "dispute" - look at the article in its present form. There are a couple of old hypotheses which are certainly looking very improbable now, but perhaps impossible to disprove or prove 100% - unless we find a copy of Claudius' dictionary! By the way, if Albanian is now accepted as part of the IE family, why should an Albanian hypothesis be treated differently from an IE hypothesis? Thanks! Jpaulm ( talk) 19:13, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
I think you want to read up WP:DUE and WP:FRINGE. The question is, how much weight does this stuff carry in relation to the topic of "Etruscan language". -- dab (𒁳) 16:27, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, Dieter, that helps! Also, I didn't realize that Smackbot changed your undue to NPOV - that seems strange! I could live with undue, but NPOV to me puts a different twist on things! Could we just remove the template, now that you have restored the due balance?! Jpaulm ( talk) 22:24, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
The suggestions in this section are all well-argued and tenable. I think the Proto-Boreal hypothesis (which places Hungarian/Altaic languages in the same root stock as Caucasian and Indo-European (and what used to be called Nostratic) is a useful term. The stem language would be so ancient that its traces could be weak or strong in a particular language; but the continguous nature of the languages is important. People have to come from somewhere, the linguistics and genetics need to line up. Recent work on genetics in Lombardy/Tuscany as compared to Rome or Venice may be useful, one day, in adding to the linguistic understanding.LeValley 07:38, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
there are many same characters in both of these alphabets, is there any serious research about it? see Old Turkic script—Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])
no relation. There are only so many shapes you can form by combining two or three straight strokes. -- dab (𒁳) 13:58, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
no realation? you didnt even compare them, i found 12 same characters.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.174.23.184 ( talk) 14:12, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
No relation. Etruscan used a variant of the Greek alphabet. -- Larth_Rasnal ( talk) 23:50, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
"This theory has not been widely accepted in academic circles" But most of them are not against the uralic theory, just against the ugric therory. J. Martha: La langue étrusque - this was the first work, not the M. Alinei book. Macel Otte, Alexander Häusler, Xaviero Ballester assume this theory. I think this is an academic circle. (I dont want to write in the text because of my bad english, but please rename this subhead (ugric -> uralic) and delete this sentence) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.209.219.69 ( talk) 22:22, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Hm. No one has said much of anything on this split. So here goes. It should not be "Tyrsenian languages". There are some legitimate evidenced Tyrsenian languages and we have an article by that name. What the tag is on are the numerous speculative "decipherments" and proposed connections, which is not the same thing at all. Therefore I recommend the split but I suggest the name "Etruscan language proposed decipherments". So I am putting a new tag for it below the old for you to consider. I can hardly work on this until we decide on this. Dave ( talk) 19:24, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
The Tyrsenian languages article exists. I would argue that the more cranky suggestions (Ugric, Semitic) should go to the main article in the spirit of WP:SS, and only the serious points of debate should be kept (relation to Raetic, Indo-European yes or no? Particular relation to Anatolian yes or no?) -- dab (𒁳) 18:03, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
The word for grandmother, teta, reminded me of the affectionate word for grandmother in Lebanese Arabic, teta (pronounced tay-tah). Isn't this curious? Could there be a Semitic link? G. Csikos, 13 August 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.245.238.133 ( talk) 01:47, 14 August 2009 (UTC) You may be right, Etruscan has borrowed many Phoenician and Arabic words. Zanzan1 ( talk) 05:40, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
I wish to inform the English speaking readers of the work of the Italian scholar Bernardini Marzolla who in 1984 published a book entitled: "Etruscan, a found again language" (Mondadori, Milan). In his work by using a rigourous philologic method of analysis he proves, in my opinion beyond any doubt, the strict relationship of Etruscan and Sanscrit. He interprets many epigraphic monumenta in a compelling way. Furthermore he explains the precise original meaning of many Etrusacn words that had already been previously 'guessed' or given by the ancient glossae only approximately. He also identifies many Etruscan words as borrowed from ancient Farsi, Arabic, Phoenician and putting this info into perspective gives an explanation of the origin and wanderings of this people that broadly confirms the views of Herodotus that they came from Anatolia, although their origins should be traced to India. The stele of Lemnos too confirms this hypothesis in the author's view. The name Tyrhsenoi is the Sanscrit Turasena, Porsenna is Purasena, clan jilan (fetus), aisar ashura... By only using Sir Monier William's dictionary in his genial work he has solved one of the greatest mysteries of history and glottology. Zanzan1 ( talk) 04:51, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
I have not got the book on hand now, sorry. I read it in 1985 and as far as I remember Marzolla's method is very rigorous, systematic and consistent in the task of identifying word boundaries, sound changes, especially vowels, and syntax. Being a classic philologist he believes first of all in consistency in sound changes, and he sticks to this principle throughout his work. Whereas Sanscrit has a richer vowel system, Etruscan has undergone a great deal of change and his system is very 'corrupt' and many originally different sounds have turned into one, while other have been simply obliterated. This explains the long consonantic groupings typical of Etruscan. The phenomenon can be partly explained by strong accentuation of the language. Zanzan1 ( talk) 05:38, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the attention. Of course I am neither a sanscritist nor a glottologist. I did not quite get your previous remark about the 'voiced or murmured stops' Etruscan would not have if this hypothesis is correct. Could you please elaborate a bit on this for me? Thanks. Zanzan1 ( talk) 09:19, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
Yesterday I googled his name and discovered that professor Marzolla published in 2005 another book on the same subject entitled "La parola agli Etruschi" ETS. In the brief description given by the publisher it is stated that here he developes his previous discoveries and interprets a large amount of new inscriptions. He supports and develops his theory by showing that the phonetic changes underwent by Sanscrit and Greek origin words are the same in the Etruscan outcomes, that word formation, suffixes, prefixes and compounds in Sanscrit and Etruscan are identical, that the Sanscrit origin is further confirmed by the Etruscan being a Satem language as Sanscrit. He also advances the hypothesis that Etruscan might be the continuation of Indoaryan, a language attested with certainty even if poorly. Zanzan1 ( talk) 04:27, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
No, I am sorry, I have none on hand now. I shall try get them. Zanzan1 ( talk) 08:16, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
My aim here is not entering into a long, loud and tiresome argument. Neither is it my habit to exchange views with people who speak conceitedly and arrogantly. My only aim is to let the English speaking general public be informed of the existence of this theory. They should be allowed to have the opportunity to be informed and then make their ouwn judgement about its value by themselves.
Let me point out that:
1) Professor Marzolla is no ordinary guy. He graduated in classic philology at the Scuola Normale of Pisa, perhaps the best and most renowned Italian university. He is an ordinary of classic philology at the university.
2) His method of analysis is rigorously scientific. To be scientific a theory must meet certain criteria, ie validity, accuracy, replicability. His theory meets all these criteria. It has proven valid ie succesful in interpreting a large body of documents. I shall relate here what I remember. If an Etruscan word is supposed to be the outcome of a Sanscrit one it should be possible to recover the original Sanscrit word through a definite set of phonetic changes. By studying linguistic material in the two languages Marzolla defined such a set of changes (that should have occurred over time). Once defined this set of changes must of course be strictly adhered to in order to preserve the scientific value of the theory.
Well, by applying his method he made his first discovery that confirmed the validity of his theory beyond doubt, at least in this instance. He chose at random an inscritpion from Pallottino's TLE and transformed the Etruscan word x into the corresponding word *x' in Sanscrit through his method. Looking up in Sir Monier Williams's dictionary he found that the Sanscrit word *x' means magpie (a little bird). To his own surprise the day after he discovered that this inscription is indeed on a small statue of a magpie, the Volterra magpie. This pattern of events repeated dozens of times. May this all be by chance?
3) Experts who are allowed to publish on scientific periodicals. These people fall into 2 categories: etruscologists and glottologists. Etruscologists as usual do not know much glottology or linguistcs and give arbitrary, wavering interpretations, often based on folk etimology. Eg the 'published' Facchetti understands Selvans as Lat. Silvanus! Glottologist are very strict but often get baffled by their own narrowness of view. It is no use to compare Etruscan to Retic, Lydian, Lycian, Minoan since we have too little left of them. Marzolla acknowledged that Etruscan is cognate to Laemnian and Lycian but this is not of much help. Only a well known language can help us read the extant Etruscan documents. Better then the Caucasian hypothesis. However the most ancient best known IE language is Sanscrit and it was this fact that made Marzolla start his research on it. He got his convinction that E. is an IE language from 'itanim' a word found both in Russian and E. and apparently cognate with Lat. 'ita'.
4) I already said that word formation, affixes, phonetic changes are constant and consistent in Etruscan in reflecting the original. The assumption that Etruscan is an agglutinant language proves nothing. First it is just an assumption, ie it is by no means proved that E. is agglutinant, then flexive languages can change to agglutinant (see Armenian). But I said I do not want to enter a debate.
5) If Wikipedia has informed the public of M. Alinei's (a veteran linguist) theory that E. is a form of Hungarian, I do not see why it should not give info about Marzolla's view in this discussion section.
That said I do not want that this info gets into the text by all means. I am just trying and informing the interested people who happen to read this discussion. Zanzan1 ( talk) 09:20, 30 August 2009 (UTC) Zanzan1 ( talk) 10:10, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
I wish to apologize for the adverbs. I stand by my word on the content. If you hold unconventional and/or unaccepted ideas you have no chance of seeing your works published.
I found it interesting browsing the links you provide: Steinbauer looks serious and steadfast, as any German scholar. About Facchetti I have no idea but that he makes a common mistake ie that of relying on folk etimologies: Selvans as it is stated in Wikipedia and as it has been noticed by Marzolla is a civil God, He has to do with political life and cannot be interpreted as the Lat. Silvanus. BTW Wikipedia is self contradicting on this point and makes the same mistake too. Another common example of folk etim. is Tyrhsenos as related to 'turris' (and hence to the Sardinians etc.).
Reading what is available on Wikipedia I met just one serious claim (by Bonfante) that may question the IE nature of E. ie the numerals that look from another family ( maybe centroasiatic, ie Turcomongolic?).
I am very ignorant in comparative linguistic, however I was able to identify at a glance many IE words in Steinbauer's vocabulary (and another) provided here:
ais, aisar god —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
220.163.7.98 (
talk) 05:25, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
cel earth
ushil sun
luri bright
thesan dawn Skr
mi I, me
sa self
marish male, husband
lasa nymph, wife, young woman
puia wife, woman
nefts nephew
tinia day, daylight
maru magistrate, priest
ita this, so
shpur city Skr
shuthi tomb Skr
Nethuns Skr
Menrva
Uni Skr
Sorry for being long and boring.
Zanzan1 (
talk) 10:56, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
I do not have any intention to offend anybody. I respect the work made, and I do not like people who ask corrections claiming against incompetents an so.... That said, I "feel" that this article could be very improved.
My first proposal is that the the sections 4. (Writing system) and 5. (The media) should be in their own article. There are not really linguistic or concerning the language and are the largest section.
The classification section is too large for the few real data that it affords. The other section could be deleted (maybe the Caucasian theory which I do not know enough to dismiss and is recent (I mean that there may have been no enough time for the Etruscan expert to write against or to support; but is Robertson's paper published or only a pdf internet?). Woudhuizen is secondary references; it seems that the only used references are those written in English; I miss the viewpoints of Steinbauer, Cristofani, or Facchetti (including the Minoan theory), all three reputed etruscologists!.
To the language description should be added the many more material that it is in the Italian version. A translator should be asked.
BTW: answering the still not asked obvious questions: a) my level of English is too poor for big additions; b) I have too few time available. I can only make little additions. Alas, so is life!-- Dumu Eduba ( talk) 16:19, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
The only approprate expression for that is "misuse"! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.221.253.31 ( talk) 12:33, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
There seems to have been very little talk about it since 2003, and still no mention of what is actually written. I'm starting to suspect this may be about as genuine as the Visoko "pyramids" in Serbia. After all, it's easy to claim that unnamed experts from wherever have verified its age. It's been almost seven years, more than enough time to give at least preliminary findings. Until more information becomes available, I think this book should be considered a modern forgery.
I saw the reference to "persona from Etruscan φersu", and wondered when that became generally accepted. When I was at school, we were taught that "persona" came from the masks that actors wore, that they "sounded through" (personare). Jpaulm ( talk) 18:32, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
Since some days ago a user Ornolfurk is making some editons with from dubious to silly editions. For example, (s)he claims a relation between etruscan verb cer and Latin facere dividing the Latin word as fa-cer. This is simply impossible since the Latin root is fac- and the -er appears in the infinitive which in old Latin (contemporary to the age of most Etruscan inscriptions) is -ese (>-ere), the same applies to other -s- in the verb. Other explanations are simply odd (as the theory of vowels moving such as for relating usil with solis (BTW inventing a Latin word **sulis); but the word is "sol being the -is the Genitive ending (that comes from an original -es), or explaining phersu as per sceane [sic] (real Latin per scaenam) and as Italic (when scaena is a Greek loanword), without even trying to explain the very dubious resemblance (for example, neither Etruscan, nor Latin lost the -c-). Of course these editions are done without sources or references.
