Etruscan language: Encyclopedia II - Etruscan language - History

Etruscan language - History

The Etruscans are thought by some to be indigenous people of Italy, living there before the Indo-European migration and the arrival of the Latins, around 1000 BC. Herodotus (Histories I.94), however, describes the Tyrrhenians as immigrants from Lydia in western Anatolia, led west, fleeing famine, by their leader Tyrrhoeus, to settle in Umbria [1]; the Tyrrhenians of Herodotus are sometimes identified with the Etruscans, although there is no material cultural evidence to back this up. Literacy was fairly common, as can be seen by the great number of short inscriptions (dedications, epitaphs etc). Though, in the 1st century BC, the Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus noted that the Etruscan language was unlike any other, the Etruscans had a rich literature, as noted by Latin authors.

With the rise of the Roman Republic that conquered Etruria, Latin hegemony hastened the decline of the Etruscan civilization, and by 200 BC, Etruscan was already replaced by Latin, except perhaps among some isolated mountain or fenland communities and, in a field that was more accessible to Latin authors, in the traditional contexts of religious cult. By the late Republic, however, only a few educated Romans with antiquarian interests (such as Varro) could read Etruscan. The last person known to have been able to read Etruscan was the Roman emperor Claudius (10 BC – 54), who compiled a dictionary (now lost) by interviewing the last few elderly rustics who still spoke the language.

Livy and Cicero were both aware that highly-specialized Etruscan religious rites were codified in several sets of books written in Etruscan under the generic Latin title Etrusca Disciplina. The Libri Haruspicini dealt with divination from the entrails of the sacrificed animal, the Libri Fulgurales expounded the art of divination by observing lightning. A third set, the Libri Rituales, would have provided us with the key to Etruscan civilization: its wider scope embraced Etruscan standards of social and political life as well as ritual practices. According to the 4th century Latin writer Servius, a fourth set of Etruscan books existed, dealing with animal gods, but it is probably unlikely that any contemporary scholar could have read Etruscan at such a late date. Christian authorities collected such works of paganism and burnt them during the 5th century; the single surviving Etruscan book, Liber Linteus, being written on linen, survived only by being used as mummy wrappings.

Etruscan had some influence over Latin. A few dozen words were borrowed by the Romans and some of them can be found in modern languages.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki