Talk:Etruscan language/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Proposed split

Hm. No one has said much of anything on this split. So here goes. It should not be "Tyrsenian languages". There are some legitimate evidenced Tyrsenian languages and we have an article by that name. What the tag is on are the numerous speculative "decipherments" and proposed connections, which is not the same thing at all. Therefore I recommend the split but I suggest the name "Etruscan language proposed decipherments". So I am putting a new tag for it below the old for you to consider. I can hardly work on this until we decide on this.Dave (talk) 19:24, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

"Etruscan language proposed decipherments" is totally unacceptable - it would look as if we could not read Etruscan, as if were written in an undeciphered script, as if it were a cipher. Something like "Proposed relationships" or "Proposed relatives of Etruscan" or what would be much better. Please, look at the Basque language page, at the proposals section. It's brief and informative enough. I don't think we need a larger text. Hence, I don't agree with your proposal, sorry. --Pet'usek ^{[petrdothrubisatgmaildotcom]} 16:22, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I had the same feeling - there is no problem deciphering the script - it's understanding the language that is the problem. Jpaulm (talk) 00:03, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Wow, what an interesting split to make, from an ordinary language point of view. Are both of you specialists in this area of linguistics? I think the two concepts are inter-related. I'm curious as to whether anyone has considered a section on language and archaeology (similar to Colin Renfrew's work). The same people who spoke Etruscan had clothing, jewelry, amphoras. They had trade routes linking them to the places where amber and lapis could come from (not a lot of places). They had to maintain a language that permitted some trade - and it was either overland or oversea or both). Has anyone, for example, considered Etruscan customs/technology as part of the puzzle of figuring out their language (I know it's been done, I'm just curious why it's not mentioned in the article). At any rate, no one is going to either completely decipher OR understand Etruscan without the ordinary contextual framework of everyday life that is always in play in translation. LeValley 07:57, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

The Tyrsenian languages article exists. I would argue that the more cranky suggestions (Ugric, Semitic) should go to the main article in the spirit of WP:SS, and only the serious points of debate should be kept (relation to Raetic, Indo-European yes or no? Particular relation to Anatolian yes or no?) --dab (𒁳) 18:03, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Grandmother, teta

The word for grandmother, teta, reminded me of the affectionate word for grandmother in Lebanese Arabic, teta (pronounced tay-tah). Isn't this curious? Could there be a Semitic link? G. Csikos, 13 August 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.245.238.133 (talk) 01:47, 14 August 2009 (UTC) You may be right, Etruscan has borrowed many Phoenician and Arabic words.Zanzan1 (talk) 05:40, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

If I remember rightly, Jespersen warned against drawing inferences from relationship words, as many of them seem to have their roots in baby-talk, e.g. all the mama, dada, papa, nana words that crop up in so many unrelated languages. Jpaulm (talk) 15:03, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

My English speaking daughters called one set of grandparents Teto and Teta, a loose relationship to their names (very loose). It's baby talk. LeValley 08:00, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Other words

Reading Versnel I found:

Lanista: trainer of gladiators (Isidorus X 159);

trossuli, flexuntes, celeres: military corps names;

tebenna : short toga:

arena: (Skeat gives as etym. Old L. hasena, from Sabine fasena though);

Idus: Etr. Itis: Iovis Fiducia (Macrob. I 15, 14) quoted by Bonfante as a gloss; perhaps tis an abbreviation for Tin(ia)s?

Camenae: Musae (Macrob. II 3,4)

Munth: mundus: Fowler cites Nettleship Contributions to Latin Lexicogr. p.258: from root MU enclose, fence. He adds Etr. origin is a similar word citing Mueller Deecke Die Etrusk. II p. 100 n. 65a; Dumezil cites E. Evangelisti in Studi ling. in on. di V. Pisani 1969 p. 347-366;

Porsenna: first;

Reading Defosse:

columna, santerna, mantisa, antemna, favisa, subulo, atrium, subura. It looks subura might derive from Etr. shpura city. It would imply that this region of Rome was an original site of th Etr. settlements: cf. however Varro on Caelius a Caele Vibenna.

Versnel also quotes from Ernout "Les elements etrusques du voc. lat." in Philologia Paris 1946 p. 21ff.:

satura satire, subulo flute, leno pimp, paelex concubine (Greeek via Etr.), taberna inn, cocistrio cook, caupio hotelier, sporta (Greek via Etr.) cotonea big cup, surenae, lucuns baked, vernae fermale domestic slaves, scurrae parasites.

According to Varro LL V:

Thebri(m) name of king of Veii that was given to the river Tiber, disputed by the Latins. Cf. Pyrgi lamellae: Thefariei Velianas.

