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{{short description|Extinct language of ancient Italy}} {{Infobox language | name = Etruscan | image = [[File:Perugia, Museo archeologico Nazionale dell'Umbria, cippo di Perugia.jpg|267px]] | imagecaption = The [[Cippus Perusinus]], a stone tablet bearing 46 lines of incised Etruscan text, one of the longest extant Etruscan inscriptions. 3rd or 2nd century BC. | states = Ancient [[Etruria]] | region = [[Italian Peninsula]] | era = attested 700 BC to AD 50<ref name=Woodard2004>{{cite book |last=Rix |first=Helmut |author-link=Helmut Rix |editor-last=Woodard |editor-first=Roger D. |date=2004 |url=https://archive.org/details/cambridgeencyclo0000unse_t8o9 |url-access=registration |chapter=Etruscan |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/cambridgeencyclo0000unse_t8o9/page/944 |title=The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages|publication-place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=943–966 |isbn=978-0-521-56256-0}}</ref><ref name=PFreeman>{{cite journal |last1=Freeman |first1=Philip |title=The Survival of the Etruscan Language |journal=Etruscan Studies |date=1999 |volume=6 |issue=1 |pages=75–84 |doi=10.1515/etst.1999.6.1.75 |s2cid=191436488 |url=https://scholarworks.umass.edu/etruscan_studies/vol6/iss1/2/ |url-access=subscription }}</ref> | familycolor = grey | fam1 = [[Tyrsenian languages|Tyrsenian]] | iso3 = ett | linglist = ett | glotto = etru1241 | glottorefname = Etruscan | created = 700 BC | extinct = after AD 50<ref name=Woodard2004/> | script = [[Etruscan alphabet]] | ethnicity = [[Etruscans]] }} '''Etruscan''' ({{IPAc-en|ɪ|ˈ|t|r|ʌ|s|k|ən}} {{respell|ih|TRUSK|ən}})<ref>Bauer, Laurie (2007). ''The Linguistics Student's Handbook''. Edinburgh.</ref> was the language of the [[Etruscan civilization]] in the ancient region of [[Etruria]],{{efn|Etruria: modern [[Tuscany]], western [[Umbria]], northern [[Latium]].}} in [[Etruria Padana]]{{efn|Etruria Padana: modern [[Veneto]], [[Lombardy]], [[Emilia-Romagna]].}} and [[Etruria Campana]]{{efn|Etruria Campana: some areas of coastal [[Campania]]}} in what is now [[Italy]]. Etruscan influenced [[Latin]] but was eventually superseded by it. Around 13,000 Etruscan [[epigraphy|inscriptions]] have been found so far, only a small minority of which are of significant length; some bilingual inscriptions with texts also in Latin, [[Ancient Greek|Greek]], or [[Phoenician language|Phoenician]]; and a few dozen purported [[loanword]]s. Attested from 700 BC to AD 50, the relation of Etruscan to other languages has been a source of long-running speculation and study. Nowadays, it is generally agreed to be in the [[Tyrsenian language family]], but before it gained currency as one of the Tyrsenian languages, it was commonly treated as an [[Language isolate|isolate]], although there were also a number of other less well-known hypotheses. The consensus among linguists and Etruscologists is that Etruscan was a [[Pre-Indo-European languages|Pre-Indo-European]]<ref>[[Massimo Pallottino]], ''La langue étrusque Problèmes et perspectives'', 1978.</ref><ref>Mauro Cristofani, ''Introduction to the study of the Etruscan'', Leo S. Olschki, 1991.</ref><ref>Romolo A. Staccioli, ''The "mystery" of the Etruscan language'', Newton & Compton publishers, Rome, 1977.</ref> and [[Paleo-European languages|Paleo-European language]],<ref name=Haarmann2014>{{cite book |doi=10.1002/9781118834312.ch2 |chapter=Ethnicity and Language in the Ancient Mediterranean |title=A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean |year=2014 |last1=Haarmann |first1=Harald |pages=17–33 |isbn=978-1-4443-3734-1 }}</ref><ref name=Harding2014>{{cite book |last1=Harding |first1= Anthony H.|author-link1= |author-mask1= |author-mask2= |author-mask3= |author-mask4= |author-mask5= |name-list-style= |translator-last1= |translator-first1= |translator-link1= |translator-last2= |translator-first2= |translator-link2= |display-translators= |translator-mask1= |translator-mask2= |year=2014 |orig-year= |chapter=The later prehistory of Central and Northern Europe |script-chapter= |trans-chapter= |chapter-format= |editor1-last= Renfrew|editor1-first=Colin |editor2-last=Bahn |editor2-first=Paul |display-editors= |title=The Cambridge World Prehistory |script-title= |trans-title= |url-status= |url-access=|volume=3 |location=Cambridge, UK |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=1912 |no-pp= |isbn=978-1-107-02379-6 |quote=Italy was home to a number of languages in the Iron Age, some of them clearly Indo-European (Latin being the most obvious, although this was merely the language spoken in the Roman heartland, that is, Latium, and other languages such as Italic, Venetic or Ligurian were also present), while the centre-west and northwest were occupied by the people we call Etruscans, who spoke a language which was non-Indo-European and presumed to represent an ethnic and linguistic stratum which goes far back in time, perhaps even to the occupants of Italy prior to the spread of farming.