page_title: Etruscan language
hierarchical_section_title: Etruscan language
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Perugia, Museo archeologico Nazionale dell'Umbria, cippo di Perugia, III sec. a.C.
context_page_description: Etruscan was the language of the Etruscan civilization, in Italy, in the ancient region of Etruria and in parts of Corsica, Emilia-Romagna, Veneto, Lombardy and Campania. Etruscan influenced Latin but eventually was completely superseded by it. The Etruscans left around 13,000 inscriptions that have been found so far, only a small minority of which are of significant length; some bilingual inscriptions with texts also in Latin, Greek, or Phoenician; and a few dozen loanwords. Attested from 700 BC to AD 50, the relation of Etruscan to other languages has been a source of long-running speculation and study, with its being referred to at times as an isolate, one of the Tyrsenian languages, and a number of other less well-known theories.
  The consensus among linguists and Etruscologists is that Etruscan was a pre–Indo-European language, and is closely related to the Raetic language spoken in the Alps, and to the language attested in a few inscriptions on Lemnos.
  Grammatically, the language is agglutinating, with nouns and verbs showing suffixed inflectional endings and ablaut in some cases.
context_section_description: Etruscan (/ɪˈtrʌskən/ ih-TRUS-kən) was the language of the Etruscan civilization, in Italy, in the ancient region of Etruria (modern Tuscany plus western Umbria and northern Latium) and in parts of Corsica, Emilia-Romagna, Veneto, Lombardy and Campania. Etruscan influenced Latin but eventually was completely superseded by it. The Etruscans left around 13,000 inscriptions that have been found so far, only a small minority of which are of significant length; some bilingual inscriptions with texts also in Latin, Greek, or Phoenician; and a few dozen loanwords. Attested from 700 BC to AD 50, the relation of Etruscan to other languages has been a source of long-running speculation and study, with its being referred to at times as an isolate, one of the Tyrsenian languages, and a number of other less well-known theories.
  The consensus among linguists and Etruscologists is that Etruscan was a pre–Indo-European language, and is closely related to the Raetic language spoken in the Alps, and to the language attested in a few inscriptions on Lemnos.
  Grammatically, the language is agglutinating, with nouns and verbs showing suffixed inflectional endings and ablaut in some cases. Nouns show four cases, singular and plural numbers, with a gender distinction between masculine and feminine in pronouns.
  Etruscan appears to have had a cross-linguistically common phonological system, with four phonemic vowels and an apparent contrast between aspirated and unaspirated stops. The records of the language suggest that phonetic change took place over time, with the loss and then re-establishment of word-internal vowels, possibly due to the effect of Etruscan's word-initial stress.
  Etruscan religion influenced that of the Romans, and many of the few surviving Etruscan language artifacts are of votive or religious significance. Etruscan was written in an alphabet derived from the Greek alphabet; this alphabet was the source of the Latin alphabet. The Etruscan language is also believed to be the source of certain important cultural words of Western Europe such as 'military' and 'person', which do not have obvious Indo-European roots.
caption: The Cippus Perusinus, a stone tablet bearing 46 lines of incised Etruscan text, one of the longest extant Etruscan inscriptions. 3rd or 2nd century BC.
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