Talking of the sacraria Argeorum and the 4 regions of Rome : first Suburana: ...parte princeps Caelius mons a Caele Vibenna, Tusco duce nobili, qui cum sua manu dicitur Romulo venisse auxilio contra Tatium regem. ...Vicus Tuscus... ibi Vortumnus deus Etr. princeps. Caeliolum locum: Caeliani qui a suspicione liberi essent traductos in eum locum qui vocatur Caeliolum.Zanzan32 (talk) 05:52, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

From the Italian wiki lexic:

akvil gift alpanu homage alchuvaisera: gift of the gods: may be related to goddess Achaviser described by Benveniste in SE 3 1929 p. 249 ff. as the Samothracian Cabeirian goddess Axieros, depicted with Alpanu Persephone on a scene of a mirror.

Cape/caper capi container, cf. verb capio to contain Lat.

Ceru : founder cf. Cerus Manus in the carmen Saliare and Paulus 's Festi epitome p. 249L 2nd for god Ianus; Latin Goddess Ceres: both from IE rootstem KER I grow.

Zil to live, zusle animal: look related to IE, cf. Russian zhivoij, Greek zoon, allied to Zend ji IE rootstem GWEI.

sacni consecrated: cf. IE SAK

zina to produce: cf. gignoo Gr.Zanzan32 (talk) 04:44, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

On numerals: L. Bonfante writes they are proof Etr. was not IE. There is a similar word for 8 cezp in some Uralic languages: Proto-Samic *kaekcee; Inari Sami kaeaevci; Baltic Proto-Finnic kahteksan; Komi koekjamis. For 3: Mari kum; Komi kuim.Zanzan32 (talk) 04:48, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't see how kahteksan can be cited here, as kahteksan is clearly "2 from 10" (Finnish kahdeksan), as Finnish yhdeksän is "1 from 10". Jpaulm (talk) 02:33, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

On the hirpi sorani: Versnel says they were priests of death god Shuri, represented as wolfdemons on monuments. Dumezil thought they were adepts of the sun from Sabine root sor, Sora etc.

It is intriguing that death god Aite is represented wearing a wolf head hat. Also the Etr. word meaning to die is lupu, which might have engendered a folk etymology among Italic people. However this should have in turn influenced Etruscans and other later representations. Dumezil quotes a work by F. de Ruyt on the subject.Zanzan32 (talk) 05:03, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Great citations/work, Zanzan. There needs to be more of this in the article - seems to me your citations are good and reveal some interesting parts of the history of etruscology's approach to linguistics. Too bad it's not in the article itself, in my view. LeValley 08:29, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Copy edit needed

I hope to find time to do this, but if not, perhaps someone else will clean it up. Etruscan should be capitalized all the way through, for example. There are other punctuation and capitalization problems. LeValley 08:36, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Etruscan language and names.

There are indicators of possible Asian influence in the names.

1. Etruscan an agglutinative language like Sumerian and Turkic languages.

2. Tarquinus is a possible cognate of "Tarkan" a common Turkic name.

3. Tyrhhenian a possible cognate of Turanian.

4. Rasena a link to Asena the she wolf legend of central Asia which interestingly appears in Etruscan legend also when Romulus and Remus are suckled by a she wolf.

This is what we call original research, see WP:OR and really does not belong here as this is not a forum where we can discuss the Etruscan language. Dougweller (talk) 04:57, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Another perspective?

Etruscan This could be an original research but some guy found a possibility that Etruscan is a secret language. Komitsuki (talk) 03:17, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

The net abounds with cranks like this. Nothing of encyclopedic value here. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 08:21, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

"Etruscan book in Bulgarian National History Museum"

There seems to have been very little talk about it since 2003, and still no mention of what is actually written. I'm starting to suspect this may be about as genuine as the Visoko "pyramids" in Serbia. After all, it's easy to claim that unnamed experts from wherever have verified its age. It's been almost seven years, more than enough time to give at least preliminary findings. Until more information becomes available, I think this book should be considered a modern forgery.

Indeed, the fact that the book has received little attention and has been scarcely mentioned in the last seven years is strong proof that it has been since found to be a fake. The fact that its contents have not been published is highly suspicious. Since the burden of proof is on those who support the authenticity of the book, they are obligated to provide proof of its authenticity from a reliable, scholarly, peer-reviewed source. The BBC does not qualify, nor do any publicity materials released by the museum. I am therefore deleting all mention of the book until its authenticity is properly sourced. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 03:50, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Given the lack of funding and the real drop-off in academic publishing (with vast amounts of original research in fields I'm familiar with still awaiting publication or only published anecdotally in academic newsletters), seven years of silence is nothing. Academia is not speedy right now. LeValley 08:11, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Isn't Visoko in Bosnia? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.65.193.50 (talk) 11:40, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

This claim was later proven to be a hoax.

