43
votes
Why did the letters in the alphabet shift position?
Typically when languages introduce new letters, they place them after the already-existing ones. This happened when Greek introduced Υ υ upsilon (from a variant of Ϝ ϝ digamma which of course occupied ...
- 1,295
13
votes
Accepted
Why is this Etruscan letter sometimes transliterated as "ch"?
Most of our understanding of Etruscan pronunciation comes from our knowledge of Greek. Back before the Greek alphabet was standardized, there were different varieties used in different areas. And ...
- 69.3k
13
votes
Origin of the Latin Language?
In the beginning, there was…well, we're not really sure. The origins of language are lost to time. But at some point, there was Proto-Indo-European, the hypothetical reconstructed ancestor of all the ...
- 69.3k
11
votes
Accepted
What did the Etruscans call their letters?
This is what Rex Wallace wrote in Zikh Rasna: A manual of the Etruscan language and inscriptions (Wallace 2008):
“In our discussion, we employ the ancient Greek letters for the letters of the [...
- 11.8k
11
votes
Why did the letters in the alphabet shift position?
We can probably guess that Romans did not feel need to synchronize Latin alphabet with Greek alphabet.
The Latin alphabet was originally created based on the Etruscan alphabet, which was created based ...
- 743
10
votes
How would you say "The Etruscan language died two thousand years ago and nobody understands it." in Etruscan?
Not an Etruscan expert myself but I have been studying Rex Wallace's Zikh Rasna.
We know about 700 words only (the rest are proper nouns, Wallace 2008: 123);
We're not even sure about how to say &...
- 11.8k
8
votes
Accepted
What is the largest known piece of Etruscan literature?
My guess would be their religious works, particularly pertaining to divination.
In his De Divinatione 33.72, Cicero mentions these books:
Quorum alia sunt posata in monumentis et disciplina, quod ...
- 69.3k
7
votes
Accepted
Are θ/þ/th distinct in Etruscan transcription?
Searching through Glen Gordon's database of attested Etruscan word forms, I haven't found any instances of transcribed th (tau + eta), even as variants or hapaxes. This leads me to believe that it's ...
- 69.3k
7
votes
Origin of the Latin Language?
The question might be better suited for Linguistics.SE. However, the general information on the history of Latin is outlined in the Wikipedia article of the same name:
"It is believed that the ...
- 251
7
votes
What did the Etruscans call their letters?
I recently came across a strange and probably long-superseded theory that deserves mention here. B. L. Ullman, back in 1927, suggests that the Etruscan letter names were identical to the Latin ones.
...
- 69.3k
4
votes
Accepted
Are the Etruscan words "tisś" (lake) and "tusna" (swan) related?
The simple answer is we don't know. A lot of Etruscan etymology is opaque because of our limited knowledge of the language.
The word tusna is attested mostly as a name; there's one mirror where a ...
- 69.3k
2
votes
Accepted
Is the Etruscan word for lake, "tisś", derived from the word for water, "thi"?
First, note that Fournet believes there was no phonemic contrast between t and th; he points out that the word for "community" is attested as both tuthi and tuti, among others. So that's not ...
- 69.3k
2
votes
Do any Latin authors preserve Etruscan quotations?
For bits of Etruscan mentioned in Latin authors, see p186-191 of Bonfante & Bonfante, The Etruscan Language: An Introduction. (Manchester UP, 1983.) I say "bits" because they are almost ...
- 169
1
vote
Are there Classical attestations of specifically "Etruscan" deities?
I think there probably are Roman deities that the Romans thought were worshipped by Etruscans. I'm less sure about the "specifically" Etruscan part. So far, I haven't seen a primary source that says ...
- 30.1k
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