I have being reverting these editions (even if I let one which was only dubious), but they are re-appearing. Can some administrator take a look on this question. Thanks. Dumu Eduba ( talk) 11:47, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
I've removed a few more dubious relationships from the vocabulary section:
— Eru· tuon 16:11, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
Usil is certainly related to Sabin ausil sun. Nero' was in use since ancient times for water in Greek. Zanzan32 ( talk) 05:15, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
Disagree. Present day nero' was in use much earlier in spoken Greek as well as many other words of common use, e.g. house no longer oikos in spoken language since Hellenistic times. Many words of Neoellenic are of obscure origin exactly because they are loans from now forgotten languages of ancient Asia Minor. Moreover nero' cannot derive from neeros "fresh" because of the phenomenon of itacism: i.e. it would now be pronounced niro'. As for usil-ausil I am not certain which of the two is a loan, given Skt. sura, surya. Cf. also Sabin Sora, soranus (hirpi sorani), Soractes. However aus- gives the idea of splendent as gold (aus-um), cf. aus-el-ius and aus-os-a dawn.
The word νερόν is listed in Glossarium Graeco-barbarum (1614) of Johannes Meursius,page. 365.Phrynicus the Bythenian (2 A.D) in his ΦΡΥΝΙΧΟΥ ΕΚΛΟΓΗ (see PHRYNICHI EKLOGAE NOMINUM ET VERBORUM ATTICORUM, LIPSIAE 1820) advises against calling υδωρ νηρον (fresh) used here as an adjective qualifing the word water:«Νηρόν ύδωρ μη είπης, αλλά πρόσφατον, ακραιφνές» (page 42). In northern dialects of modern Greek it IS pronounced niro 'νιρό'.In Thrace and Asia Minor in some places it was pronounced νιαρό .In Ioannina and Grevena νιρού and in the island of Lemnos νερού.Note that Lemnos is the island where an inscription in an unknown language thought by some to be connected with Etruscan,was found.The ancient pronounciaton of 'η' was something like a long 'ε'.Pontic greek has retained the original pronounciation of η.e.g πεγάδι,well, instead of standard greek pigadi πηγάδι.However,the word nero νερό might be vulgar greek,a loanword from other languages, since ancient times.It can be a direct loan from Etruscan neri or some other pregreek language.In dravidian languages the word for water in 'nir' or niru.Karnataka «niru», Tuluva «nir», Kurgi «niru», Toda «nir», Kota «nire», Badaga «niru», Malabar «nir», Malayalma «nir», Tamil «nir» (Sir William Wilson Hunter, A comparative dictionary of the languages of India and high Asia, London 1868, σελ. 164)..
Kitsof (
talk) 06:22, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
Very informative thank you. However I think this is a Greek word: since ancient times for wet: Brugmann 1889-90. Cf. Nereus god of the sea in Homer, Hesiod and his daughters the Nereids and Naiads: all from the stem root of neaoo I swim, Skt. snau (same source). So it is the Etruscans who borrowed it and not viceversa. Or it might be a case of alliance, i.e. realisation in different languages from a common root. Zanzan32 ( talk) 08:39, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Please refer also to the list of words of IE origin I mentioned above, based on the work of professor Marzolla:
Aisar god = Skt. ashura Avestic Ahura; luri light Lat. luridus light yellow,; shpur town Skt. pura; thesan dawn Skt.; shuthi tomb Skt. shuddi purification; etc.
I have already discussed the topic above with Dumu: I believe Marzolla is right: Etruscan at least received a strong influence from Indoiranian. It preserved too many words which are simply cognate of Vedic or even Hindi as well as Avestic and Pharsi. By far the largest part of its vocabulary. But it received influences from other ME languages e.g. Phoenician, Arabic, and ancient Anatolian languages. Zanzan32 ( talk) 13:53, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
I remember reading all this info on a Greek dictionary by G. Gemoll. Anyway nero' cannot derive from neeros because of itacism! Zanzan32 ( talk) 04:45, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
I asked a Greek friend for elucidations. The essay I read as a schoolboy was written by another scholar as an introduction to G. Gemoll's dictionary. As a rule an eta cannot result in an epsilon and should remain such, thence being pronounced as a iota, i.e. niro' .
As for ausel and ushil, here are the connexions:
aurum: old Lat. aus-um gold; Der. aur-el-ia golden chrysalis; aur-e-ola halo of golden light. Latte remarks the evoked idea in Latin was that of Glanz, shine citing Quint. XI 2, 31.
Aur-ora: old Lat. aus-osa dawn, Aeolic Gk. auoos dawn; Skt. ushaas dawn.
Aus-tr-um: Lat. wind of the South.
East: German Ostan, Icel. austr. Teut. type *aus-to or aust-ro, from IDG. * aus-ro; Cf. Lat. aus-osa dawn etc. above.
Easter: AS eeastre, goddess whose festival was at the vernal equinox (Beda de Temp. Rat. XV); Cf. Lith. auszra f. dawn; Skt. usra-, m. a ray.
In conclusion Etruscan ushil sun , whatever the way of its derivation, must apparently be related to these words.
Marzolla in his last book La parola agli Etruschi, of which I have read only the presentation by the publisher, hypothesises Etruscan may have been influenced by an Indoiranian superstratum as the languages of the Mitanni-Hittite area of Anatolia and upper Mesopotamia. He also points to the same word construction of Sanskrit in the use of suffixes and prefixes and the same phonetic changes in Sanskrit and Greek derivate Etruscan words. Zanzan32 ( talk) 04:19, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for your comment.
On nero': I consulted Rocci's dictionary and I agree with you that possibly the solution of the problem lies in the original word i.e. nearos: Rocci says: neeros=nearos fresh Senocr.; subst. neron, neeros water Inscriptions (unspecified). In some cases the exit may have been epsilon. This leaves the possibility open of a Greek loan for E. neri' though.
On ushil: whereas the E. word has certainly no connection with Sk. surya I think I have sufficiently shewn here above that it may be allied to Sk. ushas dawn and Sk. usra- ray.
On ausel Sabin for sun: it is to be found in Varro's Ling. L. V in a passage where the text is corrupt: mss. au vel. Some editors correct ausel as Varro is talking of the words for sun, Lat. and Sab. I ignore if this word is attested anywhere else. The Aurelii were a gens of Sab. origin and they held a gentilician cult of the sun in Rome with the support of the state that assigned a plot of land for the purpose. However the question whether their name had to do with the sun is debated: Dumezil accepts the idea while Latte rejects it as I wrote above. Aus- sparked the image of something shining as gold: cf. old Lat. ausosa, ausum and the other instances I gave.
