2015/12/18 by Rex Wallace · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · #Linguistics and language evolution
paper · doi:10.1002/9781118354933.ch14
openalex publication_date 2015/12/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Etruscan is a dead language, and yet the interpretation of its inscriptions and the description of its linguistic structure constitute a vibrant field of investigation. Texts, all but one in the form of inscriptions, are identified as Etruscan by their linguistic characteristics, that is to say, by features of noun and verb morphology, by the phonological composition of the word-forms, and to a lesser extent by features of orthography and alphabet. Early adopters of the alphabet lived in the southern Etruscan towns of Caere, Veii, and Tarquinia. The alphabet spread from these sites in a northerly direction via elite corridors of communication and commerce. Etruscan is linguistically related to two sparsely attested languages. The first is Lemnian, the language of the pre-Greek inhabitants of the island of Lemnos in the north Aegean. The second is Raetic, a language spoken in the sub-Alpine regions of eastern Italy.