Etruscan Phonetics

Phonetic is probably the part of the Etruscan grammar which is best mastered, which does not mean there is no problem about it.

Writing

Etruscan is basically the exact contrary ofthe Egyptian Hieroglyphs : an unknown language, written in a known alphabet.

Etruscans have learned the art of writing from the Greek colonist of Cumae, in Southern Italy - albeit the fact the wrote from right to left suggests a Phoenician influence as well.They have taken over the very alphabet the Cumean Greek used, that is a particular version of the Greek writing called western Greek alphabet. This writing is quite different from the more classical eastern Greek alphabet (the one we are acustomed to) and closer to our own. It is perfectly known. We have therefore no real difficulties reading Etruscan.

Moreover, the Etruscan trasmitted their alphabet to a number of neighboring peoples speaking better known tongues :

• Lepontic : a Celtic tongue spoken in Northern Italy
• Gaullish : a Celtic tongue, for which we have inscriptions in other alphabets
• Oscan : an Italic tongue which has modified it to some extent.
• Venetic : an Indo-European tongue spoken around modern days Venezia
• Latin which is perfectly known through an unbroken tradition

We can, therefore, easily read Etruscan and have a good idea of its phonetism, even if some of its features remain problematic.

What is certain

We know for sure that Etruscan did not know the difference between voiced and voiceless consonnant. It did ignoresuch letters as d, b or g. It did possess the following consonnants :

• the occlusives p, t, and k
• the nasals : n and m
• the spirant f
• the sibilant s
• the fricative t^s
• the aspirated h

The Etruscan vocalism was quite poor, as itseems that the language did only possess four vowels :a, e, i and u.

The "aspiratedconsonnants"

Etruscan used the Greek aspiratedconsonnants for its own needs. It is, however unlikely that theletters ph, th and kh were used to note down aspirated consonnants. If it were so, Greek words containing this kind of phonem would have been noted with these letters in Etruscan, but the fact is that it was not so. Thus the Greek word kothon is transcripted qutun, while dinos was borrowed by Etruscan as thina.

Moreover, there is much confusions in Etruscan inscriptions about the use of these letters. They are often replaced by "unaspirated" ones, and vice-versa as in hec (to put) often written hech or malach,often written malak. So that it is tempting to suppose that the difference between aspirated and unaspirated consonnants is a purely orthographic one. It is, however, unlikely it was always the case, as some forms differs only by the presence or not of an "aspirated consonnant". Thus, the past passive is in -che while the past active is in -ce.

Another hypothesis is to see in these"aspirated consonnants" some kind of spirants. We know for sure that Etruscan possessed the sound f and that this sound could be confused with p( the divine name pupluns is sometimeswritten fufluns).

Both theories are probably true. Etruscan most probably used the Greek aspirated letters as orthographic variant of unaspirated ones to avoid misreading in handwritting, as they were easier to read (much similar to the use of y in Middle English manuscripts). But they also used them to write down spirants.Ambiguities were avoided much the same way as in French, through reference to the context.

The prenazalizeds

Prenzalizeds are very special consonnants,altogether absent from modern European languages, but present in some African languages, notably Gbaya (which has also very interesting labio-velars) are are postulated by some scientists in early Indo-European.. Basically, it means that the air must go through the nose before the stop is pronounced, quite difficult for us, but used dayly by quite a big number of personns.

Evidences for the presence of prenazalized in Etruscan are scanty, but quite suggestive. A majorclue is the way Latin borrowed some Etruscan words. We have thus:

• Mech (rural community) borrowed as pagus
• Mulch (beautifull) borrowed as pulcher
• Acila (maid) borrowed as ancilla

We can see that Latin has transformed these initial /m/ into /p/ and has added a /n/ before the /c/.That'scurious as Latin had a /p/ and a /k/ and does not fit into the general schem of Latin phonetic evolution. The best explaination is isthat, in thoses cases, Etruscan m and c were only convenient notations of something which could be interpreted by Latin ears as /p/ or /n-c/, whitout being so completely as Etruscan had a /p/ and a /n/ sound. Prenazalizeds fit the best to this description. Another prenazalized can be deduced from the hesitation between t and nt in such words as spa(n)ta.

We can, therefore suppose at least threeprenazalized in Etruscan :

• mp
• nk
• nt