Limiting to Reliable Sources

This article uses non-reliable sources too heavily. For example, Woudhuizen and Robertson both appear to be unpublished. At least Woudhuizen's paper was accepted as a PhD dissertation from a reputable university. For Robertson, I see no indication at all of where this paper comes from or who Robertson is. Of course, this doesn't mean that they're wrong. But it does mean that the statements that are sourced from these works don't belong in Wikipedia. --Macrakis (talk) 22:39, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

^ Robertson, Ed (2006). Etruscan's genealogical linguistic relationship with Nakh–Daghestanian: a preliminary evaluation (PDF). Retrieved 2009-07-13.

Rather than deleting material like this it should just be attributed in the text: "In an unpublished doctoral thesis, John Smith says..." μηδείς (talk) 19:58, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

If you are worried about reliable sources, I can assure you ("A relationship with Albanian in particular has been advanced by Zecharia Mayani,[24] but Albanian is known to be an Indo-European language") Mayani's book (I got it for a dollar at a used book store by Columbia University) is utter crankitude of the lowest type, with huge ad hoc arguments made to compare vaguely similar words with no regular correspondences given. I'd be happy to switch her into a fringe theory section. Deleting her might be bad, since people who find her book and come here won't get a proper criticism of it. μηδείς (talk) 20:02, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

The other issue is why are we using them? See WP:UNDUE - how are there views significant - which means who takes them seriously enough to discuss them? Dougweller (talk) 20:48, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree. The article is supposed to be about what we know about the Etruscan language, not a survey of all crank theories about the Etruscan language. Some fringe theories, however, are worth mentioning simply because they are widely known. This may be true of Mayani (the query [mayani etruscan] gets 79 hits on Google Books). These are useful to the reader because they show that the Wikipedia editors are aware of the work, consider it fringe, and have not omitted it accidentally.

A Google Book Search on Woudhuizen seems to show that he actually does have a scholarly track record of publishing about Etruscan; maybe a reliable source can be found for the point in the article. Robertson's name is unfortunately too common to allow that trick, but [Nakh–Daghestanian etruscan robertson] finds nothing relevant.

But in general, I agree with Dougweller that we should not give undue significance to random fringe theories. --Macrakis (talk) 00:42, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Etruscan is actually a unique case, since the fringe theories themselves make the topic notable. We certainly wouldn't publish a fringe theory that Hungarian's closest relative is Sumerian, as we know that's unequivocally false. But the various theories like Nakh Daghestanian aren't too bad in this case as long as they are both attributed and marked as extremely speculative. A link here to the claim in the article and a link here in this discussion to the pdf would be helpful. μηδείς (talk) 01:09, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Here's the working link to the pdf http://www.nostratic.net/books/(329)EGRWND.pdf μηδείς (talk) 01:32, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I already found that, but it means nothing. It is a PDF of a paper showing an author named Robertson. Who is Robertson? Who takes the paper seriously? No idea. --Macrakis (talk) 03:05, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Similarities between Old Turkic and Etruscan alphabets

there are many same characters in both of these alphabets, is there any serious research about it? see Old Turkic script—Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

no relation. There are only so many shapes you can form by combining two or three straight strokes. --dab (𒁳) 13:58, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

no realation? you didnt even compare them, i found 12 same characters.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.174.23.184 (talk) 14:12, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

No relation. Etruscan used a variant of the Greek alphabet. --Larth_Rasnal (talk) 23:50, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

That much seems clear. However, the Greek alphabet's origins are a bit shrouded in mist. LeValley 07:47, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

See Phoenician alphabet. Greek is no more shrouded than any other fairly-well documented ancient script. HammerFilmFan (talk) 23:04, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

it is now CONSENSUS among the vast majority of linguists that Etruscan is no longer a language isolate? Verify please by SME's

