Etruscan language

 ( Languages Of Ancient Italy ) 

In southern Etruria, the first Etruscan site to be Latinized was Veii, when it was destroyed and repopulated by Romans in 396 BC. Caere (Cerveteri), another southern Etruscan town on the coast 45 kilometers from Rome, appears to have shifted to Latin in the late 2nd century BC. In Tarquinia and Vulci, Latin inscriptions coexisted with Etruscan inscriptions in wall paintings and grave markers for centuries, from the 3rd century BC until the early 1st century BC, after which Etruscan is replaced by the exclusive use of Latin.

In northern Etruria, Etruscan inscriptions continue after they disappear in southern Etruria. At Clusium (Chiusi), tomb markings show mixed Latin and Etruscan in the first half of the 1st century BC, with cases where two subsequent generations are inscribed in Latin and then the third, youngest generation, surprisingly, is transcribed in Etruscan. At Perugia, monolingual monumental inscriptions in Etruscan are still seen in the first half of the 1st century BC, while the period of bilingual inscriptions appears to have stretched from the 3rd century to the late 1st century BC. The isolated last bilinguals are found at three northern sites. Inscriptions in Arezzo include one dated to 40 BC followed by two with slightly later dates, while in Volterra there is one dated to just after 40 BC and a final one dated to 10–20 AD; coins with written Etruscan near Saena (Sienna) have also been dated to 15 BC. Freeman notes that in rural areas the language may have survived a bit longer, and that a survival into the late 1st century AD and beyond "cannot wholly be dismissed", especially given the revelation of Oscan language writing in Pompeii's walls.Freeman, Philip. Survival of Etruscan. p. 82: "How much longer may have Etruscan survived in isolated rural locations? The answer is impossible to say, given that we can only argue from evidence, not conjecture. But languages are notoriously tenacious, and the possibility of an Etruscan survival into the late 1st century A.D. and beyond cannot be wholly dismissed. Oscan graffiti on the walls of Pompeii show that non-Latin languages well into the 1st century A.D., making rural survival of Etruscan more credible. But this is only speculation..."

Despite the apparent extinction of Etruscan, it appears that Etruscan religious rites continued much later, continuing to use the Etruscan names of deities and possibly with some Liturgy usage of the language. In late Roman Republic and early Augustus times, various Latin sources including Cicero noted the esteemed reputation of Etruscan Divination. An episode where lightning struck an inscription with the name Caesar, turning it into Aesar, was interpreted to have been a premonition of the deification of Caesar because of the resemblance to Etruscan , meaning 'gods', although this indicates knowledge of a single word and not the language. Centuries later and long after Etruscan is thought to have died out, Ammianus Marcellinus reports that Julian the Apostate, the last pagan Emperor, apparently had Etruscan soothsayers accompany him on his military campaigns with books on war, lightning and celestial events, but the language of these books is unknown. According to Zosimus, when Rome was faced with destruction by Alaric I in 408 AD, the protection of nearby Etruscan towns was attributed to Etruscan pagan priests who claimed to have summoned a raging thunderstorm, and they offered their services "in the ancestral manner" to Rome as well, but the devout Christians of Rome refused the offer, preferring death to help by pagans. Freeman notes that these events may indicate that a limited theological knowledge of Etruscan may have survived among the priestly caste much longer. One 19th-century writer argued in 1892 that Etruscan deities retained an influence on early modern Tuscan folklore.Leland (1892). Etruscan Roman Remains in Popular Tradition.

Around 180 AD, the Latin author Aulus Gellius mentions Etruscan alongside the Gaulish language in an anecdote.Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae. Extract: 'ueluti Romae nobis praesentibus uetus celebratusque homo in causis, sed repentina et quasi tumultuaria doctrina praeditus, cum apud praefectum urbi uerba faceret et dicere uellet inopi quendam miseroque uictu uiuere et furfureum panem esitare uinumque eructum et feditum potare. "hic", inquit, "eques Romanus apludam edit et flocces bibit". aspexerunt omnes qui aderant alius alium, primo tristiores turbato et requirente uoltu quidnam illud utriusque uerbi foret: post deinde, quasi nescio quid Tusce aut Gallice dixisset, uniuersi riserunt.' English translation: 'For instance in Rome in our presence, a man experienced and celebrated as a pleader, but furnished with a sudden and, as it were, hasty education, was speaking to the Prefect of the City, and wished to say that a certain man with a poor and wretched way of life ate bread from bran and drank bad and spoiled wine. "This Roman knight", he said, "eats apluda and drinks flocces." All who were present looked at each other, first seriously and with an inquiring expression, wondering what the two words meant; thereupon, as if he might have said something in, I don't know, Gaulish or Etruscan, all of them burst out laughing.' (based on Blom 2007: 183.) Freeman notes that although Gaulish was clearly still alive during Gellius' time, his testimony may not indicate that Etruscan was still alive because the phrase could indicate a meaning of the sort of "it's all Greek (incomprehensible) to me".Freeman. Survival of Etruscan. p. 78

At the time of its extinction, only a few educated Romans with antiquarian interests, such as Marcus Terentius Varro, could read Etruscan. The Roman emperor Claudius (10 BC – AD 54) is considered to have possibly been able to read Etruscan, and authored the Tyrrhenika, a (now lost) treatise on Etruscan history; a separate dedication made by Claudius implies a knowledge from "diverse Etruscan sources", but it is unclear if any were fluent speakers of Etruscan. Plautia Urgulanilla, the emperor's first wife, had Etruscan roots.For Urgulanilla, see Suetonius, Life of Claudius, section 26.1; for the 20 books, same work, section 42.2.

Etruscan had some influence on Latin, as a few dozen Etruscan words and names were borrowed by the Romans, some of which remain in modern languages, among which are possibly 'vulture', 'trumpet', 'sheath', 'people'.Ostler, Nicholas (2009). Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin and the World It Created. London: HarperPress, 2009, pp. 323 ff.

Outside Italy, inscriptions have been found in Corsica, Gallia Narbonensis, Greece, and the Balkans.A summary of the locations of the inscriptions published in the EDP project, given below under External links, is stated in its Guide. The greatest concentration of inscriptions, however, is in Italy.

to which other scholars added the Camunic language, spoken in the Central Alps.M. G. Tibiletti Bruno. 1978. Camuno, retico e pararetico, in Lingue e dialetti dell'Italia antica ('Popoli e civiltà dell'Italia antica', 6), a cura di A. L. Prosdocimi, Roma, pp. 209–255. (Italian) Rix's Tyrsenian language family has gained widespread acceptance among scholars,

Philip Baldi Baldi (2026). 9783110807110, Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 9783110807110

Roger D. Woodard (2026). 9781139469326, Cambridge University Press. . ISBN 9781139469326

(2026). 9780195170726, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195170726

being confirmed by Stefan Schumacher, Norbert Oettinger, Carlo De Simone, and Simona Marchesini.

Common features between Etruscan, Raetic, and Lemnian have been found in morphology, phonology, and syntax, but only a few lexical correspondences are documented, at least partly due to the scant number of Raetic and Lemnian texts. On the other hand, the Tyrsenian family, or Common Tyrrhenic, is often considered to be Paleo-European and to predate the arrival of Indo-European languages in southern Europe.Mellaart, James (1975), "The Neolithic of the Near East" (Thames and Hudson) Several scholars believe that the Lemnian language could have arrived in the Aegean Sea during the Late Bronze Age, when Mycenaean rulers recruited groups of mercenaries from Sicily, Sardinia and various parts of the Italian peninsula. Scholars such as Norbert Oettinger, Michel Gras and Carlo De Simone think that Lemnian is the testimony of an Etruscan commercial settlement on the island that took place before 700 BC, not related to the Sea Peoples.Carlo de Simone, La nuova Iscrizione 'Tirsenica' di Lemnos (Efestia, teatro): considerazioni generali, in Rasenna: Journal of the Center for Etruscan Studies, pp. 1–34.Robert Drews, The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe of ca. 1200 B.C, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995, p. 59, .

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Archeogenetic studies

A 2021 archeogenetic analysis of Etruscan individuals, who lived between 800 and 1 BC, concluded that the Etruscans were autochthonous and genetically similar to the Early Iron Age Latins, and that the Etruscan language, and therefore the other languages of the Tyrrhenian family, may have been a surviving language of the ones that were widespread in Europe from at least the Neolithic period before the arrival of the Indo-European languages, as already argued by German geneticist Johannes Krause who concluded that it is likely that the Etruscan language (as well as Basque language, Paleo-Sardinian and Minoan language) "developed on the continent in the course of the Neolithic Europe".

(2026). 9780593229422, Random House. ISBN 9780593229422

The lack of recent Anatolian-related admixture and Iranian-related ancestry among the Etruscans, who genetically joined firmly to the European cluster, might also suggest that the presence of a handful of inscriptions found at Lemnos, in a language related to Etruscan and Raetic, "could represent population movements departing from the Italian peninsula".

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Superseded theories and fringe scholarship

For many hundreds of years the classification of Etruscan remained problematic for historical linguists, though it was almost universally agreed upon that Etruscan was a language unlike any other in Europe. Before it gained currency as one of the Tyrrhenian languages, Etruscan was commonly treated as a language isolate. Over the centuries many hypotheses on the Etruscan language have been developed, most of which have not been accepted or have been considered highly speculative since they were published. The major consensus among scholars is that Etruscan, and therefore all the languages of the Tyrrhenian family, is neither Indo-European nor Semitic,

(2026). 9788843093090, Carocci editore. ISBN 9788843093090

and may be a Pre–Indo-European and Paleo-European language. At present the major consensus is that Etruscan's only kinship is with the Raetic and Lemnian languages.

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Pre-Greek substrate hypothesis

The idea of a relation between the language of the Minoan Linear A scripts was taken into consideration as the main hypothesis by Michael Ventris before he discovered that, in fact, the language behind the later Linear B script was Mycenean Greek, a Greek dialect. It has been proposed to possibly be part of a wider Paleo-European "Aegean" language family, which would also include Minoan language, Eteocretan (possibly descended from Minoan) and Eteocypriot. This has been proposed by Giulio Mauro Facchetti, a researcher who has dealt with both Etruscan and Minoan, and supported by S. Yatsemirsky, referring to some similarities between Etruscan and Lemnian on one hand, and Linear A and Eteocretan on the other. It has also been proposed that this language family is related to the pre-Indo-European languages of Anatolia, based upon place name analysis. The relationship between Etruscan and Minoan, and hypothetical unattested pre-Indo-European languages of Anatolia, is considered unfounded.

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Anatolian Indo-European family hypothesis

Some have suggested that Tyrsenian languages may yet be distantly related to early Indo-European languages, such as those of the Anatolian branch.For example, Steinbauer (1999), Rodríguez Adrados (2005). More recently, Robert S. P. Beekes argued in 2002 that the people later known as the Lydians and Etruscans had originally lived in northwest Anatolia, with a coastline to the Sea of Marmara, whence they were driven by the Phrygians circa 1200 BC, leaving a remnant known in antiquity as the Tiras. A segment of this people moved south-west to Lydia, becoming known as the Lydian language, while others sailed away to take refuge in Italy, where they became known as Etruscans.Beekes, Robert S. P. "The Origin of the Etruscans". In: Biblioteca Orientalis 59 (2002), 206–242. This account draws on the well-known story by Herodotus (I, 94) of the Lydian origin of the Etruscans or Tyrrhenians, famously rejected by Dionysius of Halicarnassus (book I), partly on the authority of Xanthus, a Lydian historian, who had no knowledge of the story, and partly on what he judged to be the different languages, laws, and religions of the two peoples. In 2006, Frederik Woudhuizen went further on Herodotus' traces, suggesting that Etruscan belongs to the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European family, specifically to Luwian. Woudhuizen revived a conjecture to the effect that the Tyrsenians came from Anatolia, including Lydia, whence they were driven by the Cimmerians in the early Iron Age, 750–675 BC, leaving some colonists on Lemnos. He makes a number of comparisons of Etruscan to Luwian and asserts that Etruscan is modified Luwian. He accounts for the non-Luwian features as a influence: "deviations from Luwian ... may plausibly be ascribed to the dialect of the indigenous population of Mysia."Woudhuizen 2006 p. 86 According to Woudhuizen, the Etruscans were initially colonizing the Latins, bringing the alphabet from Anatolia. For historical, archaeological, genetic, and linguistic reasons, a relationship between Etruscan and the Indo-European Anatolian languages (Lydian or Luwian) and the idea that the Etruscans initially colonized the Latins, bringing the alphabet from Anatolia, have not been accepted, since the account by Herodotus is no longer considered reliable.

(2026). 9780631220381, Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 9780631220381

(2026). 9781614515203, De Gruyter. ISBN 9781614515203

(2026). 9781444337341, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 9781444337341

(2026). 9781780238623, Reaktion Books. ISBN 9781780238623

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Other theories

The interest in Etruscan antiquities and the Etruscan language found its modern origin in a book by a Renaissance Dominican friar, Annio da Viterbo, a cabalist and oriental studies now remembered mainly for literary forgeries. In 1498, Annio published his antiquarian miscellany titled Antiquitatum variarum (in 17 volumes) where he put together a theory in which both the Hebrew language and Etruscan languages were said to originate from a single source, the "Aramaic" spoken by Noah and his descendants, founders of the Etruscan city Viterbo.

The 19th century saw numerous attempts to reclassify Etruscan. Ideas of Semitic origins found supporters until this time. In 1858, the last attempt was made by Johann Gustav Stickel, Jena University in his Das Etruskische durch Erklärung von Inschriften und Namen als semitische Sprache erwiesen. A reviewerGildemeister, Johannes. In: ZDMG 13 (1859), pp. 289–304. concluded that Stickel brought forward every possible argument which would speak for that hypothesis, but he proved the opposite of what he had attempted to do. In 1861, Robert Ellis proposed that Etruscan was related to Armenian.Ellis, Robert (1861). The Armenian origin of the Etruscans. London: Parker, Son, & Bourn. Exactly 100 years later, a relationship with Albanian was to be advanced by Zecharia Mayani,Mayani, Zacharie (1961). The Etruscans Begin to Speak. Translation by Patrick Evans. London: Souvenir Press. a theory regarded today as disproven and discredited.

Lucy Shipley (2026). 9781780238623, Reaktion Books. . ISBN 9781780238623

Several theories from the late 19th and early 20th centuries connected Etruscan to Uralic languages or even Altaic languages. In 1874, the British scholar Isaac Taylor brought up the idea of a genetic relationship between Etruscan and Hungarian, of which also Jules Martha would approve in his exhaustive study La langue étrusque (1913). In 1911, the French orientalist Baron Carra de Vaux suggested a connection between Etruscan and the Altaic languages. The Hungarian connection was revived by Mario Alinei, emeritus professor of Italian languages at the University of Utrecht.Alinei, Mario (2003). Etrusco: una forma arcaica di ungherese. Il Mulino: Bologna. Alinei's proposal has been rejected by Etruscan experts such as Giulio M. Facchetti,Facchetti, Giulio M. "The Interpretation of Etruscan Texts and its Limits" (PDF). In: Journal of Indo-European Studies 33, 3/4, 2005, 359–388. Quote from p. 371: '... suffice it to say that Alinei clears away all the combinatory work done on Etruscan (for grammar specially) to try to make Uralic inflections fit without ripping the seams. He completely ignores the aforesaid recent findings in phonology (and phoneme/grapheme relationships), returning to the obsolete but convenient theory that the handwriting changed and orthography was not consolidated'. Finno-Ugric linguist Angela Marcantonio,Marcantonio, Angela (2004). "Un caso di 'fantalinguistica'. A proposito di Mario Alinei: 'Etrusco: una forma arcaica di ungherese'." In: Studi e Saggi Linguistici XLII, 173–200, where Marcantonio states that "La tesi dell'Alinei è da rigettare senza alcuna riserva" ("Alinei's thesis must be rejected without any reservation"), criticizes his methodology and the fact that he ignored the comparison with Latin and Greek words in pnomastic and institutional vocabulary. Large quotes can be read at Melinda Tamás-Tarr " Sulla scrittura degli Etruschi: «Ma è veramente una scrittura etrusca»? Cosa sappiamo degli Etruschi III". In: Osservatorio letterario. Ferrara e l'Altrove X/XI, Nos. 53/54 (November–December/January–February 2006/2007), 67–73. Marcantonio is Associated Professor of Historical Linguistics and Finno-Ugric Studies at the University of Rome "La Sapienza" ( personal website ). and by Hungarian historical linguists such as Bela Brogyanyi.Brogyanyi, Bela. " Die ungarische alternative Sprachforschung und ihr ideologischer Hintergrund – Versuch einer Diagnose ". In: Sprache & Sprachen 38 (2008), 3–15, who claims that Alinei shows a complete ignorance on Etruscan and Hungarian "glänzt and that the thesis of a relation between Hungarian and Etruscan languages deserves no attention. Another proposal, pursued mainly by a few linguists from the former Soviet Union, suggested a relationship with Northeast Caucasian (or Nakh-Daghestanian) languages. None of these theories has been accepted nor enjoys consensus.

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Writing system

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Alphabet

The Latin script owes its existence to the Etruscan alphabet, which was adapted for Latin in the form of the Old Italic script. The Etruscan alphabetThe alphabet can also be found with alternative forms of the letters at Omniglot. employs a variant of the Greek alphabet using the letter digamma and was in all probability transmitted through Ischia and Cumae, two Euboean settlements in southern Italy. This system is ultimately derived from West Semitic scripts.

The Etruscans recognized a 26-letter alphabet, which makes an early appearance incised for decoration on a small bucchero terracotta lidded vase in the shape of a cockerel at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, c. 650–600 BC. The full complement of 26 has been termed the model alphabet. The Etruscans did not use four letters of it, mainly because Etruscan did not have the voiced stops b, d and g; the o was also not used. They innovated one letter for f ().

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Text

Writing was from right to left except in archaic inscriptions, which occasionally used boustrophedon. An example found at Cerveteri used left to right. In the earliest inscriptions, the words are continuous. From the 6th century BC, they are separated by a dot or a colon, which might also be used to separate syllables. Writing was phonetic; the letters represented the sounds and not conventional spellings. On the other hand, many inscriptions are highly abbreviated and often casually formed, so the identification of individual letters is sometimes difficult. Spelling might vary from city to city, probably reflecting differences of pronunciation.

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Complex consonant clusters

Speech featured a heavy stress on the first syllable of a word, causing syncopation by weakening of the remaining vowels, which then were not represented in writing: Alcsntre for Alexandros, Rasna for Rasena. This speech habit is one explanation of the Etruscan "impossible" consonant clusters. Some of the consonants, especially Sonorant, however, may have been syllabic, accounting for some of the clusters (see below under Consonants). In other cases, the scribe sometimes inserted a vowel: Greek Hēraklēs became Hercle by syncopation and then was expanded to Herecele. Pallottino regarded this variation in vowels as "instability in the quality of vowels" and accounted for the second phase (e.g. Herecele) as "vowel harmony, i.e., of the assimilation of vowels in neighboring syllables".

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Phases

The writing system had two historical phases: the archaic from the seventh to fifth centuries BC, which used the early Greek alphabet, and the later from the fourth to first centuries BC, which modified some of the letters. In the later period, syncopation increased.

The alphabet went on in modified form after the language disappeared. In addition to being the source of the Roman and early Oscan and Umbrian alphabets, it has been suggested that it passed northward into Veneto and from there through Raetia into the Germanic lands, where it became the Elder Futhark alphabet, the oldest form of the runes.

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Epigraphy

The corpus of Etruscan inscriptions is edited in the Corpus Inscriptionum Etruscarum (CIE) and Thesaurus Linguae Etruscae (TLE).Massimo Pallottino, Maristella Pandolfini Angeletti, Thesaurus linguae Etruscae, Volume 1 (1978); review by A. J. Pfiffig in Gnomon 52.6 (1980), 561–563. Supplements in 1984, 1991 and 1998. A 2nd revised edition by Enrico Benelli appeared in 2009; review by G. van Heems, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2010.01.05 .

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Bilingual text

The Pyrgi Tablets are a bilingual text in Etruscan and Phoenician engraved on three gold leaves, one for the Phoenician and two for the Etruscan. The Etruscan language portion has 16 lines and 37 words. The date is roughly 500 BC.

The tablets were found in 1964 by Massimo Pallottino during an excavation at the ancient Etruscan port of Pyrgi, now Santa Severa. The only new Etruscan word that could be extracted from close analysis of the tablets was the word for 'three', .

(2026). 9780071357432, McGraw-Hill. . ISBN 9780071357432

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Longer texts

According to Rix and his collaborators, only two unified (though fragmentary) long texts are available in Etruscan:

• The Liber Linteus Zagrabiensis, which was later used for mummy wrappings in Egypt. Roughly 1,200 words of readable (but not fully translatable) text, mainly repetitious prayers probably comprising a kind of religious calendar, yielded about 50 lexical items.
• The Tabula Capuana (the inscribed tile from Capua) has about 300 readable words in 62 lines, dating to the fifth century BC. It again seems to be a religious calendar.

Some additional longer texts are:

• The inscription of 59 words on the Sarcophagus of Laris Pulenas, also known as The Magistrate, dating from the third century BC, discovered in Tarquinia, now residing in Museo Nazionale Archeologico (Tarquinia, Viterbo, Lazio, Italy).Roncalli, F. (1996) "Laris Pulenas and Sisyphus: Mortals, Heroes and Demons in the Etruscan Underworld," Etruscan Studies vol. 3, article 3, pp. 45-64.Cataldi, M. (1988) I sarcofagi etruschi delle famiglie Partunu, Camna e Pulena, Roma.
• The lead foils of Punta della Vipera have about 40 legible words having to do with ritual formulae. It is dated to about 500 BC.Brief description and picture at The principle discoveries with Etruscan inscriptions , article published by the Borough of Santa Marinella and the Archaeological Department of Southern Etruria of the Italian government.
• The Cippus Perusinus, a stone slab (cippus) found at Perugia, which probably functioned as a border marker, contains 46 lines and about 130 words. The cippus is assumed to be a text dedicating a legal contract between the Etruscan families of Velthina (from Perugia) and Afuna (from Chiusi), regarding the sharing or use of a property, including water rights, upon which there was a tomb belonging to the noble Velthinas.Jean MacIntosh Turfa (13 November 2014). The Etruscan World. Routledge. pp. 363–. .
• The Piacenza Liver, a bronze model of a sheep's liver representing the sky, has the engraved names of the gods ruling different sections.
• The Tabula Cortonensis, a bronze tablet from Cortona, is believed to record a legal contract between Cusu family and Petru Scevas and his wife concerning a real estate settlement of some sort, with about 200 words. Discovered in 1992, this new tablet contributed the word for 'lake', , but not much else.
  (2026). 9780071357432, McGraw-Hill. . ISBN 9780071357432
• The Vicchio stele, found in the 21st season of excavation at the Etruscan Sanctuary at Poggio Colla, is believed to be connected with the cult of the goddess Uni, with about 120 letters. Only discovered in 2016, it is still in the process of being deciphered. As an example of difficulties in reading this badly damaged monument, here is Maggiani's attempt at a transliteration and translation of a bit from the beginning of the third block of text (III, 1–3): (vacat) tinaś: θ(?)anuri: unial(?)/ ẹ ṿ ị: zal / ame (akil??) "for Tinia in the xxxx of Uni/xxxx(objects) two / must (akil ?) be..."Maggiani, A. and Gregory, P. G. Authority and display in sixth-century Etruria: The Vicchio stele Edinburgh 2020
• The badly damaged Saint Marinella lead sheet contains traces of 80 words, only half of which can be completely read with certainty, many of which can also be found in the Liber Linteus. It was discovered during the 1963–1964 excavations at a sanctuary near Saint Marinella near Pyrgi, now in the Villa Giulia Museum in Rome.
• The Lead Plaque of Magliano contains 73 words, including many names of deities. It seems to be a series of dedications to various gods and ancestors.van der Meer, B. "The Lead Plaque of Magliano" in: Interpretando l'antico. Scritti di archeologia offerti a Maria Bonghi Jovino. Milano 2013 (Quaderni di Acme 134) pp. 323-341

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Inscriptions on monuments

The main material repository of Etruscan civilization, from the modern perspective, is its tombs, all other public and private buildings having been dismantled and the stone reused centuries ago. The tombs are the main source of Etruscan portables, provenance unknown, in collections throughout the world. Their incalculable value has created a brisk black market in Etruscan objets d'art – and equally brisk law enforcement effort, as it is illegal to remove any objects from Etruscan tombs without authorization from the Italian government.

The magnitude of the task involved in cataloguing them means that the total number of tombs is unknown. They are of many types. Especially plentiful are the hypogeum or "underground" chambers or system of chambers cut into tuff and covered by a tumulus. The interior of these tombs represents a habitation of the living stocked with furniture and favorite objects. The walls may display painted , the predecessor of wallpaper. Tombs identified as Etruscan date from the Villanovan period to about 100 BC, when presumably the cemeteries were abandoned in favor of Roman ones.Some Internet articles on the tombs in general are:
Etruscan Tombs at mysteriousetruscans.com.
Scientific Tomb-Robbing, article in Time, Monday, Feb. 25, 1957, displayed at time.com.
Hot from the Tomb: The Antiquities Racket, article in Time, Monday, Mar. 26, 1973, displayed at time.com. Some of the major cemeteries are as follows:

• Caere or Cerveteri, a UNESCO site.Refer to Etruscan Necropoleis of Cerveteri and Tarquinia, a World Heritage site. Three complete necropoleis with streets and squares. Many hypogeum are concealed beneath tumulus retained by walls; others are cut into cliffs. The Banditaccia necropolis contains more than 1,000 tumuli. Access is through a door.Some popular Internet sites giving photographs and details of the necropolis are:

Cisra (Roman Caere / Modern Cerveteri) at mysteriousetruscans.com.
Chapter XXXIII CERVETRI.a – AGYLLA or CAERE., George Dennis at Bill Thayer's Website.
Aerial photo and map at mapsack.com.

• Tarquinia, Tarquinii or Corneto, a UNESCO site: Approximately 6,000 graves dating from the Villanovan (ninth and eighth centuries BC) distributed in necropoleis, the main one being the Monterozzi hypogeum of the sixth–fourth centuries BC. About 200 painted tombs display murals of various scenes with call-outs and descriptions in Etruscan. Elaborately carved sarcophagi of marble, alabaster, and nenfro include identificatory and achievement inscriptions. The Tomb of Orcus at the Scatolini necropolis depicts scenes of the Spurinnia gens family with call-outs.A history of the tombs at Tarquinia and links to descriptions of the most famous ones is given at [18] on mysteriousetruscans.com.
• Inner walls and doors of tombs and sarcophagi, including the Golini Tomb and the Tomb of Orcus
• The Orator is a bronze statue with a dedicatory inscription of about 13 words in Etruscan
• Engraved steles (tombstones)
• Ossuary

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Inscriptions on portable objects

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Votives

One example of an early (pre-fifth century BC) votive inscription is on a bucchero oinochoe (wine vase): ṃiṇi mulvaṇịce venalia ṡlarinaṡ. en mipi kapi ṃi(r) ṇuṇai = "Venalia Ṡlarinaṡ gave me. Do not touch me (?), I (am) nunai (an offering?)." This seems to be a rare case from this early period of a female (Venalia) dedicating the votive.