What I wrote comes from an etymological dictionary of English, no original research! Zanzan32 ( talk) 05:05, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for the reply. I did not succeeded yet in reading the PDF for technical reasons.
Yesterday I was writing by memory and now I checked the texts. As I wrote Dumezil makes reference to Sabine ausel talking of the gentilician cult of the sun of the Aurelii. He writes that ausel is an acceptable correction of mss. unreadable Solauel. The whole passage is as follows: "Solauel quod ita Sabini, vel quod solus ita lucet, ut ex eo deo dies sit." Ling. L. V 68. The text thence should read "Sol ausel quod ita Sabini...".
Now some editors, e.g. The Latin Library online correct the text thus: "Sol vel quod ita Sabini, vel quod solus ita lucet...". It seems to me that both corrections present difficulties. The first gives a Sabine word which is totally different from sol and thus the sense of Varro's passage is unclear. The second leaves the mistake of the amanuensis unexplained: it would not be possible for a simple phrase such the proposed one to run into a mistake.
Festus's gloss (p. 120 L 2nd) is thus quoted by Dumezil: "The Aurelia family of Sabine origin was thus named because the name of the sun, because the Roman people assigned to it at the expense of the state a plot of land in order to celebrate sacrifices to the sun; they were named with a derivate of the name of the sun, Aurelii". Of course the material you and me above have presented suggest rather a connexion with gold or golden shine, glittering.
On Sabine there is an old book in Italian: M.G. Tibiletti Bruno I Sabini e la loro lingus. Bologna 1969 2nd. Also can be worth seeing: Ancellotti & Cerri Le tavole di Gubbio e la civilta' umbra Perugia 1996. I have no access to a library, unfortunately...
On Nero' I think the connexion is very ancient given Neereus who was a god of the sea since Homer: Rocci writes: [snau, neoo, I swim] Homer halios Neereus marine (salty) N.
On the Indo-Aryan superastratum in Mitanni there is an article on Wiki. I also found a good work La diaspora etrusca unsigned online on the history of the E.-Pelasgians in ancient Greek sources. I shall translate some passages on the article E. civ. Zanzan32 ( talk) 03:40, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for the Dutch link, Dumu. This stuff looks good.
Chantraine does not look to be spot on: the connexion is not *sauel son but *ausel glitter, golden splendour, (see golden chrysalis above): ausum=gold, ausosa=dawn i.e. golden light. Zanzan32 ( talk) 10:22, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
I read Van der Meer 's whole article, partly because I am interested in the subject of Etruscan and Roman religion (I will read Versnel's too later) reading and guessing.
I have to qualify my earlier good impression: while some of the stuff he presents is quite interesting e.g. the lines from the bronze concerning Uni Thesan Tina Tanachvil Catha and connecting it to Mater Matuta and the Matralia (Pallottino AC 19 1967 p.367), if he is an authority in the field well... : he misread Dumezil, Grenier and did not read Hermanssen and more recent scholarship. He also calls Iohannes Lydus Laurentius?! I know the quotation : de Ostentis 2-3 in which he states the Greek consider Tages a chthonios Hermes. However is a quotable source and I understand your worries...
On the god names of the Piacenza Liver: Cislen is Nocturnus, Cel Terra, Mae Maia Bona Dea not Iuppiter, Tecum perhaps Tellus, Thuflthas perhaps Novensiles (Grenier), Tluscv Sancus (rootstem sak). All original research I must admit, but based on other published works.
Me too I am not clear on the meaning of Dutch het, it occurs very frequently and looks to be an article: wiki has a translation service. I shall ask the help desk.
That said I think his authority on Sabine Ausel is probably Varro LL V 68, passage I quoted above. If you have the opportunity please look up for the book by Tibiletti Bruno. It may be worth its while. Zanzan32 ( talk) 07:08, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
According to Versnel: gladius, sacer are Etruscan!
Zanzan32 (
talk) 08:45, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
Thank you. Yes I agree on ausel. Versnel's reading is great: he may be right but almost 3/4 of Roman civilisation is Etruscan in his view!
BTW one could also cite Latte Roem. Religionsgesch. p.45 n.1: "Das Sol Kult der aurelier mit den Staatskult des Sol Indiges etwas zu tun hatte, ist unbezeugt. Die Ableitung des Namens von Stamme *aus (der Glanz, nicht Sonne bedeutet) ist mehrdichtig. Quint. 11.2.31 zeigt dass der Roemer dabei an aurora oder Aurum dachte wenn er nicht die verrianische Etymol. Auselii zu sol meint. Vgl. noch Deubner A. Re. W. 33 1936. 12." Zanzan32 ( talk) 05:35, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
Reading the Pyrgi lamellae: "ita tmia icac Heram asva vatieche Uniastres..." ita apart (L. istod) tmia looks to be Greek temenos. Zanzan32 ( talk) 05:42, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
Versnel hints to a cult of Aeneas in Etruria. Also interesting the find of an inscription of the III cent. at Lavinium in 1958 "Lare Aineia". What does really Lar mean in Etrurian? So many people were named Larth: it must be a title of respect. Of course in Rome too Titus, Spurius Larcius... But does it have religious menaing too? Martianus: Lars Caelestis, L. Militaris, L. Omnium Cunctalis...In Rome too we have the Lares (gods) but Lar Aineias is Indiges Aeneas. See Livy I and Dion. Hal. I 64, 5. Zanzan32 ( talk) 08:44, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
Fully agree on Varro's dubious text and connexion between ausel with ausosa-ushas, not directly with Sk. word for sun. Please read what I wrote above on Varro's text: "Solavel quod ita Sabini...". However please note the connexion cited in the link you prvided: auos, uhas, usra and ush to burn: L. urere, ustio. Moreover your link states clearly both in Etr. and Sabine ushil-ausil meant morning and morning golden light, not sun! I also found that capra means goat according to a gloss (820) in Bonfante. Zanzan32 ( talk) 05:21, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
And also on the back of the Piacenza Liver with Tivr opposite=Moon ...There must have happened a semantic shift. Zanzan32 ( talk) 04:20, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
The Bonfante give Etr. aukelos for dawn as a gloss (from a Greek source: it is too bad they do not quote the source of glosses). So the cognate word to Sabine ausel seems to be this one with identical meaning. Or perhaps the gloss mixed up things.
