The Marsiliana Tablet, with an archaic form of the Etruscan Alphabet inscribed on the frame
The Marsiliana Tablet, with an archaic form of the Etruscan Alphabet inscribed on the frame

The Etruscan alphabet was the alphabet used by the Etruscans, an ancient civilization of central and northern Italy, to write their language, from about 700 BC to sometime around 100 AD.

The Etruscan alphabet derives from the Euboean alphabet used in the Greek colonies in southern Italy which belonged to the "western" ("red") type, the so-called Western Greek alphabet. Several Old Italic scripts, including the Latin alphabet, derived from it (or simultaneously with it).

Origins

The Etruscan alphabet originated as an adaptation of the Euboean alphabet used by the Euboean Greeks in their first colonies in Italy, the island of Pithekoussai and the city of Cumae in Campania.[1] In the alphabets of the West, X had the sound value [ks], Ψ stood for [kʰ]; in Etruscan: X = [s], Ψ = [kʰ] or [kχ] (Rix 202–209).

The earliest known Etruscan abecedarium is inscribed on the frame of a wax tablet in ivory, measuring 8.8 cm × 5 cm (3.5 in × 2 in), found at Marsiliana (near Grosseto, Tuscany). It dates from about 700 BC, and lists 26 letters corresponding to contemporary forms of the Greek alphabet, including digamma, san and qoppa, but not omega which had still not been added at the time.

Letters

Phoenician model
Phoenician aleph.svg
Phoenician beth.svg
Phoenician gimel.svg
Phoenician daleth.svg
Phoenician he.svg
Phoenician waw.svg
Phoenician zayin.svg
Phoenician heth.svg
Phoenician teth.svg
Phoenician yodh.svg
Phoenician kaph.svg
Phoenician lamedh.svg
Phoenician mem.svg
Phoenician nun.svg
Phoenician samekh.svg
Phoenician ayin.svg
Phoenician pe.svg
Phoenician sade.svg
Phoenician qoph.svg
Phoenician res.svg
Phoenician sin.svg
Phoenician taw.svg
Western Greek
Greek Alpha 03.svg
Greek Beta 16.svg
Greek Gamma archaic 1.svg
Greek Delta 04.svg
Greek Epsilon archaic.svg
Greek Digamma oblique.svg
Greek Zeta archaic.svg
Greek Eta archaic.svg
Greek Theta archaic.svg
Greek Iota normal.svg
Greek Kappa normal.svg
Greek Lambda 09.svg
Greek Mu 04.svg
Greek Nu 01.svg
Greek Omicron 04.svg
Greek Pi archaic.svg
Greek San 02.svg
Greek Koppa normal.svg
Greek Rho pointed.svg
Greek Sigma normal.svg
Greek Tau normal.svg
Greek Upsilon normal.svg
Greek Chi normal.svg
Greek Phi archaic.svg
Greek Psi straight.svg
Sound in Ancient Greek (Western) [a] [b] [ɡ] [d] [e] [w] [dz]~[z]~[zd] [h] [] [i] [k] [l] [m] [n] [ks] [o] [p] [ts]~[s] [k] [r] [s] [t] [u] [ks] [] [kʰ]
Unicode Old Italic block 𐌀 𐌁 𐌂 𐌃 𐌄 𐌅 𐌆 𐌇 𐌈 𐌉 𐌊 𐌋 𐌌 𐌍 𐌎 𐌏 𐌐 𐌑 𐌒 𐌓 𐌔 𐌕 𐌖 𐌗 𐌘 𐌙 𐌚
Archaic Etruscan (Marsiliana tablet)
EtruscanA-01.svg
EtruscanB-01.svg
EtruscanC-01.svg
EtruscanD-01.svg
EtruscanE-01.svg
EtruscanF-01.svg
EtruscanZ-01.svg
EtruscanH-02.svg
EtruscanTH-03.svg
EtruscanI-01.svg
EtruscanK-01.svg
EtruscanL-01.svg
EtruscanM-01.svg
EtruscanN-01.svg
Greek Xi archaic grid.svg
Greek Omicron 04.svg
EtruscanP-01.svg
EtruscanSH-01.svg
EtruscanQ-01.svg
EtruscanR-01.svg
Greek Sigma Z-shaped.svg
EtruscanT-01.svg
EtruscanV-01.svg
EtruscanX-01.svg
EtruscanPH-01.svg
EtruscanKH-01.svg
Neo-Etruscan
EtruscanA-01.svg
EtruscanC-01.svg
EtruscanE-01.svg
EtruscanF-01.svg
EtruscanZ-01.svg
EtruscanH-01.svg
EtruscanTH-01.svg
EtruscanI-01.svg
EtruscanL-01.svg
EtruscanM-02.svg
EtruscanN-02.svg
EtruscanP-01.svg
EtruscanSH-01.svg
EtruscanR-04.svg
EtruscanS-02.svg
EtruscanT-02.svg
EtruscanU-02.svg
EtruscanPH-02.svg
EtruscanKH-02.svg
EtruscanF-02.svg
Transliteration[2] a b c d e f z h θ i k l m n ş o p ś (σ́) q r s t u x φ ψ 8
Approx. pron. a k e w ts h i k l m n p ʃ, s k r s, ʃ t u f