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Mirrors

A speculum (Latin; the Etruscan word is or ) is a circular or oval hand-mirror used predominantly by Etruscan women. Specula were cast in bronze as one piece with a tang which was fitted into a wooden, bone, or ivory handle. The reflecting surface was created by polishing the flat side. A higher percentage of tin in the mirror improved its ability to reflect. The other side was convex and featured intaglio or cameo scenes from mythology. The piece was generally ornate.For pictures and a description refer to the Etruscan Mirrors article at mysteriousetruscans.com.

About 2,300 specula are known from collections all over the world. As they were popular plunderables, the provenance of only a minority is known. An estimated time window is 530–100 BC.For the dates, more pictures and descriptions, see the Hand Mirror with the Judgment of Paris article published online by the Allen Memorial Art Museum of Oberlin College. Most probably came from tombs. Many bear inscriptions naming the persons depicted in the scenes, so they are often called picture bilinguals. In 1979, Massimo Pallottino, then president of the Istituto di Studi Etruschi ed Italici, initiated the Committee of the Corpus Speculorum Etruscanorum, which resolved to publish all the specula and set editorial standards for doing so. Since then, the committee has grown, acquiring local committees and representatives from most institutions owning Etruscan mirror collections. Each collection is published in its own fascicle by diverse Etruscan scholars.Representative examples can be found in the U.S. Epigraphy Project site of Brown University: [21] , [22]

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Cistae

A cista (Latin for "basket") is a bronze container of circular, ovoid, or more rarely rectangular shape used by women for the storage of sundries. They are ornate, often with feet and lids to which figurines may be attached. The internal and external surfaces bear carefully crafted scenes usually from mythology, usually intaglio, or rarely part intaglio, part cameo.

Cistae date from the Roman Republic, mainly during the fourth and third centuries BC. They may bear various short inscriptions concerning the manufacturer or owner or subject matter. The writing may be Latin, Etruscan, or both. Excavations at Palestrina, a Latin city, turned up about 118 cistae, one of which has been termed "the Praeneste cista" or "the Ficoroni cista", with special reference to its Latin inscription which indicates that it was manufactured by Novios Plutius and given by Dindia Macolnia to her daughter. All of them are more accurately termed "the Praenestine cistae".Paggi, Maddalena. "The Praenestine Cistae" (October 2004), New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in Timeline of Art History.

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Rings and ringstones

Among the most plunderable portables from the Etruscan tombs of Etruria are the finely engraved gemstones set in patterned gold to form circular or ovoid pieces intended to go on finger rings. Around one centimeter in size, they are dated to the Etruscan apogee from the second half of the sixth to the first centuries BC. The two main theories of manufacture are native Etruscan and Greek. Beazley Archive . The materials are mainly dark red carnelian, with agate and sard entering usage from the third to the first centuries BC, along with purely gold finger rings with a hollow engraved bezel setting. The engravings, mainly cameo, but sometimes intaglio, depict Dung beetle at first and then scenes from Greek mythology, often with heroic personages called out in Etruscan. The gold setting of the bezel bears a border design, such as cabling.

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Coins

Etruscan-minted coins can be dated between the 5th and 3rd centuries BC. Use of the 'Chalcidian' standard, based on the silver unit of 5.8 grams, indicates that this custom, like the alphabet, came from Greece. Roman coinage later supplanted Etruscan, but the basic Roman coin, the sesterce, is believed to have been based on the 2.5-denomination Etruscan coin. Ancient Coins of Etruria. Etruscan coins have turned up in caches or individually in tombs and in excavations seemingly at random, and concentrated, of course, in Etruria.

Etruscan coins were in gold, silver, and bronze, the gold and silver usually having been struck on one side only. The coins often bore a denomination, sometimes a minting authority name, and a cameo motif. Gold denominations were in units of silver; silver, in units of bronze. Full or abbreviated names are mainly Pupluna (Populonia), Vatl or Veltuna (Vetulonia), Velathri (Volaterrae), Velzu or Velznani (Volsinii) and Cha for Chamars (Camars). Insignia are mainly heads of mythological characters or depictions of mythological beasts arranged in a symbolic motif: Apollo, Zeus, Culsans, Athena, Hermes, griffin, gorgon, male sphinx, hippocamp, bull, snake, eagle, or other creatures which had symbolic significance.

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Functional categories

Wallace et al. include the following categories, based on the uses to which they were put, on their site: abecedaria (alphabets), artisans' texts, boundary markers, construction texts, dedications, didaskalia (instructional texts), funerary texts, legal texts, other/unclear texts, prohibitions, proprietary texts (indicating ownership), religious texts, tesserae hospitales (tokens that establish "the claim of the bearer to hospitality when travelling"

(2026). 9780199381135 /ref>

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Phonology

In the tables below, conventional letters used for transliterating Etruscan are accompanied by likely pronunciation in IPA symbols within the square brackets, followed by examples of the early Etruscan alphabet which would have corresponded to these sounds.

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Vowels

The Etruscan vowel consisted of four distinct vowels. The vowels o and u appear to have not been phonetically distinguished based on the nature of the writing system, as only one symbol is used to cover both in loans from Greek (e.g. Greek κώθων > Etruscan 'pitcher').

Before the is used, while and are used before respectively unrounded and rounded .

Vowels

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Consonants

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Table of consonants

Etruscan also might have had consonants ʧ and ʧʰ, as they might be represented in the writing by using two letters, like in the word ('great-nephew' or 'great-grandson'). However, this theory is not widely accepted.

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Absence of voiced stops

The Etruscan consonant system primarily distinguished between aspirated and non-aspirated stops. There were no voiced stops. When words from foreign languages were borrowed into Etruscan, voiced stops typically became Tenuis consonant stops; one example is Greek thriambos, which became Etruscan and Latin triumphus.J.H. Adams pp. 163–164.

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Syllabic theory

Based on standard spellings by Etruscan scribes of words without vowels or with unlikely consonant clusters (e.g. 'of this (gen.)' and 'freeman'), it is likely that were sometimes syllabic (cf. English litt le , button). Thus and .

Rix postulates several syllabic consonants, namely and palatal as well as a labiovelar fricative , and some scholars such as Mauro Cristofani also view the aspirates as palatal rather than aspirated but these views are not shared by most Etruscologists. Rix supports his theories by means of variant spellings such as /, /, /.

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Grammar

Etruscan was an agglutinative language, varying the endings of nouns, adjectives, pronouns and verbs with discrete for each syntactic function. It also had adverbs and conjunctions, whose endings did not vary.

(2026). 9781118352748 ISBN 9781118352748

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Nouns

Etruscan substantives had five cases—Nominative case, accusative case, genitive case, dative case, and locative case—and two numbers: singular and a plural. Not all five cases are attested for every word. Nouns merge the nominative and accusative; pronouns do not generally merge these. Gender appears in personal names (masculine and feminine) and in pronouns (animate and inanimate); otherwise, it is not marked.

