Ancient Etruscan Language

In Antiquity the Etruscans lived in northern and western Italy, they seem to have been a collection of independent states that loved the luxuries and splendor of life. The actual origins of this race are not known but they may have been indigenous to the area or immigrants that merely travelled there, one thing is sure the Etruscan language was like no other. As separate and individually governed states linked only by location and blood they did not have a military collective. This lack of unity and military congress would prove to be their ultimate downfall. The cities were weakened by constant attacks from the Gaul’s of the North and the Etruscans were eventually conquered and engulfed by the Roman Armies finally to became apart of the ever growing Roman territories. Dionysius of Halicarnassus who was a Greek historian made note that the language was unlike any other. But this was found to be not quite entirely accurate.

The Etruscan language no longer survives today and although they had a rich literature and many texts have been discovered no written text as such allows any actual proof of how the language may have sounded. Latin replaced the Etruscan language with the occupation of the conquered cites by the Romans and eventually it ceased to be used as a spoken tongue. Etruscan did have some small influence in the Latin that was to replace and finally eradicate it. Although a doomed language a few of the Etruscan words were adopted by the Romans and some of them can be found toady in some of the modern languages. It is universally accepted by scholars that the language was an isolated case.

It had ceased to be spoken by the time of Imperial Rome but scholars and priests of that time still studied it. In religious text the written language survived longer than the spoken word as with so many other now dead languages. Although first thought to be a completely isolated language it is now accepted that Etruscan is related to what is called the Tyrrhenian family (the Tyrrhenian race according to the Greek Herodotus identified with the Etruscans and could be the same people) with only two other forms the Lemnian and Rhaetic. Lemnian the language was the spoken language on the island of Lemnos and believed to be closely related to Etruscan due to the finds of certain scripts and inscriptions that were written using the same alphabet. The Rhaetic language was the spoken in region of northern Italy by the Rhaetian’s who the Gaul’s believed were actually descended from the Etruscan race.

The origins of the Etruscan language may remain as mysterious as it individuality and only time and discovery of new artefacts can change this. The Etruscans acquired their alphabet from Euboean Greeks and the surviving texts that have been studied show the transitions. The problem the scholars experience with these texts is that because no other language known is close or even closely related as such to Etruscan no comparison can be made to understand the exact meanings and grammatical forms encountered. A number of texts have been found that after close inspection were written in two different languages (as were sometimes done for trade or religious reasons) but are believed to be the same in Etruscan and Latin while others are written in Etruscan and Phoenician. Scholars know both Latin and Phoenician and due to the nature of the texts this discovery has helped with the translation of the Etruscan scripts and writings and this to some extent has given us a small glimpse into their lives and beliefs.