Zanzan32 (
talk) 10:57, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Thank you, I am sorry I forgot your quote. It looks D. J. Williams though gives an important piece of info here: this word aukelos-ausel stems from Sk. ush-allied to Lat. urere to burn. Never mind about Sabine ausel, Etr. ushil is certainly derived from it. Zanzan32 ( talk) 04:48, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for the explanantion. However what you say does not affect the derivation of Etr. ushil from IE rootstem *ews just as Lat. uro. I already implicitly acknowledged that Etr.-Sabine aukel-ausel is a different word, as you say stemmed from IE :aws.
The identification with Apolo is of course consequential as this is a Greek god commonly interpreted as the sun, i.e. a deity Etruscans borrowed.
The identification of aurora with Mater Matuta means she is the mother of the sun, probably an indigitation of Iuno-Uni: cf. Van der Meer's exposition. Zanzan32 ( talk) 03:13, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
I apologise to readers: Iohannes Lydus had Laurentius for second name, van der Meer is nort wrong. Zanzan32 ( talk) 08:32, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
It looks the question of the hirpi sorani is vexed. It is discussed in G. C. L. Bakkum The Latin Dialect of the Ager Faliscus 2009 online. He considers it to be a cult originating in Sabine territory and the families of these priests at Falerii as being descendents of Sabine immigrants. The ancient sources are Servius Aen. 11, 785 and 788 and Pliny NH 7, 2, 19. The first passage connects them to Dis Pater: "Sorani vero a Dite: nam Ditis Pater Soranus vocatur: quasi lupi Divis Patris". The second passage connects them to Apollo as does Pliny: "...Soractem Apollini super ambustam ligni struem...".
Bakkum thinks the word denoting them, sorex indeed means ghost. Hence stems the confusion made by Dumezil with the sun. Etr. Shura probably is a loan word from Sabine, contrary to what Versnel writes. Versnel also thinks Saturn is an Etr. name given as Satum, always meaning Dis Pater. Of course this idea could be easily supported from the archeological-topographical evidence in Rome. Zanzan32 ( talk) 04:09, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
A shared common ancestor language (proto-Indo-European or proto-Boreal or Nostratic - depending on the scholar speaking) is such an obvious possibility. Again, genes and archaeology, trade routes and material culture, should be invoked at some point. No point in talking loan words without considering ancestral languages and shared social contexts where certain loans would occur. LeValley 08:26, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Reading Versnel I found:
Lanista: trainer of gladiators (Isidorus X 159);
trossuli, flexuntes, celeres: military corps names;
tebenna : short toga:
arena: (Skeat gives as etym. Old L. hasena, from Sabine fasena though);
Idus: Etr. Itis: Iovis Fiducia (Macrob. I 15, 14) quoted by Bonfante as a gloss; perhaps tis an abbreviation for Tin(ia)s?
Camenae: Musae (Macrob. II 3,4)
Munth: mundus: Fowler cites Nettleship Contributions to Latin Lexicogr. p.258: from root MU enclose, fence. He adds Etr. origin is a similar word citing Mueller Deecke Die Etrusk. II p. 100 n. 65a; Dumezil cites E. Evangelisti in Studi ling. in on. di V. Pisani 1969 p. 347-366;
Porsenna: first;
Reading Defosse:
columna, santerna, mantisa, antemna, favisa, subulo, atrium, subura. It looks subura might derive from Etr. shpura city. It would imply that this region of Rome was an original site of th Etr. settlements: cf. however Varro on Caelius a Caele Vibenna.
Versnel also quotes from Ernout "Les elements etrusques du voc. lat." in Philologia Paris 1946 p. 21ff.:
satura satire, subulo flute, leno pimp, paelex concubine (Greeek via Etr.), taberna inn, cocistrio cook, caupio hotelier, sporta (Greek via Etr.) cotonea big cup, surenae, lucuns baked, vernae fermale domestic slaves, scurrae parasites.
According to Varro LL V:
Thebri(m) name of king of Veii that was given to the river Tiber, disputed by the Latins. Cf. Pyrgi lamellae: Thefariei Velianas.
Talking of the sacraria Argeorum and the 4 regions of Rome : first Suburana: ...parte princeps Caelius mons a Caele Vibenna, Tusco duce nobili, qui cum sua manu dicitur Romulo venisse auxilio contra Tatium regem. ...Vicus Tuscus... ibi Vortumnus deus Etr. princeps. Caeliolum locum: Caeliani qui a suspicione liberi essent traductos in eum locum qui vocatur Caeliolum. Zanzan32 ( talk) 05:52, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
From the Italian wiki lexic:
akvil gift alpanu homage alchuvaisera: gift of the gods: may be related to goddess Achaviser described by Benveniste in SE 3 1929 p. 249 ff. as the Samothracian Cabeirian goddess Axieros, depicted with Alpanu Persephone on a scene of a mirror.
Cape/caper capi container, cf. verb capio to contain Lat.
Ceru : founder cf. Cerus Manus in the carmen Saliare and Paulus 's Festi epitome p. 249L 2nd for god Ianus; Latin Goddess Ceres: both from IE rootstem KER I grow.
Zil to live, zusle animal: look related to IE, cf. Russian zhivoij, Greek zoon, allied to Zend ji IE rootstem GWEI.
sacni consecrated: cf. IE SAK
zina to produce: cf. gignoo Gr. Zanzan32 ( talk) 04:44, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
On numerals: L. Bonfante writes they are proof Etr. was not IE. There is a similar word for 8 cezp in some Uralic languages: Proto-Samic *kaekcee; Inari Sami kaeaevci; Baltic Proto-Finnic kahteksan; Komi koekjamis. For 3: Mari kum; Komi kuim. Zanzan32 ( talk) 04:48, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
On the hirpi sorani: Versnel says they were priests of death god Shuri, represented as wolfdemons on monuments. Dumezil thought they were adepts of the sun from Sabine root sor, Sora etc.
It is intriguing that death god Aite is represented wearing a wolf head hat. Also the Etr. word meaning to die is lupu, which might have engendered a folk etymology among Italic people. However this should have in turn influenced Etruscans and other later representations. Dumezil quotes a work by F. de Ruyt on the subject. Zanzan32 ( talk) 05:03, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Great citations/work, Zanzan. There needs to be more of this in the article - seems to me your citations are good and reveal some interesting parts of the history of etruscology's approach to linguistics. Too bad it's not in the article itself, in my view. LeValley 08:29, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Is rumon the word for river? I found this on the Italian Wiki, but not on the Bonfante's glossary. Servius said the first Etruscan name of the Tiber was rumon. Is it related with ruma breast? And with Gr. reoo I flow, ruma/reuma stream? Rocci says Skt. sru.
