- chapter 22: The Etruscan language –
to be blocked by the presence, in the next syllable, of one high vowel: by which vipina
does not turn into vepina and cicu does not become cecu. From this diachronic change
the variation (free?) between / e / and / i / within Archaic Etruscan, whether in a stressed
or unstressed syllable, must be distinguished.^16 This is the case, for example, of the
personal name Pisna vs. Pesna, both of the end of the seventh century bc; or of Hirmina
vs. Hermena; of Piθe vs. Peθe; of muluvanice, “he donated,” vs. muluvanece. In Numesie vs.
Numisie, the expression with e actually precedes that with i by more than a century.
The second characteristic feature of Late Etruscan is the monophthongization
of the diphthong / ai / to / e / : by which the Etruscan name of Ajax is Aivas in the
oldest inscriptions, Evas in later ones. If in the female gentilicial (family) names – and
occasionally elsewhere, for example in Eivas the name of Ajax – we fi nd ei and not e as the
evolution of ai (for example, in velimnei and not *velimne compared to the Archaic velimnai
and the masculine velimna), this is due to a restructuring for functional requirements:^17
the -i being the mark of female gender (as we shall see below), a form like velimnai is
immediately identifi able as a woman’s name, as opposed to the masculine velimna; but
once that / ai / is reduced to a monophthong, / e /, the mark is no longer “visible” and
must be reintroduced.
For the class of consonantal sounds, there are no major differences between the archaic
and the most recent phase of the language, except, as we shall see, in the case of the
sibilants. We can reconstruct a system that has a double set of stops, aspirated and not
aspirated: / p t k ph th kh /; an affricate, / ts /; two liquids, / l r /, and two nasals, / m n /; four
fricatives, / f s š h /; two semivowels, / j w /. This is a system that from a typological point
of view appears highly plausible.^18 All the phonemes that are included, in fact, belong
to the 20 most common consonants in the languages of the world and, moreover, the
system generally complies with the implications relationship established by typology: in
the sense that, for example, the presence, for the series of fricatives, of / f s š h / respects
the typological principle by which if there is only one fricative, it is / s /, if two, then /
f s /; if three, then / f s š /; if four, then / f s h š /. The absence of voiced stops / b d g / is
indicated by the non-use of beta and delta and by the use of gamma for the voiceless velar.
This is also confi rmed by the testimony of Varro, who gives itus as the Etruscan word for
“the Ides,” and by the treatment of Greek loan-words:^19 see the series paχa, tiφile, creice
for Βάκχος, Δίφιλος, Γραĩκος, where Greek / b d g / are replaced by the phonetically
close series / p t k /.
As for the subsystem of the sibilants, the written evidence already mentioned shows that
Etruscan provided two, one apical / s /, the other palatal / š / (the arguments put forward
in the past to claim that the distinction was based on a feature of length/intensity, where
/ s vs. ss /, are to be rejected). The frequency of / š / is much higher in the inscriptions of
northern Etruria, 59.78 per cent against 16.19 per cent of southern Etruria:^20 the northern
variety shows palatalization of the sibilant when it is found in front of a consonant, or in
contact with an / i / or a / j /. So one of the words for “city” is [š]pur- in northern varieties,
while it appears as [s]pur- in the south; Pesna the personal name appears as pe[š]na in the
north, pe[s]na in the south; the personal name Laris is lari[š] in the north, lari[s] to the
south; the family name Keisi- is kei[š]i- in the North, kei[s]i- in the-South, and so on.
Other aspects of the consonant system are more marginal. One recalls the de-aspiration
of / th / in the fi nal position in a word, typical of Late Etruscan in the North, with the
formation of morphophonemic alternations (in the Tabula Cortonensis, regularly lart vs.
larθ-ial). It is worth briefl y discussing the syllabic structure and accent.^21 In Archaic