Alex Frank
Roman Archaeology and Art
Professor Dale- The Etruscans and the Internet
10/7/2015
Etruscan Language The history of the Etruscans is shrouded in mystery. The Etruscans left behind no literature or written records behind. Historians and Archaeologists have found most of what they know about the Etruscans from burial sites and tombs. The Etruscans did however leave behind numerous inscriptions that gave insight to their language and alphabet. Most of the inscription that have been found to date have been found in burial urns, tombs, and on tombstones in the form of “short funerary or dedicatory inscriptions” (“Etruscan Language”). The lack of information found has made it difficult for professionals to interpret the language and…show more content… The Etruscan alphabet seems to be related to the alphabet of the ancient Greeks and Phoenicians. This connection would make sense since the Etruscans and ancient Greeks were trading partners and their interactions were bound to have an impact on the Etruscan alphabet. The connection between the Greek and Etruscan alphabet help professionals create words and learn the pronunciations of these words. However, these professionals still had no clue what any of these words actually meant together (“Etruscan”). The lack of knowledge of the meaning of words and the conjugation of words “stems from the fact that no other known language has close enough kinship to Etruscan to allow a reliable, comprehensive, and conclusive comparison” (“Etruscan Language”). Even though there is no close relationship to a known language, professionals have been able to find distant relationships to other languages allowing them to find a loose meaning to some of the words they have found. One thing that has been realized, even though there is doubt in translation, is that the Etruscans wrote from right to left similar to that of Arabic. This further confirms the relationship between the Greek and Phoenician alphabets. However, the lack of a real basis of translation has caused inconsistency in translations and made it difficult to get a “real”