The shapes of the Archaic Etruscan and Neo-Etruscan letters had a few variants, used in different places and/or in different epochs. Notably, opposite letters were used for /s/ and /ʃ/ depending on the locality. Shown above are the glyphs from the Unicode Old Italic block, whose appearance will depend on the font used by the browser. These are oriented as they would be in lines written from left to right. Also shown are SVG images of variants shown as they would be written right to left, as in most of the actual inscriptions.[3][4]

Development

Small Etruscan bottle from 630 to 620 BCE with an early form of the alphabet
Small Etruscan bottle from 630 to 620 BCE with an early form of the alphabet
The alphabet in the cockerel bottle
The alphabet in the cockerel bottle

The archaic form of the Etruscan alphabet remained practically unchanged from its origin in the 8th century BC until about 600 BC, and the direction of writing was free. From the 6th century BC, however, the alphabet evolved, adjusting to the phonology of the Etruscan language, and letters representing phonemes nonexistent in Etruscan were dropped. By 400 BC, it appears that all of Etruria was using the classical Etruscan alphabet of 20 letters, mostly written from right to left.

An additional sign 𐌚, in shape similar to the numeral 8, transcribed as F, was present in Lydian, Neo-Etruscan and in Italic alphabets of Osco-Umbrian languages such as Oscan, Umbrian, Old Sabine and South Picene (Old Volscian).[5] This sign was introduced in Etruscan around 600-550 BC and was not present in the Marsiliana tablet, the earliest example of the Etruscan alphabet. If previously it was thought that the sign 𐌚 may have been an altered B or H or an ex novo creation, or even an Etruscan invention, an early Sabellian inscription suggests that it is instead an invention of speakers of a Sabellian language (Osco-Umbrian languages).[5] Its sound value was /f/ and it replaced the Etruscan digraph FH that was previously used to express that sound. Some letters were, on the other hand, falling out of use. Etruscan did not have any voiced stops, for which B, C, D were originally intended (/b/, /ɡ/, and /d/ respectively). The B and D therefore fell out of use, and the C, which is simpler and easier to write than K, was adopted to write /k/, mostly displacing K itself. Likewise, since Etruscan had no /o/ vowel sound, O disappeared and was replaced by U. In the course of its simplification, the redundant letters showed some tendency towards a semi-syllabary: C, K and Q were predominantly used in the contexts CE, KA, QU.

This classical alphabet remained in use until the 2nd century BC when it began to be influenced by the rise of the Latin alphabet. The Romans, who did have voiced stops in their language, revived B and D for /b/ and /d/, and used C for both /k/ and /ɡ/, until they invented a separate letter G to distinguish the two sounds. Soon after, the Etruscan language itself became extinct — so thoroughly that its vocabulary and grammar are still only partly known, in spite of more than a century of intense research.

Legacy

The Etruscan alphabet apparently was the immediate ancestor for the Latin alphabet,[6] as well as of several Old Italic scripts used in Italy before the rise of Rome, such as those used in the Oscan, Umbrian, Lepontic, Rhaetian (or Raetic), Venetic, Messapian, North and South Picene, and Camunic inscriptions.[7]

Gallery

See also

References

  1. ^ Benelli, Enrico (2017). "Alphabets and language". In Naso, Alessandro (ed.). Etruscology. Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 245–253. ISBN 978-1-934078-49-5.
  2. ^ Wallace, Rex (2008). Zikh Rasna: A Manual of the Etruscan Language and Inscriptions. Ann Arbor, MI: Beech Stave Press. ISBN 978-0-9747927-4-3.
  3. ^ Bonfante, Giuliano (1983). The Etruscan language. Manchester: Manchester University Press. p. 64. ISBN 0-7190-0902-2. OCLC 610734784. OL 19629507M.
  4. ^ Stützer, Herbert Alexander (1992). Die Etrusker und ihre Welt. Köln: DuMont. p. 12. ISBN 3-7701-3128-2. LCCN 94191271. OCLC 611534598. OL 1198388M.
  5. ^ a b McDonald, Katherine (2015). Oscan in Southern Italy and Sicily. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 65–82. ISBN 978-1-107-10383-2.
  6. ^ Ullman, B. L. (October 1927). "The Etruscan Origin of the Roman Alphabet and the Names of the Letters". Classical Philology. 22 (4): 372–377. doi:10.1086/360949. JSTOR 262978. S2CID 161760080. Retrieved 3 May 2022.
  7. ^ Maras, Daniele F. (2017). "Epigraphy and Nomenclature". In Farney, Gary D.; Bradley, Guy (eds.). The Peoples of Ancient Italy. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. pp. 63–88. ISBN 978-1-61451-300-1. Retrieved 14 May 2023.