Subject Matter Experts - please see the Lead and the Classification and confirm this, or re-state along the lines that "a few new studies suggest ...." - thanks. HammerFilmFan (talk) 22:54, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Before seeing your post I was coincidently just working on this - the sections on the Rix hypothesis and the traditional isolate view seemed to be expressed in a contradictory way. Just edited it to (as it seemed to me ) remove the contradiction, but yes subject experts could make a better job of it. DeCausa (talk) 23:11, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, there are always new theories - my issue is, a few newish papers have been claimed to now be consensus across the field - and I instinctively doubt that. That sort of thing takes time - and the history books would need to change AFTER all the linguistic studies changed. Need some linguists to chirp in here on that part of the issue.HammerFilmFan (talk) 23:19, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. But having checked through Google books the relatedness of Lemnian and Etruscan seems to be now generally accepted/agreed (that being a common characterisation of the position from what I can see e.g here). DeCausa (talk) 23:38, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Books alone (of which there are hundreds, not just a few) are not consensus - the proponents need to persuade a large majority of university professors, etc., that this is the case (via seminars, round-table talks among academic boards, et al). HammerFilmFan (talk) 23:42, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Of course - the point of the source I linked to wasn't that it was saying that Lemnian and Etruscan were related but that it was saying that it is "generally agreed" that they are, which is different. Looking through Google books sources over the last 10 years, that is a common characterisation. DeCausa (talk) 23:52, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

I asked a few known-SME's on Wiki to have a look, since I'm looking at the issue from a historian's perspective instead of a linguist's - I am pasting one of their responses:

" Describing it as being the consensus is, I think, over the top. Maybe "promising" if it has been positively received by multiple specialists. It would also be nice to include critics, if possible. Please, go ahead and reword it. --JorisvS (talk) 23:30, 28 December 2014 (UTC) "

- I would like to, but this is outside of my discipline and I'd likely muck it up 'orribly. Critics of the proposal should definitely be noted (if they are in-print and noteworthy.) HammerFilmFan (talk) 00:09, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

DeCausa, your re-phrasing edit looks much better (to me, anyway.)  :-) HammerFilmFan (talk) 00:19, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

• I am surprised by this discussion, as it ignores the one before it. Cambridge has published this relationship as uncontroverted in various sources. For on-line viewing see: The Ancient Languages of Europe, Roger D. Woodard, ed., Cambridge University Press, 2008, "Etruscan", Helmut Rix, p 142. μηδείς (talk) 21:05, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Isn'that Rix citing Rix? Not sure that it adds much to this discussion other than confirming that he has the Cambridge Encyclopedia imprimatur. The question in this thread is the extent to which it has been incontrovertibly accepted generally. I don't particularly find the answer in the above thread. DeCausa (talk) 23:51, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

This is Cambridge and its editor publishing Rix. I am not sure how to make that any clearer. Please, do cite one single source of any weight that denies the relationship. Proving a negative. μηδείς (talk) 03:43, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

That's exactly what I said. Also, if you were to actually read this thread, you'll see that I'm the one saying it's generally accepted they are related. DeCausa (talk) 07:32, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Rumon ruma and Leper

Is rumon the word for river? I found this on the Italian Wiki, but not on the Bonfante's glossary. Servius said the first Etruscan name of the Tiber was rumon. Is it related with ruma breast? And with Gr. reoo I flow, ruma/reuma stream? Rocci says Skt. sru.

I seem to remember the reoo, reuma words started with an 's', cf. "stream", with inserted 't'. Jpaulm (talk) 15:47, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Skt. is sru indeed, though Greek and Italic start with r: cf. rio It. and Sp.; ancient rusa, rosa, It. roggia (this probably not IE).Zanzan32 (talk) 03:36, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Leper occurs often in E. texts, e.g. the roll of Lars Pulena leprnal: E. Peruzzi Civilta' greca nel Lazio preromano identifies it with Liber (Bacchus) on VII century Faliscan inscriptions: also at Gabii the bacchic cult is attested since the same age. Cf. euoin and salvetod tita found on vases there. Needless to say this has great importance for the knowledge of early bacchism in Latium.Zanzan32 (talk) 05:42, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Zanzan32 (talk) 05:29, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

I heard that Rome was named after the original Etruscan name for the place - Ruma. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.179.190.193 (talk) 08:31, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Section on other connections

I feel the present text is unbalanced and incomplete as far as the presentation of opinions is concerned.

E. g. Marcantonio explicitly writes many Etruscan words cited by Alinei are in fact Turkic, not Hungarian.

At any rate the Turkic connection should be mentioned for two reasons:

1) Tatar-Turkish etruscologist Adile Ayda published many books both in French and in Turkish arguing for the Turkish origin of the Etruscans.

2) Genetic research conducted a few years ago on the DNA both living people from Tuscan Murlo and of ancient Etruscans by geneticians Piazza and Barbuiani support a highly significant presence of Turkish genes.

