Classification of the Languages
Note: capital letters are used here for letters of the
various alphabets, while letters in backslashes designate the sounds of
the language.
Etruscan
Language Family: Unknown.
The Etruscans were one of the most dominant and powerful presences in
Pre-Roman Italy. However, their language is only known through sporadic
words cited by Greek and Latin authors, and over 13,000 inscriptions,
most of which unfortunately are simple epitaphs. It is hard to believe
that they did not have some type of literature, but none of this has
survived.
The origins and affiliations of the Etruscan language have long been a
subject of contention. Numerous and occasionally outlandish theories
had been advanced, but it was not until Massimo Pallottino that any
real progress was made in deciphering the texts. Pallottino adopted a
new 'combinatory' approach: rather than try and force a connection
between Etruscan and another language, he compared the inscriptions
with each other and set them in a cultural context, much as a
cryptographer might do when confronted with a coded message.
The process of deciphering Etruscan continues even to this day, and
thanks to a patient application of Pallottino's methods and a certain
amount of educated guesswork, some of the languages' vocabulary and
basic grammar have been revealed. An important advancement came in the
1960's with the discovery of the Pyrgi tablets, written in Etruscan and
Phoenician. Phoenician is a known language, so it was possible to
compare the two texts, and though the Phoenician turned out not to be a
literal translation of the Etruscan, the content was similar enough to
prove useful.
With the steady process of discovery, there is increasing confirmation
that the language is related to no living language. In particular,
Etruscan does not belong to the Indo-European family of languages, and
thus cannot be connected to Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, or any other
descendant of that branch. Only two languages show a resemblance to
Etruscan: Rhaetic, described below, and an even closer language
recorded on inscriptions and pottery from the Greek island of Lemnos.
But though the connections are interesting, they regrettably do not
bring us any closer to placing Etruscan into the scheme of world
languages.
At this point, it seems most probable that Etruscan is a native
Mediterranean language, perhaps part of the substratum that the
Indo-European tribes encountered upon their arrival in Southern Europe.
The phonetic characteristics of the language are quite dissimilar from
the languages surrounding it. There were no voiced stops in Etruscan:
no /b/, /d/, or /g/; when these occured in foreign words they were
usually written P, T and K. Etruscan distinguished between aspirated
and unaspirated unvoiced stops: /p/ from /ph/, /c/ from /ch/, /t/ from
/th/,like some other languages of the time, including Greek. The vowel
system was quite simple, consisting of /a/, /e/, /i/ and /u/ with no
distinction between long and short; the sound /o/ did not occur in the
language. Medial vowels tended to be dropped in the later phases of the
language: e.g. ATLNTA (Atalanta).
The Italic Languages
Language Family: Indo-European.
The Italic languages are all descended from a hypothetical single
language, Proto-Italic, which in turn is but one member of the
Indo-European language family. Proto-Italic is not known from any
inscriptions or historical citations; it is, rather, a reconstructed
language that is assumed to have existed based on the common elements
shared by its daughter languages (which we do have physical evidence
of.)
This group had a good number of members in ancient Italy; in fact,
Italic languages were spoken in most of the peninsula. Gradually,
however, one member supplanted all the others: Latin, once spoken only
in the ancient region of Latium, spread throughout Western Europe as
Roman political power increased. And Latin in turn gave rise to the
Romance languages: Italian, French, Spanish, Rumanian, etc., which are
all thus the descendants of Proto-Italic.
The Italic dialects can be divided into three distinct groups: Osco-Umbrian,
Latinian and Picene.
Osco-Umbrian
The Osco-Umbrian or Sabellian group includes the three chief languages
of Oscan, Umbrian, and Volscian, with their
related minor dialects. Marrucinian, Paelignian, and Vestinian
are minor dialects of the Oscan type. Auruncan is perhaps
related to Volscian, which itself bears some similarity with Umbrian.
All of these languages and dialects are characterized phonetically by
/p/ in place of Latinian /qu/: Osc. PIS, Umb. PISI, Volsc. PIS. (Lat.
QUIS) They also share some common lexical peculiarities such as TO(U)TA
= "people, citizens; city".
Oscan assumes a pre-eminent position among the group, because of the
political power and geographical extent of its' speakers. The Oscan
orthography is descended from the Etruscan model, and thus lacks a
letter O; in approximately 300 B.C., two letters - Í and
Ú - were added to the alphabet, the latter of which was used for
the sound /o/. For the voiced consonants /g/ and /d/, the symbols C and
R were used, respectively.
The Umbrian alphabet is likewise of Etruscan origin. The letters T and
K served for the /t/ and /k/ sounds as well as the /d/ and /g/ ones. A
modified R, much like a capital P, denoted a sound which was
transliterated in Latin as RS. One new symbol was used for a sibilant
Ç.
The Volscian alphabet is of Latin origin, with a backwards C for
Ç.
As for the other central Italian dialects, such as Marsian, Aequian,
Hernican and Sabine, they also seem to belong to the
Osco-Umbrian group, though, close as they were geographically to Rome,
were subject to Latin influence very early on. Furthermore, we have too
few examples of these to make accurate distinctions.
Latinian
The Latinian dialects are those that show a preservation of
Indo-European /qu/. Faliscan is of this type, though it shows a
good deal of borrowing from its neighbor languages. Latin, once
restricted to a small area of Latium, soon became the official language
of the Empire and gave rise to the modern Romance languages. Its
alphabet has survived to the present and is the basis for the modern
Western European scripts.
Picene
Picene is less of a linguistic concept than a geographical one;
there being two very distinct (unrelated) varieties: Northern Picene
and Southern Picene, generally listed together, but quite different.
The Southern Picene has much in common with the Osco-Umbrian group and
also has strong phonological and lexical ties to Venetic and the Balkan
languages. It is doubtful whether Northern Picene is even Indo-European.
Messapic
Language Family: Indo-European.
It is quite certain that Messapic is of Illyrian descent, having been
brought over across the Adriatic as attested in classical authors. The
alphabet is of Tarentine Greek origin; some inscriptions have come down
to us in the native alphabet, but others are written with Greek
letters. The /u/ sound did not exist, and was replaced by /o/. We see
also a letter in form similar to the Greek psi or Etruscan chi, which
represents a dental affricate (pronounced, perhaps, like /ts/ ) and is
usually transliterated as T'.
Rhaetic
Language Family: Unknown.
At one time, Rhaetic-speaking tribes occupied the greater part of what
is today northern Italy, but following the Gauls' invasion of the
peninsula were displaced from their original territory. The
classification of this language, like those of its contemporaries, is
still open to speculation. It seems, however, that Rhaetic is related
to Etruscan, for we see many similar phonetic characteristics as well
as grammatical terminations. It may thus be another relic of the
pre-Indo-European substratum of Italy.
Venetic
Language Family: Indo-European.
Venetic is quite certainly an Indo-European language, but the current
question as to whether it belonged to the Italic group or not has not
been satisfactorily answered. The once-held opinion that the language
was of Illyrian extraction has now been discounted.
We see in Venetic orthography the use of VH for the /f/ sound; also a
characteristic of early Etruscan writing, which the Veneti inherited.
The Etruscan alphabet, however, had already lost the signs for B, D,
and G, and since Venetic does have these sounds, extra letters had to
be adapted for the purpose. Etruscan PH is used for the /b/ sound, Z
for /d/, and CH for /d/.
Evolution | Viteliu