|mode= }}</ref> closely related to the [[Raetic language]] that was spoken in the [[Alps]],<ref name=Schumacher1994>Schumacher, Stefan (1994) Studi Etruschi in Neufunde 'raetischer' Inschriften Vol. 59 pp. 307–320 (German)</ref><ref name=Schumacher1994b>Schumacher, Stefan (1994) Neue 'raetische' Inschriften aus dem Vinschgau in Der Schlern Vol. 68 pp. 295-298 (German)</ref><ref name=Schumacher1999>Schumacher, Stefan (1999) Die Raetischen Inschriften: Gegenwärtiger Forschungsstand, spezifische Probleme und Zukunfstaussichten in I Reti / Die Räter, Atti del simposio 23–25 settembre 1993, Castello di Stenico, Trento, Archeologia delle Alpi, a cura di G. Ciurletti – F. Marzatico Archaoalp pp. 334–369 (German)</ref><ref name=Schumacher2004>Schumacher, Stefan (2004) Die Raetischen Inschriften. Geschichte und heutiger Stand der Forschung Archaeolingua. Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Kulturwissenschaft. (German)</ref><ref name=Oettinger>Norbert Oettinger, ''Seevölker und Etrusker'', 2010.</ref> and to the [[Lemnian language]], attested in a few inscriptions on [[Lemnos]].<ref name=desimone2009>de Simone Carlo (2009) ''La nuova iscrizione tirsenica di Efestia in Aglaia Archontidou'', Carlo de Simone, Albi Mersini (Eds.), Gli scavi di Efestia e la nuova iscrizione 'tirsenica', Tripodes 11, 2009, pp. 3–58. (Italian)</ref><ref name=marchesini2013>Carlo de Simone, Simona Marchesini (Eds), ''La lamina di Demlfeld'' [= Mediterranea. Quaderni annuali dell'Istituto di Studi sulle Civiltà italiche e del Mediterraneo antico del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche. Supplemento 8], Pisa – Roma: 2013. (Italian)</ref> The Etruscan alphabet is similar to the [[Greek alphabet|Greek one]], particularly to the Euboean script that Greek colonists brought to southern Italy.<ref name=Knodell2021>{{cite book| author-link = | last = Knodell | first = Alex R.|author2=|author-link2= | title = Societies in Transition in Early Greece : An Archaeological History | location = Oakland| publisher = University of California Press| year = 2021| page = 217| isbn = 978-90-50-63477-9| url=}}</ref> Therefore, linguists have been able to read the inscriptions in the sense of knowing roughly how they would have been pronounced, but have not yet understood their meaning.<ref name="Rogers 2009">{{Cite book |last=Rogers |first=Henry |title=Writing systems: a linguistic approach |date=2009 |publisher=Blackwell Publ |isbn=978-0-631-23464-7 |edition=Nachdr. |series=Blackwell textbooks in linguistics |location=Oxford}}</ref> However, by using [[Combinatorial method (linguistics)|combinatory method]], it was possible to assign some Etruscan words to grammatical categories such as noun and verb, to identify some inflectional endings, and to assign meanings to a few words of very frequent occurrence.<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/topic/Etruscan-language Etruscan language]</ref> A comparison between the Etruscan and [[Greek alphabet|Greek alphabets]] reveals how accurately the Etruscans preserved the Greek alphabet. The Etruscan alphabet contains letters that have since been dropped from the Greek alphabet, such as the [[digamma]], [[sampi]] and [[Koppa (letter)|qoppa]].<ref name="Rogers 2009"/> Grammatically, the language is [[agglutinating]], with [[noun]]s and [[verb]]s showing [[suffix]]ed [[inflection]]al endings and some [[Apophony|gradation of vowels]]. Nouns show five [[grammatical case|cases]], singular and [[grammatical number|plural numbers]], with a [[noun class|gender]] distinction between animate and inanimate in [[pronouns]]. Etruscan appears to have had a cross-linguistically common [[phonology|phonological]] system, with four [[phonemes|phonemic]] [[vowels]] and an apparent contrast between [[Aspirated consonant|aspirated and unaspirated]] [[Stop consonant|stops]]. The records of the language suggest that [[sound change|phonetic change]] took place over time, with the loss and then re-establishment of word-internal vowels, possibly due to the effect of Etruscan's word-initial [[stress (linguistics)|stress]]. [[Etruscan religion]] was influenced by [[Ancient Greek religion|that of the Greeks]], and many of the few surviving Etruscan-language artifacts are of [[votive]] or religious significance.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Huntsman |first=Theresa |title=Etruscan Language and Inscriptions {{!}} Essay {{!}} The Metropolitan Museum of Art {{!}} Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/etla/hd_etla.htm |access-date=2024-04-11 |website=The Met's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History}}</ref> Etruscan was written in [[Etruscan alphabet|an alphabet]] derived from the [[Greek alphabet]]; this alphabet was the source of the [[Latin alphabet]], as well as other alphabets in Italy and probably beyond. The Etruscan language is also believed to be the source of certain important cultural words of [[Western Europe]] such as ''military'' and ''person'', which do not have obvious [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] roots.
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