Of course the Turks of those times were not living in Anatolia, apart maybe the forefathers of the Etruscans, but in Central Asia. See also article on Scythian religion, section on goddess Tabiti.Aldrasto11 (talk) 09:24, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Just more Turkic-nationalistic crank theory. 99.99% of linguists dismiss it. Pass. 68.19.0.71 (talk) 01:17, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Article Contradictions

I'm not interested (because I'm not able) in wading into the isolate controversy to any great degree. I just want to note that the article itself is contradictory.

Current lead: "Attested from 700 BC to AD 50, the language is not related to any living language, and has historically been referred to as an isolate, but consensus now holds that it is one of the Tyrsenian languages,"

Isolate hypothesis as a thing of the past. The consensus is Tyrsenian.

Isolate hypothesis: "Etruscan is traditionally considered to be a language isolate. Bonfante, a leading scholar in the field, says "... it resembles no other language in Europe or elsewhere ...".

Isolate hypothesis as a current idea, and held by "a leading scholar in the field". Doesn't address any other argument though.

Tyrsenian family hypothesis: "Rix's Tyrsenian family of languages, composed of Rhaetic and Lemnian together with Etruscan, has gained acceptance among some scholars."

The Tyrsenian hypothesis here is merely something that "has gained some acceptance". Doesn't even back arguments for its own dominance made in the lead, let alone actively counter isolate.

And then of course we have the massive "Other hypotheses" section which, although safely labelled as "other" does of course cast aspersions by its very existence on the other two (and some of those in turn are labelled as having less weight, implying that the others then have more).

I'm going to edit the intro to make it vague and neutral in this regard, until such time as a properly-attested consensus throughout the article can be properly represented in the lead. As it is, the lead is staking a claim the rest of the article does not back up, the very opposite of what a lead should do. Palindromedairy (talk) 19:08, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

As I've explained, the lead must summarize the article, not make claims counter to it, which is part of why I relocated Tyrsenian evidence to the Tyrsenian section rather than leaving it in the lead. If it is indeed the consensus opinion that the Tyrsenian hypothesis is correct, than rather than shoving a bunch of references to it in the lead, simply state in the lead that it is the consensus (without any further argument), leave the refs proving this in the Tyrsenian section, and, just as importantly, edit the sections for the other hypotheses to reflect their lesser status. The current method, of just front-loading the lead with your preferred argument while leaving the rest of the article unchanged and the other hypotheses unchallenged/free to make their own claims of dominance (as the isolate section does), just smacks of trying to do an end-run around the competing arguments. Palindromedairy (talk) 20:18, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

In the interests of being more helpful, I thought I'd lay out how I believe this should look. Before my edits we had:

1) The lead making the Tyrsenian hypothesis argument, with a pile of unduplicated cites

2) The Tyrsenian hypothesis section having none of the cites of the lead, and adopting a much weaker and less assertive tone

3) Competing isolate section also making claims of dominance, which go uncountered there or elsewhere, leaving any reader to be naturally confused

The flaws of the above approach should be obvious. If you wish to reflect the Tyrsenian hypothesis' dominance, I believe it should look like:

1) Lead claiming outright that the Tyrsenian hypothesis is dominant. No cites. No further delving into the controversies necessary: a lead summarizes.

2) Tyrsenian hypothesis section duplicating the lead's claim, with all relevant cites and further detail, matching the lead's tone rather than contradicting it.

3) Isolate section stating outright that it was the former dominant hypothesis, but has now been supplanted. Specific cites showing this and being explained as such, which the article currently does not provide, would be obviously important in demonstrating this, though if for some reason they cannot be found (which seems unlikely if the Tyrsenian hypothesis is as dominant as is claimed), then a simple weighing of cites could serve I suppose (the Tyrsenian hypothesis currently has five in its favour, including Cambridge, and all newer, while the isolate has just one). But still, a specific counter is better. Palindromedairy (talk) 21:04, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Gold book in Bulgaria?

Various news stories report an ancient gold book on display in Bulgaria that is claimed to be Etruscan [1]. However, I cannot find any images of the text, or any indication that it has been studied by scholars knowledgeable in the Etruscan language. Does anyone have additional info on this? --Amble (talk) 02:45, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Such a discovery - if real - would have profound repercussions in the linguistics community - it's safe to dismiss it. HammerFilmFan (talk) 00:26, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Wrong symbol for K^h?