Compared to many Indo-European languages, Etruscan noun endings were more agglutinative, with some nouns bearing two or three agglutinated suffixes. For example, where Latin would have distinct nominative plural and dative plural endings, Etruscan would suffix the case ending to a plural marker: Latin nominative singular fili-us, 'son', plural fili-i, dative plural fili-is, but Etruscan , and . Moreover, Etruscan nouns could bear multiple suffixes from the case paradigm alone: that is, Etruscan exhibited Suffixaufnahme. Pallottino calls this phenomenon "morphological redetermination", which he defines as "the typical tendency ... to redetermine the syntactical function of the form by the superposition of suffixes." His example is , 'in the sanctuary of Juno', where -al is a genitive ending and -θi a locative.

Steinbauer says of Etruscan, "there can be more than one marker ... to design a case, and ... the same marker can occur for more than one case." Etruscan Grammar: Summary at Steinbauer's website.

Nominative case/accusative case

No distinction is made between nominative and accusative of nouns. The nominative/accusative could act as the subject of transitive and intransitive verbs, but also as the object of transitive verbs, and it was also used to indicate duration of time (e.g., 'for three years').

Common nouns use the unmarked root. Names of males may end in -e: (Hercules), (Achilles), (Titus); of females, in -i, -a, or -u: (Juno), (Minerva), or . Names of gods may end in -s: , ; or they may be the unmarked stem ending in a vowel or consonant: (Apollo), (Bacchus), or .

Genitive case

The genitive case had two main functions in Etruscan

Pallottino defines two declensions based on whether the genitive ends in -s/-ś or -l. In the -s group are most noun stems ending in a vowel or a consonant: / , /. In the second are names of females ending in i and names of males that end in s, th or n: /, / , /. After l or r -us instead of -s appears: /. Otherwise, a vowel might be placed before the ending: instead of .

According to Rex Wallace, "A few nouns could be inflected with both types of endings without any difference in meaning. Consider, for example, the genitives italic=no 'fortress (?)' and italic=no. Why this should be the case is not clear."

There is a patronymic ending: -sa or -isa, 'son of', but the ordinary genitive might serve that purpose. In the genitive case, morphological redetermination becomes elaborate. Given two male names, Vel and Avle, means 'Vel son of Avle'. This expression in the genitive become Vel-uś Avles-la. Pallottino's example of a three-suffix form is .

Dative case

Besides the usual function as indirect object ('to/for'), this case could be used as the agent ('by') in passive clauses, and occasionally as a locative. The dative ending is -si

Locative case

The locative ending is -θi

Plural number

Nouns semantically +human had the plural marking -ar

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Pronouns

Personal pronouns refer to persons; demonstrative pronouns point out English this, that, there.The summary in this section is taken from the tables of the Bonfantes (2002) pp. 91–94, which go into considerably more detail, citing examples.

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Personal

The first-person personal pronoun has a nominative ('I') and an accusative ('me'). The third person has a personal form ('he'/'she'/'they') and an inanimate ('it'). The second person is uncertain but some scholars, such as the Bonfantes, have claimed a dative singular ('to thee') and an accusative singular ('thee').

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Demonstrative

The demonstratives, and , are used without distinction for 'that' or 'this'. The nominative–accusative singular forms are: , , , , ; the plural: , . There is a genitive singular: , , and plural . The accusative singular: , , , , , ; plural 'these/those'. Locative singular: ; plural .

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Adjectives

Though uninflected for number, adjectives were inflected for case, agreeing with their noun: 'good' versus genitive 'of (the) good...'

Adjectives fall into a number of types formed from nouns with a suffix:

• quality, - u, -iu or - c: , 'god/divine'; , 'gold/golden'
• possession or reference, - na, -ne, -ni: , 'Bacchus, Bacchic'; , 'family/familiar' (in the sense of servant)
• collective, - cva, -chva, -cve, -χve, -ia: : 'figure/figured'; , 'slave/servile'

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Adverbs

Adverbs are unmarked: , 'again'; , 'now, here'; , 'at first' (compare 'one'). Most Indo-European adverbs are formed from the oblique cases, which become unproductive and descend to fixed forms. Cases such as the ablative are therefore called adverbial. If there is any such widespread system in Etruscan, it is not obvious from the relatively few surviving adverbs.

The negative adverb is (for examples, see below in Imperative moods) .

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Conjunctions

The two enclitic coordinate conjunctions ‐ka/‐ca/‐c 'and' and -um/‐m 'and, but' coordinated phrases and clauses, but phrases could also be coordinated without any conjunction (asyndetic).

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Verbs

Verbs had an indicative mood, an imperative mood and others. Tenses were Present tense and Past tense. The past tense had an active voice and a passive voice.

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Present active

Etruscan used a verbal root with a zero suffix or -a without distinction to number or person: , , 'he, she, we, you, they make'.

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Past or preterite active

Adding the suffix 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. Examples: 'gives, dedicates' versus 'gave, dedicated'; 'lives' versus 'lived'.

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Past passive

The third-person past passive is formed with -che: , 'offers/offered/was offered'.

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Imperative mood

The imperative was formed with the simple, uninflected root of the verb: 'dedicate!', 'put!', 'speak!' and 'invoke!').

The imperative 'take, steal' is found in anti‐theft inscriptions:

: (Cm 2.13; fifth century BC)

:'I (am) the bowl of Cupe Althr̥na. Don't steal me!'

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Other modals

Verbs with the suffix ‐a indicated the jussive mood, with the force of commanding, or exhorting (within a subjunctive framework).

:

:'No one should put/make (?) anything here ().'

Verbs ending in ‐ri referred to obligatory activities:

:

:'On September twenty six, victims must be offered (?) and sacrificed (?) to Nethuns.'

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Participles

Verbs formed participles in a variety of ways, among the most frequently attested being -u in 'dead' from 'die'.

Participles could also be formed with ‐θ. These referred to activities that were contemporaneous with that of the main verb: '(while) speaking', '(while) invoking', and '(while) pouring (?)'.

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Postpositions

Typical of SOV agglutinative languages, Etruscan had postpositions rather than prepositions, each governing a specific case.

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Syntax

Etruscan is considered to have been a SOV language with postpositions, but the word order was not strict and the orders OVS and OSV are, in fact, more frequent in commemorative inscriptions from the archaic period, presumably as a stylistic feature of the genre.Wallace, Rex. 2008. Zikh Rasna: A manual of the Etruscan language and inscriptions. Ann Arbor, New York: Beech Stave Press. P. 95. Cited in: Rogers, Adelle, "Theories on the Origin of the Etruscan Language" (2018). Open Access Theses. 27-28. Adjectives were usually placed after the noun.Wallace, Rex. 2008. Zikh Rasna: A manual of the Etruscan language and inscriptions. Ann Arbor, New York: Beech Stave Press. P.52-53. Cited in: Rogers, Adelle, "Theories on the Origin of the Etruscan Language" (2018). Open Access Theses. P.27-28.

