Development of the Etruscan Alphabet

Development of the Etruscan Alphabet ©B

Quoted from [Bibl. 6 pp. 14-19].

Since a historical people is usually defined by its language, strictly speaking we can only identify these inhabitants of central Italy as 'Etruscans' from the moment when we first begin to see texts written in the Etruscan language, around 700 BCE. These were written in the same script we use today, the alphabet, in which each sign originally represented a different sound. From the alphabetic script of the Phoenicians, without vowels, was derived the Greek alphabet, in which certain consonantal sounds were adapted to signify vowels: A, E (H= long e), I, O (W= omega, 'large o' or long o) and Y. An impressive sign of historical conservation is the fact that schoolchildren today still recite the alphabet in roughly the same order in which the Greeks first received it, almost 3,000 years ago.

As a prestigious sign of the new Orientalising style and as a status symbol, the alphabet decorates a number of Etruscan objects placed in rich tombs of the seventh century BCE. These 'model' alphabets, taken directly from the Greek alphabet as brought west by the Euboeans, bear witness to the speed with which this new development was adopted. The Etruscans considered the letters of the alphabet decorative, perhaps even magical, and copied them on various objects. They wrote from right to left, like the Phoenicians and other ancient Semitic peoples.

Writing implements decorated with these letters were placed in the tombs of wealthy, important people. Examples include an ivory writing tablet from Marsiliana d'Albegna (Archaeological Museum, Florence), originally decorated with gold leaf, meant to be worn as pendant; a bucchero (shiny black pottery) container in the shape of a rooster, with a crested lid, which may once have held a coloured liquid like ink (Metropolitan Museum, New York); and a tall, slender bucchero vase, a brush or pen holder, from the Regolini-Galassi tomb in Cerveteri, now in the Vatican Museum, covered not only with the letters of the alphabet but with syllables as well.

The alphabet of twenty-six signs displayed on all these objects is called a 'model' alphabet. Some of its letters -

- are never used in Etruscan inscriptions (so, too, Italian children learn the signs k, j, w and y, which never appear in Italian words). Etruscan has no b, d or g (voiced stops), and no o, but these signs are included in the alphabet, which faithfully reproduces the Greek model from which the Etruscan derived. Of the four signs for s, only two were regularly used at any one time or place.

There are, to date, seventy-five known Etruscan inscriptions from the seventh century BCE, a very respectable quantity when compared with Greek inscriptions from this period. These and later examples show the steps in the adaptation of the alphabet to the Etruscan language. The sound u (written V or Y) was regularly substituted for o. The Greek F, an aspirate, was pronounced as a p followed by the sound of 'h': it was not an f sound, as it is today. A new sign,

, represented the sound f, unknown in Greek. In fact we owe the sound f to the Etruscans, who passed it on to the Latins, Oscans, Umbrians and Veneti in Italy, and beyond to Northern Europe. In reading Etruscan transcriptions of Greek names, it is important to remember that the Etruscans changed the voiced stops g, b and d to k, p and t (voiceless) whenever these appeared in foreign words - Greek, Latin or Umbrian. Thus from the Greek word thriambos came the Latin word triumpus or triumphus, 'victory celebration', by way of Etruscan.

All alphabets, when first used, are strictly phonetic, and Etruscan spelling remained so. The alphabetic system changed twice, first when the Greek model alphabet was adapted to the needs of the Etruscan language, the some time around 400 BCE various other changes culminated in the creation of the so-called 'neo-Etruscan' alphabet. Several letters disappeared. K continued to be used in the northern cities, as did the sibilant M (š). An inscriptions can accordingly be dated, not absolutely, but in general terms, as belonging to the Archaic period or to the later period (4th to 1st centuries BCE).

The loss of vowels in Etruscan spelling after the first syllable, resulting in clusters of consonants, was due to an intensive stress accent which around 500 BCE affected Etruscan as well as other languages of Italy (Latin, Umbrian, Oscan, Sabellian). The first syllable was heavily accented, with the result that following vowels weakened (a>e>i), and eventually dropped out. This abbreviation, or syncope, is most obvious in the later, neo-Etruscan inscriptions of the fourth century BCE and the Hellenistic period. On Etruscan mirrors, for example, we find the Greek name Alexandros written in the abbreviated form Alcsentre, and even Elcsntre. Ramutha (a woman's name) becomes Ramtha; Rasenna (the name of the Etruscans) Rasna; Klytaimestra (Clytemnestra) becomes Clutumsta, then Clutmsta.; turice 'gave', becomes turce. (The pronunciation of a 'syncopated' way.) This loss of vowels was only partly compensated for by nasal liquids (the 'l' in Atlnta, for the Greek name of the female athlete Atalanta, was pronounced something like the final syllable of English 'castle'). Conversely, sometimes in the internal syllables extra vowels were inserted in consonant clusters to make words easier to pronounce. This tendency accounts for the transformation of the Greek name of the goddess Artemis into Aritimi, of the Etruscan name for Herakles (Hercle) into Herecele and of Menrva (Minerva) into Menerva.

As stated above, the direction of Etruscan writing normally goes from right to left, the reverse of classical Greek, Latin or English. In the Archaic period inscriptions are occasionally written boustrophedon, 'as the ox ploughs' - one line going from left to right, the next from right to left, and so on. This was the system used by the early Greeks, before they settled on writing left to right (c. 550 BCE). Examples of Etruscan writing from left to right do occur on some mirrors, where they clearly dictated by desire for symmetry or to keep the label close to the figure. Inscriptions of the third century BCE or later, under Latin influence, also read from left to right. In this late period some inscriptions in the Etruscan language were written in the Latin alphabet; and some, in the Latin language, with Etruscan letters.