The table gives "Χ" as the glyph for k^h, usually translitterated as "χ". However, other sources give "𐌙" instead. According to those sources, "Χ" was an archaic letter that signified "ks", and was eventually dropped from the alphabet; but was retained as a numeric symbol for "10" (pronounced "tsar"). In fact, this numeral symbol may have developed independently from the alphabet. --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 02:48, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Transliteration

I think we should consider transliterating the aspirate series ⟨𐌘⟩ ⟨𐌈⟩ ⟨𐌙⟩ using either ⟨pʰ⟩ ⟨tʰ⟩ ⟨kʰ⟩ as in phonetic transcription or ⟨ph⟩ ⟨th⟩ ⟨kh⟩ as in Greek and Coptic transliteration. Using Greek letters interspaced with Latin ones doesn’t make things any more clear for readers who are not familiar with Ancient Greek orthography. Furthermore, the Modern Greek and International Phonetic Alphabet values of ⟨φ⟩ ⟨θ⟩ ⟨χ⟩—which readers are more likely to be familiar with—are different from the values of these Etrucan letters ([ɸ] [θ] [χ] vs. [pʰ] [tʰ] [kʰ]). I’m also not sure of the reasoning behind transliterating ⟨𐌅⟩ with ⟨v⟩ when digamma had this value in neither Latin nor Greek, although it did represent [w] in Greek as it does in Etruscan. Rhemmiel (talk) 03:18, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

@Rhemmiel: IMO, we should stick to the transliterations commonly used in the lit about Etruscan, so readers who look up for info from several sources including WP will not have to flip-flop between different transliteration conventions. But I agree, it should be better explained here. The only key about it is in the sound table, so I'd suggest to add some explicit prose about what ⟨φ⟩ ⟨θ⟩ ⟨χ⟩ ⟨v⟩ are supposed to indicate. –Austronesier (talk) 10:48, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Mel Copeland and unreliable sources

Mel Copeland and his "research" on "Etruscan" is the most unreliable source I have ever seen on the Etruscan language. He is an utter fraud; he invents these words based on Latin ones and dresses them up as "Etruscan", and none of his works are peer-reviewed. The McCallisters' sources as well are of dubious validity——they know too much, it seems, and a great many of their supposed Etruscan words and meanings I cannot find anywhere else. — Preceding unsigned comment added by My name Lɑrth (talk • contribs) 06:49, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

--My name Lɑrth

Open back unrounded vowel

At the vowels section, I saw that "a" in Etruscan was represented by this - "ɑ" - sign, the open back unrounded vowel. Yet there is no source that I have found, not a single one, that backs up this edit. It is safe to say that the Etruscans did not pronounce their "a" as "ɑ". Whomever made this edit is either a troll, a vandal, or a twit, or maybe all three. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.36.35.81 (talk) 06:35, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

There is a citation now. You haven't looked hard enought. –Austronesier (talk) 12:02, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

——What about the Es?

Rix and Agostiniani write /e/, but don't further bother about its exact phonetic value (unlike in the case of /a/ [ɑ]). Agostiniani writes about instability between /i/ and /e/. Do you have a source that specifcally says it's anything other than [e]? –Austronesier (talk) 14:47, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Sanscrit

I wish to inform the English speaking readers of the work of the Italian scholar Bernardini Marzolla who in 1984 published a book entitled: "Etruscan, a found again language" (Mondadori, Milan). In his work by using a rigourous philologic method of analysis he proves, in my opinion beyond any doubt, the strict relationship of Etruscan and Sanscrit. He interprets many epigraphic monumenta in a compelling way. Furthermore he explains the precise original meaning of many Etrusacn words that had already been previously 'guessed' or given by the ancient glossae only approximately. He also identifies many Etruscan words as borrowed from ancient Farsi, Arabic, Phoenician and putting this info into perspective gives an explanation of the origin and wanderings of this people that broadly confirms the views of Herodotus that they came from Anatolia, although their origins should be traced to India. The stele of Lemnos too confirms this hypothesis in the author's view. The name Tyrhsenoi is the Sanscrit Turasena, Porsenna is Purasena, clan jilan (fetus), aisar ashura... By only using Sir Monier William's dictionary in his genial work he has solved one of the greatest mysteries of history and glottology.Zanzan1 (talk) 04:51, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

It's odd that Marzolla would be so specific. Considering that, according to this article, Etruscan had no voiced or murmured stops, the most one could say is that it's Indo-Iranian. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 02:24, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I have not got the book on hand now, sorry. I read it in 1985 and as far as I remember Marzolla's method is very rigorous, systematic and consistent in the task of identifying word boundaries, sound changes, especially vowels, and syntax. Being a classic philologist he believes first of all in consistency in sound changes, and he sticks to this principle throughout his work. Whereas Sanscrit has a richer vowel system, Etruscan has undergone a great deal of change and his system is very 'corrupt' and many originally different sounds have turned into one, while other have been simply obliterated. This explains the long consonantic groupings typical of Etruscan. The phenomenon can be partly explained by strong accentuation of the language.Zanzan1 (talk) 05:38, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, well until you or anyone finds this book or reference to it from other scholars, I don't see any reason to edit the article accordingly. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 07:03, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the attention. Of course I am neither a sanscritist nor a glottologist. I did not quite get your previous remark about the 'voiced or murmured stops' Etruscan would not have if this hypothesis is correct. Could you please elaborate a bit on this for me? Thanks.Zanzan1 (talk) 09:19, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

