In his Etruscan Language page Nikos Stylos and his team proposes us a deciphering of the old Tuscanian tongue (and of several others). He is not the only one to make such a claim, but he will be the first whose work I shall review (and shoot down) in details. So what does he say ?

His thesis is that Etruscan is a close relative of the language called arvanitiki he says to be spoken in "many places around the Mediterranean Sea". Well, what is this "arvanitiki" ? Basically it is an Albanian dialect spoken in rural areas of Greece, mainly in Attica. It is spoken by 50.000 to 140.000 peoples most of whom are shifting to Greek. It is no longer passed down to children and will probably die out as a living tongue in the next fifty years. Arvanitiki speaking communities are scattered in the Greek countryside and are totally surrounded by greek speaking populations. As a consequence, the language has been heavily influenced by Greek but remains understandable by Tosk Albanian speakers. Its speakers are the descendents of Albanese immigrants who had settled down in Greece. At the contrary of what Stylos states, it not spoken outside Greece. An Albanian dialect called Abėreshė is spoken in southern Italy but it is significantly different. There is no Albanian of any kind spoken in Lybia, Corsica or Turkey. Stylos is also wrong when he states that Arvanitiki is "close" to Ionian (an ancient Greek dialect). True, both tongues are Indo-European (as are Lycian and Lydian which are relatively well known) but that's all : if Ablaneses could understand Greek we'd know it.

He also supposes that this Arvanitiki underwent no great change between the 6th century B and its present state : a bit hard to buy, isn't it.

The reading / understanding confusion

Stylos makes the usual reading / understanding confusion, so common about would be decipherers. He says us we should put in question the exact pronunciation of "ancient letters". Well, it is true that the pronunciation of Etruscan is uncertain, but not the way he supposes it. There is no doubt about the pronunciation of the Greek Western Alphabet Etruscans adapted. There are enough Latin transcriptions for us to be sure that beta was pronunced as a b. But what is quite hard to buy is when he says that the value of Etruscan letters could change according to their position. True, that happens in modern tongues, but only because spelling is more conservative than pronunciation and does reflect older stages of the language. By the time Etruscan was spoken, writting was something very new in Europe, and there was simply no time to develop a rigid historical spelling like the one used today by French. For Stylos to be right, Etruscan should have decided from the very start to give different values to a very letter according to its position, and thus while having various local spelling traditions. Sounds rather awkward.

Now let's have a look at some of the translations he proposes us

The Liber Linteus

No translation is given us, but we are said that it is the geanalogy of the wife of Diocletian, a Emperor of the third century AD. Well, there are a few problems with that interpretation :

• The last epitaph in Etruscan is dated from 12 AD. By the third century AD, it was, at the very best, a dying rural dialect. Why would a Roman Empress write a geanalogy in such a backward tongue ?
• Diocletian was a private who got lucky, rose in rank and seized power after a successful coup. His wife was therefore unlikely to be a queen, but rather an inn maid. Anyway, queens were in short supply by this time. There was only an handful of petty kingdoms at the border of the Empire and they were ruled by kings.

The thera inscription

There is no indication of the origin of the inscription, but it is clearly written in boustrouphedon in a very classic western Greek alphabet (and quite easy to read)

It could be transcripted as

reksanthr

arksagetas

prokrths

kreagorasleraseus

Does not look very Greek at the first sight, but when you look closer :

reksan may be a form of the verb rhezo "I offer as a sacrifice" at the third plural person aorist (without the augment, what is curious but possible)

Arksagetas is probably a personnal name (the bear-leader ?)

prokrths is not clear, but the the prefix pro is Indo-European and means "before". It is probably a title

Kreagorasleraseus looks like a name with genealogy, probably kreagoras, son of lera with leraseus being a compound adjective, unless on reads it like leras seus with seus being the equivalent of Greek huios.

All of this looks quite Indo-European, probably a dialect close to Greek or having extensively borrowed from it. The meaning was probably "Arksagetas and Kreagoras, son(s) of Lera have offered this". No need for a shipwrecker.

Corinth inscription

There too, no indication of the context, but the inscription, written in a western Greek alphabet is easy to read :

One can transcript it as :

tataiesemil

equthoshosdanmeklephs (the first o is uncertain, a q is also possible)

eiphuphlosestai

Does not look greek and word separation is problematic. It is clearly not the same language as in the preceding inscription : there is no -as ending and the aspirated letters are far more numerous. It is possible to link the element equ to Indo-European *ekwos (horse) but it is difficult to say more. I any case, to explain this by just searching chance ressemblance with such or such albanian word without any concern for etymology is nonsensical.

The Crete inscription

There too, no indication of context, but the reading is not difficult (Western Greek Alphabet)

rmawietismalabretkomn

<....>dimeniznasissalkrasailmo

<.....>stonturonmratoaosewad

eturo // a

This language seems to be characterized by the digraph /mn/ and is probably different from the preceding one. word separation is not clear and a part of the inscription is lacking. The translationStylos gave us is, however, nonsensical. Why would a king write an official inscription in a tongue which was likely to be no more than a low prestige dialect and not in the official high status language : Greek. Anyway, there was no monarchy in Crete by this time : Aristote tells us that Cretan cities were quite spartan-like by this time.

The Sicily inscription

at least we know it from a vase, so let's look at it :

nanastentimhsanrustainashesitoseitiduromsaneposdaroshesitoomestieihosnedesgonitantoseredesoinobrtos

As it is from a vase, it is probably a dedicative text. Word separation is however uncertain. A possibility is

nanas ten tim hsanrus tainas hesito seitiduromsa nepos daros hesito om esti (?) ho snedes gonitan toseres oino brtos.

Only a few words can be identified :

oino is a borrowing from greek and means "wine"

nepos is Indo-European and means "nephew" or "grand son"

The meaning is definitely not clear but is probably that somebody offered some wine to somebody.