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Vocabulary

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Borrowings from and to Etruscan

Only a few hundred words of the Etruscan vocabulary are understood with some certainty. The exact count depends on whether the different forms and the expressions are included. Below is a table of some of the words grouped by topic.The words in this table come from the Glossaries of Bonfante (1990) and Pallottino. The latter also gives a grouping by topic on pages 275 following, the last chapter of the book.

Some words with corresponding Latin or other Indo-European forms are likely to or from Etruscan. For example, 'nephew', is probably from Latin (Latin nepōs , nepōtis; this is a cognate of German Neffe, Old Norse nefi). A number of for which Etruscan origin has been proposed survive in Latin.

The word 'house' is a false cognate to the Coptic language 'house'.

In addition to words believed to have been borrowed into Etruscan from Indo-European or elsewhere, there is a corpus of words such as familia which seem to have been borrowed into Latin from the older Etruscan civilization as a superstrate influence.Theo Vennemann, Germania Semitica, p. 123, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2012. Some of these words still have widespread currency in English language and Latin languages. Other words believed to have a possible Etruscan origin include:

arena

from 'arena' < , 'arena, sand' < archaic < Sabine , unknown Etruscan word as the basis for fas- with Etruscan ending -ēna.Breyer (1993) p. 259.

belt

from , 'sword belt'; the sole connection between this word and Etruscan is a statement by Marcus Terentius Varro that it was of Etruscan origin. All else is speculation. Breyer (1993) pp. 428–429 reports on an attempt to bring in Hittite and Gothic connecting it with a totally speculative root *-lst-.

market

from Latin mercātus, of obscure origin, perhaps Etruscan.

military

from Latin mīles 'soldier'; either from Etruscan or related to Greek , 'assembled crowd' (compare homily).

person

from Middle English persone, from Old French persone, from Latin persōna, 'mask', probably from Etruscan , 'mask'.American Heritage Dictionary, New College Edition, p. 978

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Etruscan vocabulary

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Numerals

Much debate has been carried out about a possible Indo-European origin of the Etruscan cardinals. In the words of Larissa Bonfante (1990), "What these numerals show, beyond any shadow of a doubt, is the non-Indo-European nature of the Etruscan language". Conversely, other scholars, including Francisco R. Adrados, Albert Carnoy, Marcello Durante, Vladimir Georgiev, Alessandro Morandi and Massimo Pittau, have proposed a close phonetic proximity of the first ten Etruscan numerals to the corresponding numerals in other Indo-European languages.Morandi, A., Nuovi lineamenti di lingua etrusca, Erre Emme (Roma, 1991), chapter IV.Pittau, M., "I numerali Etruschi", Atti del Sodalizio Glottologico Milanese, vol. XXXV–XXXVI, 1994/1995 (1996), pp. 95–105. ([29])

The lower Etruscan numerals are:

+Etruscan numerals
1	θu tʰu ~ θun ~ tu ~ tun
2	zal t͡sal
3	ci ki ~ ki (~ χi?)
4	śa ʃa ~ sa or huθ hutʰ ~ hut	huθ hutʰ ~ hut
5	maχ makʰ ~ *maχv-
6	huθ hutʰ ~ hut or śa ʃa ~ sa	śa ʃa ~ sa
7	śemφ ʃempʰ
8	*cezp ket͡sp
9	nurφ- nurpʰ
10	śar ʃar ~ zar t͡sar	halχ halkʰ
11	*θuśar tʰuʃar "one-ten"	?
12	*zalśar t͡salʃar "two-ten"	śar ʃar ~ zar t͡sar "twelve"
13	ci- śar- kiʃar "three-ten"	*θuśar?
14	*śaśar ʃaʃar or huθzar hutʰt͡sar "four-ten"	*zalśar?
15	*maχśar makʰʃar "five-ten"	ci- śar- "three-twelve"
16	huθzar- hutʰt͡sar or *śaśar ʃaʃar "six-ten"	huθzar- hutʰt͡sar "four-twelve"
17	ciem zaθrum ki-em "three from twenty"
18	eslem zaθrum esl-em "two from twenty"
19	θunem zaθrum tʰun-em "one from twenty"
20	zaθrum t͡satʰrum "tw-?"
30	cealχ t͡sealkʰ "three-ty/ten"
40	śealχ ʃealkʰ or *huθalχ hutʰalkʰ "four-ty"	*huθalχ- "four-ten"
50	muvalχ muwalkʰ "five-ty/ten"
60	*huθalχ hutʰalkʰ or śealχ ʃealkʰ "six-ty"	śealχ ʃealkʰ "six-ten"
70	śemφalχ ʃempʰalkʰ "seven-ty/ten"
80	cezpalχ ket͡spalkʰ "eight-ty/ten"
90	*nurφalχ nurpʰalkʰ "nine-ty/ten"
100	chimth ʃimt or ximth ʃimt "one hundred"

It is unclear which of , , and are 7, 8 and 9. may also mean 'twelve', with for 'ten'.

For higher numbers, it has been determined that is 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, and and any two in the series 70–90. is 100 (clearly < 10, just as Proto-Indo-European dḱm̥tom- 100 is from deḱm- 10). Further, mean 'once, twice, and thrice' respectively; and 'first' and 'third'; 'one by one', 'two by two'; and and are 'double' and 'quadruple'.

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Core vocabulary

apa	father
	paternal
	grandfather
	mother
	grandmother
	wife
	married couple
	son
	of the grandfather, grandson
	daughter
	brother
Brown, John Parman. Israel and Hellas. Vol. 2. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter. 2000. p. 212 (footnote nr. 39).	nephew (Latin: nepot-)
	great-nephew or great-grandson
	nurse, wet nurse
	maid, companion
	youth
	children
	boy
taliθa	girl, in the specific sense of "marriageable girl", or a proper name (attested only once in a mirror, 400–350 BC from Vulci. Likely a proper name rendering of the accusative case of the Greek talis, Τάλις. Greek: Talitha, ταλιθα) (1981). 9788870625073, L'Erma di Bretschneider. ISBN 9788870625073 Nancy Thomson De Grummond (1982). 9780943254005, Archaeological News. ISBN 9780943254005 Lammert Bouke van der Meer (1995). 9789050634779, Brill. ISBN 9789050634779
	gens, people (IE *h₁lewdʰ-, 'people')Massarelli, Riccardo (University of Perugia): "Etruscan lautun: A (very old) Italic loanword?'". Poster presented at the Second Pavia International Summer School for Indo-European Linguistics. 9–14 September 2013. [30]
	freedman (IE *h₁léwdʰ-eros, 'free', 'pertaining to the people')
	freedwoman
	foreigner, slave, client (Greek ἕτερος)
	ancestorsvan der Meer, B. "The Lead Plaque of Magliano" in: Interpretando l'antico. Scritti di archeologia offerti a Maria Bonghi Jovino. Milano 2013 (Quaderni di Acme 134) p. 337
	those who come next (that is posterity)
Cassius Dio Roman History 56,29,4	god
,	Etruscans?
	Etruria?, or equivalent to Latin res publica
	land
	stone
	boundaries
	public boundaries
	city boundaries
	contract
	state
	public
	people
	nation, league, district
	civitas, populus
	civic
	sovereignty
	to rule
	king, prince
	regal, palace
	hold office
	praetor
	unknown magistrates or magistracies
	priest (2026). 9789042920248, Peeters. ISBN 9789042920248
	village priest?
	tomb priest
	tomb priest
	priest of the citadel-s/hilltop-s
	local priest?
	arch-priest?

	day; cf. TiniaTurfa, Jean MacIntosh. Divining the Etruscan World: The Brontoscopic Calendar and Religious Practice. Cambridge University Press, 2012. p. 108. .Thomson de Grummond, Nancy. Etruscan Myth, Sacred History, and Legend. UPenn Museum of Archaeology, 2006. p. 53. .
	morning, day; cf. ThesanTurfa, Jean MacIntosh. Divining the Etruscan World: The Brontoscopic Calendar and Religious Practice. Cambridge University Press, 2012. p. 109. .
	at noon
	month, moonLiber Linteus Zagrabiensis. The Linen Book of Zagreb: A Comment on the Longest Etruscan Text. By L.B. VAN DER MEER. (Monographs on Antiquity.) Louvain: Peeters, 2007. pp. 171–172
	year
	at the age of
	March
	April
	May
	June
	August or summer?
	September
	October
	unknown month?
	northwind, eagle (Latin: aquila)
	sparrow-hawk, falcon (possibly Greek ἱέραξ)
	monkey
	falcon
	sky
	screech-owl
	lion (Latin: leo)
	stars
	horse
	bull (Latin: taurus)
	lake
	moon
	water
	sun (Latin: sol); Cf. Usil
	fire
	Greek ἄσκος 'wineskin'
	olive oil flask
	container (perhaps Latin capio 'take' or capis 'one-handled bowl')
	urn
	Umbrian kletra, a basin or basket
	κύλιξ, a large wine-cup
	κύπη or Latin cūpa, English cup
	Lekythos, a small bottle
	a small lechtum
	πατάνη, a bowl
	πρόχоυς, a ewer
	κώθων, a vessel of Laconia
	small qutum
	chalice
	derived from 'water'
	to make (an offering...)
	to be
	to make sacred
	to dedicate
	(is) obtainedFacchetti, Giulio M. Frammenti di diritto privato etrusco. Firenze. 2000
	to make, construct
	to place, lay, deposit
	to die
	(over)see; reflect?
	make (a dedication?)
	to offer, give
	invoke, offer
	make (an offering) (compare above)
	carry out a sacred act; consecrate
	make good, finish (compare "(proper) use")
	to live
	establish, erectTarabella, Massimo Morandi (2004). Prosopographia etrusca. L'Erma di Bretschneider.
	to say
	officiate
	to give
	to work, decorate
	to live
	to write, engrave

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Sample texts

From Tabula Capuana: (/ indicates line break; text from Alessandro Morandi Epigrafia Italica Rome, 1982, p. 40Alessandro Morandi Epigrafia Italica Rome, 1982, p.40)

First section probably for March (lines 1–7):

:

:

:

::

:

:

::

:

Start of second section for April () (starting on line 8):

:

::

:

:::

:::

:

::

::

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See also

• Combinatorial method (linguistics)
• Corpus Inscriptionum Etruscarum
• Etruscan alphabet
• Etruscan civilization
• Etruscan documents
• Liber Linteus – An Etruscan linen book that ended as mummy wraps in Egypt.
• Tabula Cortonensis – An Etruscan inscription.
• Cippus perusinus – An Etruscan inscription.
• Pyrgi Tablets – Bilingual Etruscan-Phoenician golden leaves.
• Etruscan mythology
• Etruscan numerals
• Lemnian language
• List of English words of Etruscan origin
• Raetic language
• Helmut Rix
• Tyrsenian languages

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Notes and references

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Notes

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Bibliography

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  Available for preview on Google Books.
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• Facchetti, G. (2000) Frammenti di diritto privato etrusco Florence: Olschki.
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• Pallottino, M. (ed.) (1954) Testimonia Linguae Etruscae. Firenze.
• Penney, John H. (2009). "The Etruscan language and its Italic context", in Etruscan by Definition. Eds. Judith Swaddling & Philip Perkins. London: British Museum, pp. 88–93.
• Pfiffig, A.J. (1969) Die etruskische Sprache, Graz.
• Helmut Rix (1991). 9783823342403, G. Narr. ISBN 9783823342403
  2 vols.
• Whatmough, M.M.T. (1997) "Studies in the Etruscan loanwords in Latin" (Biblioteca di 'Studi Etruschi' 33), Firenze.
• Rix, Helmut (1998). Rätisch und Etruskisch. Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft.
• Helmut Rix (2026). 9780521562560, Cambridge University Press. . ISBN 9780521562560
• Dieter H. Steinbauer (1999). 389590080X, Scripta Mercaturae. 389590080X
• (2026). 9780500510339, Thames and Hudson. ISBN 9780500510339
• Rex E. Wallace (2026). 9780974792743, Beech Stave Press. ISBN 9780974792743
• (2026). 9781118352748 ISBN 9781118352748
• (2026). 9788882650841, "L' Erma" di Bretschneider. ISBN 9788882650841

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Further reading

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External links

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General

• Etruscan News Online, the Newsletter of the American Section of the Institute for Etruscan and Italic Studies.
• Etruscan News back issues, Center for Ancient Studies at New York University.
• Etruscology at Its Best, the website of Dr. Dieter H. Steinbauer, in English. Covers origins, vocabulary, grammar and place names.
• .
• The Etruscan Language , the linguistlist.org site. Links to many other Etruscan language sites.
• Materials for the Study of the Etruscan Language prepared by Murray Fowler and Richard George Wolfe. University of Wisconsin Press: 1965.

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Inscriptions

• TM Texts Etruscan A list of all texts in Trismegistos.
• ETP: Etruscan Texts Project A searchable database of Etruscan texts.
• Etruscan Inscriptions in the Royal Ontario Museum, article by Rex Wallace displayed at the umass.edu site.

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Lexical items

• Etruscan Vocabulary, a vocabulary organized by topic by Dieter H. Steinbauer, in English.
• . A short, one-page glossary with numerals as well.
• . An extensive lexicon compiled from other lexicon sites. Links to the major Etruscan glossaries on the Internet are included.
• Paleoglot: Online Etruscan-English dictionary; summary of Etruscan grammar. A searchable Etruscan-to-English dictionary applet and a summary of Etruscan grammar.

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Font

• Etruscan font download site with unicode information
• Etruscan and Early Italic Fonts by James F. Patterson

Categories: Languages Of Ancient Italy, Pre-indo-european Languages, Tyrsenian Languages, Languages Attested From The 7th Century Bc, Languages Extinct In The 1st Century Bc, Extinct Languages Of Europe