408 Nancy T. de Grummond
Language
The Etruscan language is the single most important index of Etruscan ethnicity. It is
known through one linen book and numerous inscriptions (more than 10,000). In the
formation of Etruscan culture, however, the language becomes visible only around 700
BCE, with the earliest-dated inscription coming from Tarquinia (ETTa 3.1; Cristofani
1979: 378; Wallace 2008: 23). The language could have been in use in Italy for quite
some time, but would have been written down only when the alphabet was transmitted
to the Etruscans by Greeks who had settled on the Bay of Naples ca. 775–750BCE.
What is remarkable about Etruscan is that, with two possible exceptions, it is unre-
lated to other known languages of the ancient world. Scholars almost unanimously agree
that Etruscan is not an Indo-European language and thus is unusual in ancient Italy
and Greece, where Latin, Greek, and other Indo-European languages prevailed (Pal-
lottino 1975: 54–6; Bagnasco Gianni 2012). That Etruscan was not Indo-European
is readily shown by, for example, words for family relationships, totally unlike those in
Indo-European languages (e.g.,clan=“son”;se휒=“daughter”), and the numbering
system, which differs from normal Indo-European practice in vocabulary and in construc-
tion of numbering. For example, the Etruscan words for one through six, completely
unlike those in Greek and Latin, are known from the famous pair of dice in Paris that
have the words rather than dots written on the six sides of the dice:휃u,zal,ci, ́sa,ma휒,
hu휃(Wallace 2008: 54, 217).
There are two languages from antiquity that have been connected with Etruscan: Lem-
nian and Raetic. If these connections are valid, our view of Etruscan ethnicity must be
adjusted accordingly. The more notable of the two is the language written on the island
of Lemnos in the sixth centuryBCE. The texts, of which new ones continue to be noted
(de Simone 2011), constitute a tantalizing support for the reference in Thucydides to
Tyrrheni on the island of Lemnos. The principal text is a damaged sandstone grave stele
(best image, de Simone 2000: 500), bearing an image in low relief of a warrior with a
spear, shield, and close-fitting headgear and two inscriptions—one on the main face of
the stele and one along the side of the slab. The information in the writing is similar to
what occurs in Etruscan funerary inscriptions, using a formula for the age of the individ-
ual at death (40 years) and also indicating the year the stele was set up by referring to
a ruling magistrate as in Etruscan. Linguistic parallels include similar grammatical end-
ings and the elimination of the voiced consonantsb,d,andg,aswellastheuseoftwo
different forms of sibilants. Perhaps most significant, the alphabet used is the “Western”
or Chalcidian type employed by the Etruscans but otherwise unknown in the northern
Aegean. The same alphabet is used on other Lemnian inscriptions found at Hephaistia
on the northern shore of Lemnos. So far, it has proved impossible to make a complete
translation of the stele inscription, and disagreement remains over whether the language
can actually be called Etruscan, or whether it constitutes a dialect, or whether it is a sepa-
rate language ultimately derived from the same parent language as Etruscan (Agostiniani
2000: 485; de Simone 2000: 501–5).