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| The Etruscan Language |
| | "The real problem with the Etruscan texts lies in the difficulty of understanding the meaning of the words and grammatical forms. A fundamental obstacle stems from the fact that no other known language has close enough kinship to Etruscan to allow a reliable, comprehensive, and conclusive comparison. The apparent isolation of the Etruscan language had already been noted by the ancients; it is confirmed by repeated and vain attempts of modern science to assign it to one of the various linguistic groups or types of the Mediterranean and Eurasian world. However, there are in fact connections with Indo-European languages, particularly with the Italic languages, and also with more or less known non-Indo-European languages of western Asia and the Caucasus, the Aegean, Italy, and the Alpine zone as well as with the relics of the Mediterranean linguistic substrata revealed by place-names. This means that Etruscan is not truly isolated; its roots are intertwined with those of other recognizable linguistic formations within a geographic area extending from western Asia to east-central Europe and the central Mediterranean, and its latest formative developments may have taken place in more direct contact with the pre-Indo-European and Indo-European linguistic environment of Italy. But this also means that Etruscan, as scholars know it, cannot simply be classified as belonging to the Caucasian, the Anatolian, or Indo-European languages such as Greek and Latin, from which it seems to differ in structure." (Quoted from: Bibl. [8].)
  About the Etruscan Language in General
Few attested Etruscan sentences from: Haruspicy
Linguistic details in: Etruscan Grammar. |
| Breaking the Code |
Coptic hieroglyphs:
name TURSHA (Etrusk) on the Egyptian inscription, from the time of Ramses III (12th c BCE - the time of foreign invasions of Peoples from the sea), in Medinet Abu [Bibl.1 §.7]. | When in 1828 Champollion encountered the task of breaking the code of the hieroglyphs, his problem was the identification of the sound values of the signs. Once the three lingual Rosette Stone enabled to crack the code, it became obvious, that the ancient Egyptian language was actually Coptic. From this point on, the enigma was basically solved. The "Etruscan problem" is very different: we can read the Etruscan script with relative ease, but we don't understand the Etruscan language. The vocabulary that we already know from the ancient authors, or from the grave inscriptions seems insufficient for reading longer texts.
"The traditional methods hitherto employed in interpreting Etruscan are (1) the etymological, which is based upon the comparison of word roots and grammatical elements with those of other languages and which assumes the existence of a linguistic relationship that permits an explication of Etruscan from the outside (this method has produced negative results, given the error in the assumption), (2) the combinatory, a procedure of analysis and interpretation of the Etruscan texts rigorously limited to internal comparative study of the texts themselves and of the grammatical forms of the Etruscan words (this has led to much progress in the knowledge of Etruscan, but its defects lie in the hypothetical character of many of the conclusions due to the absence of external proofs or confirmations), and (3) the bilingual, based on the comparison of Etruscan ritual, votive, and funerary formulas with presumably analogous formulas from epigraphic or literary texts in languages belonging to a closely connected geographic and historical environment, such as Greek, Latin, or Umbrian. Nonetheless, with the increase of reliable data, in part from more recent epigraphic discoveries (such as the gold plaques at Pyrgi), the need to find the one right method appears to be of decreasing importance; all available procedures tend to be utilized." (Quoted from: Bibl. [8].)
So, the problem can be approached from the second aspect: using cryptographic methods in finding out, what words stand for what meaning in the sentence. The method is known as "auto correlation", where any part of the text is compared to other parts of the text. The matching parts are marked and separated. They can reveal clues for further decryptions. What does it look like? Here are some examples.
Example number One.
Example number Two.
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| Phonetic Analysis new ! |
European Phonetic Regions | Another way of conducting analysis is to observe the phonetic mutations in Etruscan words and compare them to the rest of languages in the region. This method is somewhat difficult, because we are not sure which Etruscan words relate to which equivalent Indoeuropean words. For this reason it is good to start with ones, which are certain: the proper names. Here are some: Hercle (Gk Herakles; Lat. Hercules), Menle (Gk Menelaos), Achle (Gk Achilles), Zimite (Gk Diomedes), Tite Cale (Lat. Titus Calus), Aule (Lat. Aulus), Taitle (Gk Daidalos; Lat. Daedalus) etc. This approach can reveal, to which Indoeuropean phonetic group has the Etruscan the closest affinities. Perhaps this method can decide, whether Herodotus or Dionysus of Halicarnassus has right, about the origins of the Etruscans (for the two theories, see professor Gerhard Meiser's lecture, part 10 and the web-link Ancient Accounts of Origins of Etruscans).
Here is an example of this kind of analysis.
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| Contents of the Linen Book |
Etruscan dice | It seems contradictory, that we do not understand the Etruscan language, nevertheless we do have some ideas, what the contents of the Etruscan text could be. There are three clues, on what our knowledge is based on.
First clue: numbers. In Columns VIII, IX and XI there are numbers hu0is' za0rumis', ciem cealxus, eslem cealxus and 0unem (cealxus). How do we know they are numbers? Well, by lucky circumstances, there has been preserved an unique pair of ivory dices (today held in Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris), which have on their 6 sides, instead of carved dots, carved names of numerals. They are: 0u=one, zal (esal-)=two, ci=three, ša=four, mach=five and huth=six. This was the first stepping-stone in finding out the rest of the Etruscan numbers (See: Numerals).
Second clue: names of months. In Column VI and VIII the numbers occur together with names of months: eslem za0rumis' acale and celi hu0is' za0rumis', where acale and celi mean July and September. How do we know that? Well, in ancient writings there have been preserved some references to those two Etruscan words (for example in Liber Glossarum dated from the 8-th Century). We must rely on authority of those, who wrote those references.
Third clue: names of Gods. Throughout of the Etruscan book, there are names of Etruscan Gods: ne0uns=Neptune, veive=Veiove, ca0-, ca0a=Cath etc... That they are names of Gods, we know from other Etruscan inscriptions, inscribed statues, mirrors, wall paintings etc.
From the above clues, the only conclusion we can draw is: we must deal with a kind of Etruscan religious Calendar. But the content of Calendar still defies closer understanding. The first part of the Book, as we have seen, analysing the Text by method of auto-correlation, is repetitive, as a kind of poetry. Perhaps religious poetry. In that case, we must deal with a Book of Etruscan Prayers. But we are not sure at this moment. For more information, check the English translations of the "Catalogue: Writing in Etruscan" by group of authors, published by the National Museum in Zagreb (Bibl. [2]), parts of thereof given below, and the Lecture of Professor Gerhard Meiser on University of Katowice (full content below):
About the Contents of the Book ©Z
About the Calligraphy and Language of the Book ©Z
Rozprawy - Gerhard Meiser's lecture (in Polish)
(web link www.us.edu.pl/~sjikp/html/ps-html/ps_21_07.html obsolete!)
Dissertation (the English transcript of Meiser's lecture). Download ZIP!
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| Addendum to the Subject |
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Art of Haruspicy which is Etruscan Discipline by Joannis Opsopaus (web link)
An interesting translation from Latin original. Here you can find:
Some attested Etruscan phrases
The Languages of the Iron Age Italy (web link)
An excellent Etruscan web-site! Here you can find:
Etruscan Glossary
Etruscan Onomastics
Etruscan Epigraphy
Stele of Lemnos
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