The consonant inventories of the two languages are quite different. See Sanskrit and compare the phonology section to this article's. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:53, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

I've read the book. It is yet another crank theory. 06:04, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the whole idea of a Sanskrit relationship is patently absurd.50.111.44.55 (talk) 07:19, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Celtic links?

I am no expert, but I know that Irish and Scots have the word 'clan' as child and 'clanna' as children. This would appear similar to the Etruscan 'Clan' for son and 'clannar' for sons. No doubt someone has already looked into this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.179.190.193 (talk) 23:30, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

However, the Etruscan obsession with haruspicy (their liver-reading priests were called 'maru') (Akkadian 'baru') and certain name forms seem to indicate a possible link with Akkadian or Sumerian. Maybe they were refugees or settlers from Babylon who came to italy via Lemnos (based on Lemnian language links and their patheon). ??who knows. It may be a fruitful avenue of enquiry. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.179.190.193 (talk) 09:04, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

This is not a forum for crank theories. Got a Reliable Source to talk about? 68.19.0.71 (talk) 01:15, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

There are some theories about a Celto-Ligurian ancestor of later Celtic. They are not very popular anymore but the Ligurians and the proto Celts themselves lived in the vicinity of the Etruscans and their Rhaetian kinsmen. So it might be a loanword. The Picts are sometimes described as proto Celt rather than La Tene Celt. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 01:35, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Just to point out that Irish and Scottish Gaelic 'clann' is a Latin loan, from Latin 'planta' (giving 'plant' in English). The Goidelic languages turned virtually all 'p' into 'c', giving Old Irish 'cland'. So no connection whatsoever to Etruscan. Jeppiz (talk) 18:45, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

so how do you know the Romans did not borrow 'planta' from the Etruscans? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:8003:34F0:C300:D105:8EF7:7AF6:4383 (talk) 08:30, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

It's called the science of linguistics - look it up some time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.111.44.55 (talk) 07:29, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Latin words ending in -mn are Etruscan?

There are many of them: alumnus, Vertumnus, Autumnus, columna, antemna, Pilumnus and Picumnus, Clitumnus. According to Versnel also Volturnus, Saturnus, Iuturna, would be Etr. However while e.g. alumn- is attested in Etr. on Lars Pulena's scroll, the word for Vortumuns was Velthuna. So the Latin ending does not look to reflect regularly an equivalent Etr. ending.Zanzan32 (talk) 04:27, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I've heard that alumnus is actually an old participle from alō "nourish", analogous to Greek middle or passive participles in -menos, and therefore not from Etruscan. — Eru·tuon 14:25, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Perhaps it is Etr. that borrowed the Italic word. Perhaps also in other instances as: laive left, eprus much, more than enough (Bonfante): cf. Lat. laevus, Galloitalic pru, apru.Zanzan32 (talk) 03:41, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

As alumnus is a form of Lat. alo, Vertumnus/Vortumnus too should be a form of verto/vorto. In such case as Dumezil suggested it is dubious whether it was really identifiable with Etr. Velthuna. Picumnus and pilumnus too do not look very Etr. as far as I can see: picus, pica, pilum all have a Lat. explainable etymology.Zanzan32 (talk) 03:19, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't know about -mn- in particular, but many words in Etruscan do end in -na: scuna "room"; thapna, culichna, fasena, zavena, thina (terms for various kinds of containers); mutna, hupnina "coffin" ; tusna "swan," and many more. Some etymologies for the English words for tavern, lantern, and cistern that have -na in their Latin form give Etruscan as the immediate source for them (though I don't think they are attested Etruscan forms), though some of these at least go back ultimately to Greek. http://etruskisch.de/pgs/vc.htm. And autumnus does seem to go back to an Etruscan atune (though as you see, in this case the -mn- seems to have developed in Latin, not Etruscan). Johundhar (talk) 07:32, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

Consonants

Based on standard spellings by Etruscan scribes that appear otherwise to lack vowels or that have strings of clusters that as they occur seem phonetically impossible to pronounce, as seen in words like cl "of this (gen.)" and lautn "freeman", it is likely that "m", "n", "l" and "r" were sometimes written for syllabic resonants. Thus cl /kl̩/ and lautn /'lɑwtn̩/.