Skt. is sru indeed, though Greek and Italic start with r: cf. rio It. and Sp.; ancient rusa, rosa, It. roggia (this probably not IE). Zanzan32 ( talk) 03:36, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Leper occurs often in E. texts, e.g. the roll of Lars Pulena leprnal: E. Peruzzi Civilta' greca nel Lazio preromano identifies it with Liber (Bacchus) on VII century Faliscan inscriptions: also at Gabii the bacchic cult is attested since the same age. Cf. euoin and salvetod tita found on vases there. Needless to say this has great importance for the knowledge of early bacchism in Latium. Zanzan32 ( talk) 05:42, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
Zanzan32 ( talk) 05:29, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
There are many of them: alumnus, Vertumnus, Autumnus, columna, antemna, Pilumnus and Picumnus, Clitumnus. According to Versnel also Volturnus, Saturnus, Iuturna, would be Etr. However while e.g. alumn- is attested in Etr. on Lars Pulena's scroll, the word for Vortumuns was Velthuna. So the Latin ending does not look to reflect regularly an equivalent Etr. ending. Zanzan32 ( talk) 04:27, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
I don't know about -mn- in particular, but many words in Etruscan do end in -na: scuna "room"; thapna, culichna, fasena, zavena, thina (terms for various kinds of containers); mutna, hupnina "coffin" ; tusna "swan," and many more. Some etymologies for the English words for tavern, lantern, and cistern that have -na in their Latin form give Etruscan as the immediate source for them (though I don't think they are attested Etruscan forms), though some of these at least go back ultimately to Greek. http://etruskisch.de/pgs/vc.htm. And autumnus does seem to go back to an Etruscan atune (though as you see, in this case the -mn- seems to have developed in Latin, not Etruscan). Johundhar ( talk) 07:32, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
There is website that presents the work of these two scholars, very different from each other, together. Alinei's work looks of some interest. Latypov predicates well but seems to yield to easy language scrambling an fanciful ideas. Zanzan32 ( talk) 05:02, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
I found this listed as a feminine proper name on the glossary of Wiki.it. It looks to be the same as the Thuflthas of the Piacenza liver, the change from f to p being attested as a later development. This identification would support Grenier's interpretation of Thuflthas as Novensiles. In fact this name is to be found on the 2nd cell of the external ring of the liver which can be confronted directly with the dwellers of the 16 regions of heaven given by Martianus Capella (I 41 and 45-46). Now in region two there are just 3 possibly feminine gods, i.e. Fons, Lymphae and Novensiles. Of course one could choose any of the 3 however Latin sources, authors cited by Macrobius (Aelius Stilo and Granius Flaccus) had said the Novensiles were the 9 Musae.
On the other hand Varro says the Etr. called the 9 Musae Casmenae sot he issue is vexed. Zanzan32 ( talk) 03:56, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
There is a list on wiki, why is it so poorly edited. it would useful to collect all the words and list them with the indication of the provenance and interpretations of scholars. Zanzan32 ( talk) 08:56, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
there are many such links. I advice an overhauling. Zanzan32 ( talk) 05:05, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
Maris': quote from Wiki.en list of Etruscan theonyms: "...Pallottino refers to the formation of a god by "...fusing groups of beings...into one". Of Mars he says "...the protecting spirits of war, represented as armed heros, tend to coalesce into a single deity, the Etrusco-Roman Mars, on the model of the Greek god Ares".
Is not this pure speculation? Roman Mars is the Sabellic-Oscan Mamers or Mamurius (Properce IV 2 near the end) and it is apparent that the Etruscans borrowed their Maris' from other Italic people. Cf the Lapis Satricanus that cites Mamers along with P. Valerius Publicola, who was of Sabine descent. Zanzan32 ( talk) 05:05, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
Latin is Mavors I forgot. However I gathered Pfiffig 1975 has already proved that Maris' is not Mars. Zanzan32 ( talk) 15:09, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
The issue looks much more complex. Maris' may well be Mars. See G.Hermansen Ueber den italishen und den roemischen Mars 1940 pp.49-82; Dumezil quotes also J. Bayet Les origines de l' Hercule romain 1926 pp. 70-120 "Heracles Hercle dans le domain etrusque" and Hercle'. Etude critique des principaux monuments relatifs a'l'Hercule etrusque 1926 who supports strong influences from the Phoenician Melchart; F. de Ruyt "A' propos de l'interpretation du group etrusque Hercle'-Mlacukh" in Melanges F. Cumont 2, 1936 pp. 665-673. It appears also from Latin authors such as Macrobius Sat. III 12 5 ff. and Varro LL V 66 that Mars was identical with Hercules, especially in Etruria. Zanzan32 ( talk) 05:24, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
Read an article by G. Facchetti online reviewing a contribution by C. De Simone. I agree that the Tabula Cortonensis is a legal document (as far as I can read it) however Facchetti's assumption that Etruscan speaking Lemninas were Etruscan pirates come from Italy looks not well grounded. Lemnian-Etruscan objects and scattered inscriptions cover more 200 years. Also his assumption that Italian Etruscan religion was different in essence from the Cabirian religion is wrong. The Cabirian Mysteries date back to prehistoric times and form the core both of Greek and Italic religions. Ample proof of this is in the legend of Aeneas and the Roman Penates, the Mysteries of Thebae, Andania and Eleusis and Etruscan religious documents e.g. Lars Pulena's scroll where one can read the names of Hermes Pachanac and Leprnal. To this one can add the Latin testimonies on the Etruscan Penates to be found in Servius D. II 325, Arnobius Adv Nat. III 40 and 43, Festus sv. Tages (they were Fortuna, Ceres, Genius Iovialis and Pales i.e. Hermes). Callimachus said Hermes had Tyrrhenian charachters too in Diegesis VIII 33-40; cf. Varro LL VII 43 Servius D. Aen. XI 543; Macrobius Sat. III 8, 6. On Rome cf. Plutarch Numa XIII; Festus sv. Salio; Servius D. Aen. VIII 285; Dion. Hal. I 23; 69; II 22. The sacred objects taken to Italy by Aeneas were the images of the Great Gods worshipped at Samothrace. Dion. Hal. says the noble boys attending sacrifices were called Camilli by Romulus as those who by the Etruscans were named Cadmiloi and they celebrated the Mysteries in honour of the Curetes and the Great Gods. Dion. Hal. also mentions Myrisilos of Lesbos who wrote that the Etruscans practised the cult of the Great Gods. See also the name of the month Cabreas. Zanzan32 ( talk) 04:32, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
I apologise to readers. I misread the beginning of this article as I was reading from the screen. Facchetti here presents a view of De Simone's in order to reject it, i.e. he considers the above hypothesis on the origin of the Lemnians a wrong assumption. I agree with his view. On the second issue I reflected the author's views correctly even if he is quoting from Beschi. On the influence and relevance in Italy of the Samothrace Mysteries add Varro LL V 58 ff. in which the whole theological structure of Roman religion is founded on the Cabeirian Hermetism. Also VII 14 citing 3 fragments of Accius, who describes Lemnos as the island of the Cabirum and Volcanus and of the smoke of the furnaces. Zanzan32 ( talk) 08:24, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
I wish to signal this site because it makes available almost all the extant Etruscan texts and is a critical edition, giving variant readings for the disputed passages. It compares the major editions and is very critical of Rix's readings. Zanzan32 ( talk) 08:42, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
I hope to find time to do this, but if not, perhaps someone else will clean it up. Etruscan should be capitalized all the way through, for example. There are other punctuation and capitalization problems. LeValley 08:36, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
There are indicators of possible Asian influence in the names.