In the earliest inscriptions the words are not separated at all, the letters running on one after the other (scriptio continua). From the sixth century BCE, words are often divided from each other by one, two or more dots placed vertically above each other. Sometimes this 'punctuation' separates groups of letters or syllables within a word: such syllabic punctuation constitutes a peculiar feature of Etruscan writing in certain periods.

Pronunciation

Consonants

Since they could not pronounce the voiced stop g, the Etruscans used the third letter of the Greek alphabet, gamma

, or

, with the value of k. Thus for the sound k (English think) they used three signs: K (

) before a (ka); C (

) before e and i (ce, ci); and Q (

) before u (qu). The same system was used by the early Latins, who imitated the Etruscan. The K of early Latin survived before a in few words, such as Kalendae, from which 'calendar' derives. (In English the same three letters survive with the sound of k: ke, ca, qu.)

The influence of Etruscan on the Latin alphabet is shown by the fact that the Latins followed the Etruscan use of the Greek gamma, written as a C, to represent the sound of k (cena, cura, catena, civis, corium). Originally in Latin the letter C could be pronounced as k (Caesar, from which comes the German word Kaiser) and also as g (Caius, pronounced Gaius). It was not until about 250 BCE that the Romans introduced a new letter, G (which was merely a slightly changed C), specifically for the voiced stop g. In order to avoid changing the order of the alphabet, this new letter G took the place of the Greek letter Z, which the Latins had inherited but did not use; the 'slot' was therefore available. Later, in the first century BCE, when more intimate contact with the Greeks made it necessary to write Greek words, the Latins reinstated the letter Z, which, having lost its place, was put at the end - where it still is today.

In general, pronunciation was harsh. We have seen that the voiced stops b, d, g were substituted by p, t, k. The aspirated sounds (ph, th, ch, ts) also gave a rough texture to speech. The letter Z (

) in Etruscan had a vioceless sound, as for example in English gets, eats, and not as in zeal. Some scholars have suggested that the modern gorgia toscana so obvious in Florence and Siena today (Coca Cola= 'hoha hola') derives from Etruscan.

The Etruscans had a sound f (pronounced more or less as in English find, stuff). The Greeks did not have this sound, nor did they have a sign for it. At first the Etruscans approximated the sound with the two sounds w and h, written as

. Later they adopted a new sign,

(its origin is obscure). The Latins, however, kept the first element of vh,

: F, the letter familiar to us with the sound of f.

The Etruscan

(digamma, here transcribed as v) was bilabial, like English w or Latin v in vincit. Diphthongs like au are frequently spelled av: lautni>lavtni; aule>avle.

Vowels

The Etruscan vowel system is simple. There are only four vowels: a, e, i, u. In Etruscan the letter A is always pronounced ah, as in father; I is always ee, as in machine U is oo, as in rule or moon. U always substituted for o, which does not exist, as we have seen. E is eh, as in elf: it was a very closed vowel, almost like i, with which it was in fact often interchanged. So we see both ica and eca, mini and mine, cliniiaras and clenar, etc. The Greek name Iason (Jason) becomes Easun; and the Etruscan genitive form -ial often becomes -eal. Etruscan had only short vowels, like several modern languages, for example Spanish and Romanian. There were no long vowels like Greek eta (H) or omega (W). Since the letter H of

was not needed to represent a long e, as in Greek, it was therefore available to represent the sound of h, as in English hat today. It already had the value of h in some Greek dialects.

Greek diphthongs are usually preserved, except of course that oi becomes ui. In later inscriptions (fifth to first centuries BCE), ai often becomes ei or even e: thus the Greek name Aias (Ajax) is written as Aivas, Eivas or Evas in Etruscan. Graikos, 'Greek', written Graecus in Latin, becomes creice in Etruscan. There is a general trend toward the simplification of two different vowels, forming a diphthong, into a simple vowel. Eu sometimes becomes u in Etruscan: for example, the name of Castor's brother Pollux, Polydeukes in Greek, in Etruscan becomes Pultuce.

Note on the transcription of Etruscan letters

(all these are rough equivalents)

	= ch (kh), aspirate: as in English kin.
	= th, aspirate: as in English ten.
	= ph, aspirate: as in English pan.
	= s, sibilant: as in English sin.
	= , sibilant: perhaps pronounced as in English shin.

Note: Aspirate consonants, for which there are no signs in English, were pronounced with an audible breath puff, or 'h' sound, following a k, p or t sound. Initial k, p and t have a somewhat similar sound in English. In Etruscan, as in Greek, F was pronounced with such a plosive sound, not like an f; that is why a new letter had to be found for the sound of f, which the Greeks did not have.

Etruscan had voiceless consonants or stops, k (and c and q), p and t; but not the voiced (sonant) consonants g, b and d (these are so called because their pronunciation involves the use of the vocal cords).

Bibliography: [6] Larissa Bonfante: Reading the Past: Etruscan, Trustees of the British Museum Published by the British Museum Publications Ltd, 46 Bloomsbury Street, London WC1B 3QQ ©1990 (ISBN 0-7141-8071-8).
Further reading: G. Bonfante and L. Bonfante: The Etruscan Language: An Introduction, Manchester and New York, 1983 (trans. as LINGUA E CULTURA DEGLI ETRUSCI, rev. trans. Rome 1985).
M. Pallottino: Testimonia Linguae Etruscae, Florence 1968.
A. Pfiffig: Die Etruskische Sprache, Graz 1969.