- chapter 22: The Etruscan language –
ASPECTS OF VARIABILITYAs a whole, the Etruscan inscriptions all appear to refl ect the same language: and this
implies the existence of a standardized variety, at least in written language. But within
the written standard uniformity is not absolute: just as one would expect, given that the
inscriptions are distributed over a wide geographic area and over a period of at least seven
centuries.^2 Accordingly, it has long been established that there are two historical varieties,
one called “Archaic Etruscan,” which includes the inscriptions of the seventh through
fi fth centuries bc, the other named “Late Etruscan,” or “Neo-Etruscan,” which includes
the inscriptions of the fourth to fi rst centuries bc. Compared to Archaic Etruscan, Late
Etruscan is characterized by the presence of phenomena of weakening and disappearance
of vowels, so turuce “dedicated” > turce, Ramuθa (woman’s name) > Ramθa, and so on; by
the monophthongization of the archaic diphthong ai to e, for which the name of Ajax,
Aivas > Evas; and fi nally, by the lowering of some original is to e, as in ica “this” > eca
(to all these phenomena we shall return later, when describing the sounds). As regards
the existence of geographical diversity, there is the recent discovery that at least one trait
seems to characterize linguistically the two varieties of Etruscan, the “northern” and
“southern”, which are already differentiated by letter forms: namely, the presence, in the
northern inscriptions, of the palatal s / š / in the same contexts in which the southern
inscriptions have a dental s / s / (we will also return to this when describing the sounds).
Analogous aspects of variability are found in the writing of the texts.^3 It has been
established that the alphabet used was originally a Greek alphabet, namely the Euboean
(Chalcidian) version brought by Greek settlers to Campania and passed on to the
Etruscans through cultural contacts. But, obviously, the form of some letters has changed
over time and there are distinguished – to simplify greatly – archaic alphabetic varieties
(where, for example, my and ny are the type and ) from recent varieties (in which
the two signs are, respectively, of the type and ). On the other hand, adaptation of
the alphabet to the needs of the Etruscan language entailed a number of problems: fi rst,
how to bridge two gaps in the model alphabet (the absence of signs to represent / š / and
/ f /, sounds alien to Greek); and second, how to choose between graphic alternatives (the
model alphabet had two signs for / s /, sigma and sade ç, and two signs for / k /, kappa
and koppa Q).
This has led to the formation of two different geographic varieties, the northern and
southern. The northern area shows the use, from the earliest manifestations of writing,
of a system with a high degree of functionality and is therefore quite stable: / k / is
represented by a single sign, (compared to the three that, as we shall see, characterize
the early southern scripts); and the functional contrast between / s / and / š / is made
through the use of two different signs, respectively ç and .
Compared to this writing system, one that remains substantially unchanged over
time, in the southern area the situation is far more complex. For the representation of /
k / Etruscan at fi rst used not only and Q as in the Greek model, but added , therefore:
Q (the selection of the letter depends on the vowel that follows). This system,
objectively complex, is simplifi ed at an early stage (in the most recent southern varieties /
k / is always written with ), and constitutes the basis of the Latin alphabet (later passed
on to modern languages). As regards the representation of / s / and / š /, initially the same
sign, , is used for both, but soon different centers in southern Etruria sought to remedy
the situation of “graphic under-differentiation,” and in different ways: at Tarquinia, for