I don't understand. What is supposed to be significant about these words? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.101.76.122 (talk) 01:16, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps that the /l/ and /n/ in those words function as nuclei of the syllables... ;-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Petusek (talk • contribs) 11:55, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Also (although I am no phoneticist), certain phonetic structures are rare or unheard of in any human language; written words that appear to have so-called "illegal" phonetic structures are scrutinized closely, to see if in fact the consonants actually have vowel-sounds between them (try saying the consonants yourself and see if you can actually avoid sort of vowel). If so, the writing system is at least partly a syllabary.LeValley 07:32, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't know who wrote the immediately preceding bit, but just because you think you can't pronounce something doesn't necessarily mean that someone else couldn't pronounce it. Most English speakers think that it is impossible to pronounce tl- or kn- at the beginning of a word, but many other languages do this just fine. It's a field called 'phonatactics.' Look it up. It's quite fascinating, if you have a taste for this kind of thing :) Johundhar (talk) 22:16, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Sources?

I was reading along looking at the vocabulary list, thinking that there were remarkable parallels, in many cases, to other languages, sometimes of disparate groupings. Then I got to "taliθa" for "girl", and suddenly I lost all confidence in this article. Either somebody inserted "taliθa" to be funny, or there's an uncanny similarity between a three-syllable word (one which approaches "fundamental vocabulary") in Etruscan, and in Aramaic. If this isn't somebody's idea of a joke, please cite the source. Any Bible scholar knows Jesus' uttrance "Talitha, kumi" (Maid, arise!)...and I have to believe serious linguists are aware of this... which is why I am dumbfound to see no mention of a possible link to Aramaic made here. Mi/Mini, yeah, that reeks of a potential Indo-European or "Nostratic" link...but a three-syllable happenstance, not even cognate, same freaking word? That's not happenstance...if it's not a hoax, it's either borrowing [oh, how?] or a definitive link. What's shocking [and to me, therefore, unbelievable] is that nobody seems to have bothered to research it. Granted, the article contains a "Semitic hypothesis" section, which dismisses the idea out of hand (even using the editorializing word "fantastical" (in violation of both WP:NOR and WP:NPOV), and without bothering to cite more than a single solitary source less than 150 years old in support of that dismissal, I might add)... To be clear, I'm not trying to advocate an Etruscan-Semitic link here...my primary thrust is to make sure that the article isn't including pranksterism in its otherwise authoritative (if excessively vague, bar the lexicon portion) text. Gedächte? 71.87.23.22 (talk) 06:00, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Don't get too excited, buddy. Homonyms between disparate languages are fairly common and a certain number of those mean the same. No one is suggesting anything. This article needs work now, no doubt. When I worked on it there were a number of Internet speculatists that I avoided assiduously following the written advice of the major scholars in their books. I knew if I stayed away they would surely creep back in. So, thanks for pointing out this article needs work. I note it has lost your credibility. Nothing wrong with that. When articles get too far out of line someone usually turns up to fix them. I will be one of those at some point not too far off now. I usually work from a quota of articles so as soon as I can fit this in it is going in. The "pranksters" you are talking about - don't get too paranoid (like me). There are some people who sincerely believe they have have deciphered Etruscan and since they have an Internet site (in contrast to past speculatists) they can be be heard, and since they are in charge, they can attribute to it any authority they like. Don't be put off or put on; be skeptical and grant credibility only to the scholars. There is little certainty in this field. Best wishes.Dave (talk) 19:14, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

There are many Phoenician, Arabic and other semitic words in Etruscan although it is an IE language. These may be explained as borrowings from early time direct contacts (when Etruscans lived in Anatolia or nearby) or later through Carthagenian.Zanzan1 (talk) 05:20, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Welllll, Arabic wasn't really a thing during the entire attested history of Etruscan....so...there's that. And it is by no means clear that Etruscan was an Indo-European language. Most experts in the field don't think so, as far as I can see. Am I mis-understanding you in some way, or do you need to do a bit more research here? Best wishesJohundhar (talk) 22:20, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Talitha sounds very much like a proto-Hellenic term, so no surprise if it turns up all around the Mediterranean, especially as so much boat travel (by Hellenes and Minoans and Phoenicians, who all spoke to each other) regarded collecting girls and goods, obviously. The word could have come into Semitic languages from the Greek/Etruscan, easily. The phonetic structure...etc.LeValley 00:08, 29 December 2010 (UTC)