1. Etruscan an agglutinative language like Sumerian and Turkic languages.
2. Tarquinus is a possible cognate of "Tarkan" a common Turkic name.
3. Tyrhhenian a possible cognate of Turanian.
4. Rasena a link to Asena the she wolf legend of central Asia which interestingly appears in Etruscan legend also when Romulus and Remus are suckled by a she wolf.
Etruscan This could be an original research but some guy found a possibility that Etruscan is a secret language. Komitsuki ( talk) 03:17, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
This article uses non-reliable sources too heavily. For example, Woudhuizen and Robertson both appear to be unpublished. At least Woudhuizen's paper was accepted as a PhD dissertation from a reputable university. For Robertson, I see no indication at all of where this paper comes from or who Robertson is. Of course, this doesn't mean that they're wrong. But it does mean that the statements that are sourced from these works don't belong in Wikipedia. -- Macrakis ( talk) 22:39, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
^ Robertson, Ed (2006). Etruscan's genealogical linguistic relationship with Nakh–Daghestanian: a preliminary evaluation (PDF). Retrieved 2009-07-13.
I deleted the list of words supposed to be of Etruscan origin as I find the authority lacking. It looks as sheer speculation. I am learning little by little that the issue of ancient etymologies in the ancient Mediterranean is a highly specialstic and difficult topic, and the opinions expressed in the section look fanciful and childish. Aldrasto11 ( talk) 04:26, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
There is an article devoted to the (proposed) loanwords from Etruscan into Latin: Whatmough, M.M.T. (1997) "Studies in the Etruscan loanwords in Latin" (Biblioteca di 'Studi Etruschi' 33), Firenze. I'll see if I can get my hands on it and perhaps update that section based on it (but if anyone else has access to it, they should of course feel free to do the same). Johundhar ( talk) 17:42, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
Ah, I see that it is based on the author's dissertation, available here: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10121058/. Johundhar ( talk) 17:44, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
Subject Matter Experts - please see the Lead and the Classification and confirm this, or re-state along the lines that "a few new studies suggest ...." - thanks. HammerFilmFan ( talk) 22:54, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
I feel the present text is unbalanced and incomplete as far as the presentation of opinions is concerned.
E. g. Marcantonio explicitly writes many Etruscan words cited by Alinei are in fact Turkic, not Hungarian.
At any rate the Turkic connection should be mentioned for two reasons:
1) Tatar-Turkish etruscologist Adile Ayda published many books both in French and in Turkish arguing for the Turkish origin of the Etruscans.
2) Genetic research conducted a few years ago on the DNA both living people from Tuscan Murlo and of ancient Etruscans by geneticians Piazza and Barbuiani support a highly significant presence of Turkish genes.
Of course the Turks of those times were not living in Anatolia, apart maybe the forefathers of the Etruscans, but in Central Asia. See also article on Scythian religion, section on goddess Tabiti. Aldrasto11 ( talk) 09:24, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to one external link on
Etruscan language. Please take a moment to review
my edit. If necessary, add {{
cbignore}}
after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{
nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}}
to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers. — cyberbot II Talk to my owner:Online 00:44, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
I am no expert, but I know that Irish and Scots have the word 'clan' as child and 'clanna' as children. This would appear similar to the Etruscan 'Clan' for son and 'clannar' for sons. No doubt someone has already looked into this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.179.190.193 ( talk) 23:30, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
However, the Etruscan obsession with haruspicy (their liver-reading priests were called 'maru') (Akkadian 'baru') and certain name forms seem to indicate a possible link with Akkadian or Sumerian. Maybe they were refugees or settlers from Babylon who came to italy via Lemnos (based on Lemnian language links and their patheon). ??who knows. It may be a fruitful avenue of enquiry. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.179.190.193 ( talk) 09:04, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
Just to point out that Irish and Scottish Gaelic 'clann' is a Latin loan, from Latin 'planta' (giving 'plant' in English). The Goidelic languages turned virtually all 'p' into 'c', giving Old Irish 'cland'. So no connection whatsoever to Etruscan. Jeppiz ( talk) 18:45, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
I'm not interested (because I'm not able) in wading into the isolate controversy to any great degree. I just want to note that the article itself is contradictory.
Current lead: "Attested from 700 BC to AD 50, the language is not related to any living language, and has historically been referred to as an isolate, but consensus now holds that it is one of the Tyrsenian languages,"
Isolate hypothesis: "Etruscan is traditionally considered to be a language isolate. Bonfante, a leading scholar in the field, says "... it resembles no other language in Europe or elsewhere ...".
Tyrsenian family hypothesis: "Rix's Tyrsenian family of languages, composed of Rhaetic and Lemnian together with Etruscan, has gained acceptance among some scholars."
And then of course we have the massive "Other hypotheses" section which, although safely labelled as "other" does of course cast aspersions by its very existence on the other two (and some of those in turn are labelled as having less weight, implying that the others then have more).
I'm going to edit the intro to make it vague and neutral in this regard, until such time as a properly-attested consensus throughout the article can be properly represented in the lead. As it is, the lead is staking a claim the rest of the article does not back up, the very opposite of what a lead should do. Palindromedairy ( talk) 19:08, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Etruscan language. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit User:Cyberpower678/FaQs#InternetArchiveBot*this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at {{
Sourcecheck}}
).
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— cyberbot II Talk to my owner:Online 02:47, 4 June 2016 (UTC)
Various news stories report an ancient gold book on display in Bulgaria that is claimed to be Etruscan [3]. However, I cannot find any images of the text, or any indication that it has been studied by scholars knowledgeable in the Etruscan language. Does anyone have additional info on this? -- Amble ( talk) 02:45, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Etruscan language. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
An editor has reviewed this edit and fixed any errors that were found.
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 07:54, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
The table gives "Χ" as the glyph for kh, usually translitterated as "χ". However, other sources give "𐌙" instead. According to those sources, "Χ" was an archaic letter that signified "ks", and was eventually dropped from the alphabet; but was retained as a numeric symbol for "10" (pronounced "tsar"). In fact, this numeral symbol may have developed independently from the alphabet. -- Jorge Stolfi ( talk) 02:48, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
I think we should consider transliterating the aspirate series ⟨𐌘⟩ ⟨𐌈⟩ ⟨𐌙⟩ using either ⟨pʰ⟩ ⟨tʰ⟩ ⟨kʰ⟩ as in phonetic transcription or ⟨ph⟩ ⟨th⟩ ⟨kh⟩ as in Greek and Coptic transliteration. Using Greek letters interspaced with Latin ones doesn’t make things any more clear for readers who are not familiar with Ancient Greek orthography. Furthermore, the Modern Greek and International Phonetic Alphabet values of ⟨φ⟩ ⟨θ⟩ ⟨χ⟩—which readers are more likely to be familiar with—are different from the values of these Etrucan letters ([ɸ] [θ] [χ] vs. [pʰ] [tʰ] [kʰ]). I’m also not sure of the reasoning behind transliterating ⟨𐌅⟩ with ⟨v⟩ when digamma had this value in neither Latin nor Greek, although it did represent [w] in Greek as it does in Etruscan. Rhemmiel ( talk) 03:18, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
There are sources that say that adjectives were inflected for case, but this article say that it was totally noninflected. There are no sources shown it in the "adjective" section of the article. Any ideas? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amiothenes ( talk • contribs) 13:35, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
At the vowels section, I saw that "a" in Etruscan was represented by this - "ɑ" - sign, the open back unrounded vowel. Yet there is no source that I have found, not a single one, that backs up this edit. It is safe to say that the Etruscans did not pronounce their "a" as "ɑ". Whomever made this edit is either a troll, a vandal, or a twit, or maybe all three. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.36.35.81 ( talk) 06:35, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
——What about the Es?
Mel Copeland and his "research" on "Etruscan" is the most unreliable source I have ever seen on the Etruscan language. He is an utter fraud; he invents these words based on Latin ones and dresses them up as "Etruscan", and none of his works are peer-reviewed. The McCallisters' sources as well are of dubious validity——they know too much, it seems, and a great many of their supposed Etruscan words and meanings I cannot find anywhere else. — Preceding unsigned comment added by My name Lɑrth ( talk • contribs) 06:49, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
The subsection "Present active" in particular seems to convey a rather misleading impression of the nature of Etruscan verbal morphology:
"Etruscan used a verbal root with a zero suffix or -a without distinction to number or person: ar, ar-a, "he, she, we, you, they make"."
Consider on the contrary the following rather more nuanced summary discussion of present scholarly knowledge, and lack thereof, of Etruscan verbal morphology:
"The repetitive nature of most Etruscan inscriptions is such that very few distinctively different verb forms are available for analysis. Indeed, probably the only really certain verbal suffix is -ce. It must not be assumed, however, that the paucity of the verbal data from inscriptions reflects an impoverished verb system in the language; indeed, judging from the variety of verbal stems to which the recurring -ce is added, it is more likely that the Etruscan verb had a more complicated structure than the noun." ( https://www.britannica.com/topic/Etruscan-language/Grammatical-characteristics )
I think a summary in this article along the lines of the above paragraph of the britannica.com article would be much more accurate than the current content of the "Verbs" section, and especially of the "Present active" section, of the article. Skummafremdygest ( talk) 17:00, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
There have been a lot of advances in our understanding of Etruscan in the last few decades that don't seem to be reflected in the bit from Britannica. Have you read any of the recent scholarship in the field, or are you for some reason just assuming that the EB is the sum total of everything that can be known about anything? Johundhar ( talk) 03:39, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
The consensus (reflected in the relevant articles) seems to be that culturally, Urnfield -> Proto-Villanovan -> Villanovan -> Etruscan. But there is also a consensus that Urnfield is Indo-European (maybe Proto-Celtic, or perhaps preceding the split between Celtic and Italic), while Etruscan is non-Indo-European, and apparently that any Indo-European borrowings were relatively late. This leads to a puzzle: what were the Villanovan and Villanovan languages? Does anyone know of any genetics from the period that night illuminate this? Also, if cultural innovations came to Etruria indirectly from Urnfield, even if there was large-scale linguistic and population turnover, we might expect at least some of the Etruscan words for the relevant innovations (such as wheels, iron technologies) to be old adoptions from Indo-European - is there any hint of this? Urilarim ( talk) 22:54, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
𐌑𐌀𐌓 SergioDiaz1 ( talk) 15:12, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
The short paragraph detailing the Piacenza Liver is corrupt. The paragraph's second sentence comprises irrelevant matter apparently derived from the Cippus Perusinus. If no-one else alters it, I may edit and rewrite the section myself. Nuttyskin ( talk) 14:15, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
I saw that in a revision on July 19, User:Salpynx removed the letter D from table of consonants simply with explanation "Etruscan only has voiceless stops". I will not dispute that statement which is indeed correct, but using that to argue removal of D is a non sequitur - the table previously said that Etruscan used both T and D to represent phoneme /t/ (like it used three letters C, K, Q to represent one phoneme /k/, in an identical manner to Latin). The graphic used ( ) was apparently created after a source that is now long dead so I can't confirm anything. For the time being I've thought to restore the table back to how it was before but it would be good to find sources which support or reject the usage of D as an optional letter for /t/, as well as maybe a short explanation after the table on the usage (was it a positional variant? or did some inscriptions use T and others D?) 178.58.48.102 ( talk) 08:08, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
Are helleno-pelasgians. Their language is an ancient greek dialect. The Tyr in Tyrrhenian and the tru in Etruskian is the same... For to rub. Helleno-pelasgian TYR TOR TRO TUR : TURn, TURbo, TORture, turban, Tour, torbulent, ...able to build castles and towers you need to rub, destroy stones. The E in Etruskian is the same like the et in Eteokretes, etymology, veteran, eternal, ethnos , for well known for long time, true....etc... 77.13.149.98 ( talk) 15:40, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
"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 for person."
Which is it? Is it 'a third-person singular active', or is it 'not marked for person'? 62.73.69.121 ( talk) 21:47, 9 April 2024 (UTC)