The Penultimate Signpost – The Enigmatic Etruscans

A word about the direction in which different writing systems were written. Recall that the Egyptians has some very creative ways of writing. There was the “Ox ploughing” way where, stating at the right hand side, the scribe would reach the end of the current line, then write back underneath the line that was just written but in the opposite direction. The Phoenicians wrote from right to left always, as do the Hebrews and Arabs today. The Greeks, on the other hand, initially wrote “Ox ploughing” style but then changed over to the system they currently use – left to right always.(Bouree¹)

The Greek alphabet was the origin of other alphabets. One of the most famous, from the point of view of the development of the Modern Roman Alphabet (our alphabet) is the Etruscan alphabet.

The Etruscans
The role of the Etruscans in the development of the Modern Roman Alphabet is an important one and was often overlooked in the history taught to people of my generation.

Nobody can agree upon the reason why the Etruscans decided to colonise Italy between 900 and 800 B.C.E. but it is agreed that the Romans (who were only villagers during the rise of the Etruscans civilisation) were in close contact with them.Hooker¹ notes that it was the Etruscans who were the single most important influence on Roman culture in its transition to civilization.
In their fortified city-states, the Etruscans used their strong military forces to basically subjugate the local tribes which they encountered, which left them free to conduct trade and develop industries. Their alphabet was based upon the Greek alphabet and it is said that they were a very sophisticated people.
Here is a quote from Hooker¹:

“While the Etruscans were busy building their power over Italy and engaging in active commerce with the east and with Africa, a city to their south began to grow precipitously, a city imitating Etruscans in many ways: the Roman kingdom.”

This is a comparative chart showing Phoenician to Latin alphabets.











Here are a few examples of how some of the Greek letters were adapted or borrowed by the Etruscans. This information is found in Boeree².
The following table describes the transitions in more detail.


(click either table for a larger image)

















Some observations about both tables.
[1] The Etruscans seemed to have adapted, without much alteration, the following Early or Later Greek letters for their alphabet: A, E, F, Z, H, ‘theta’, I, ‘lambda’, M, N, P, T, Y and ‘phi’. There are others, such the “backward S” which appears as a reflected Greek ‘sigma’.

[2] Jumping ahead a little to the next topic, it is apparent that the Etruscans, like the Romans, did not possess all the sounds which we now have in our language. An example is the sound of the letter B. But then they had sounds which we don’t have, such as the character which resembles a square 8, below the H. This letter was pronounced deep in the throat and was adapted to an H in the Modern Roman alphabet. It is perhaps best known as the sound at the start of the Hebrew word Hanukkah (the Festival of Lights).

Returning to the Etruscan alphabet again, this time pronunciation approximations are written underneath.









Notice that the Neo-Etruscan has three allographs for ‘th’. (Allographs are letters which have different characters representing them depending upon where in the word the letter appears – see last blog post for a less confusing description!). Again, the alphabet is written left to right.

Summary
It is said that more than 10 000 Etruscan inscriptions have been found all over Italy on tombstones, vases and statues. Fragments of an Etruscan book made of linen have also been found. The reason it exists today is that, being written on a scroll several metres long, and being linen, it was used to wrap a mummified body.

























It is believed that the Liber Linteus (the Linen Book) was religious as it contained the names of gods (Anonymous²).

It was known that religion was very important to them, and it has been said that the Romans followed some Etruscan books when trying to foretell the future e.g. how to read the entrails of sacrificed animals for signs. There is a collection of religious rituals (Liber Rituales), written in Latin, which are said to be direct translations of an Etruscan text (Anonymous¹).

Etruscan texts can be read – that is, the pronunciation of the letters is known, but nobody is really sure what the words mean. Omniglot¹ suggests that they may even have had a notation for music.

The language was spoken in Etruria (modern day Tuscany and Umbria) until the first century AD after which it became the province of academics and the religious. It was used in religious ceremonies until early in the 5th Century AD.

There are conflicting viewpoints on what happened to the independence of the Etruscans. While it is accepted that there were separate Etruscan city states, some Roman accounts have the Etruscans being “routed” by the Romans while others contend that the Etruscans approached the Romans with a plan for peace and mutual benefit. Either way, it is a fact that 3 of the 7 famous kings who ruled Rome before the beginning of the Republic were Etruscan - Tarquinius Priscus was the first.

Perhaps the demise of the Etruscan language was inevitable as the Etruscan people were assimilated into the dominant Roman society.

Next week, Rome and beyond!

Thanks for reading.

Tez

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Discussion/Reflection

describe the research process for that week

Because the structure has been set in place, this week was an easier one and I seemed to be more on auto-pilot week. The discussion's main topic would be the Etruscans but I wanted to start describing some of the actual letter transformations.

document your research findings so far

The Greeks initially wrote the "Ox ploughing" way then changed over to left to right on every line. This has continued to the present day and has also been followed by all other alphabets which derived from the Greek writing system.
The Etruscans helped the Romans make the transition from fairly unsophisticated villagers to a powerful, educated civilisation.

include a reflection on your research process and any difficulties experienced

Getting sidetracked was a real risk this week as I am keen on Greek and Roman History. My knowledge of the Etruscans has been through Roman eyes when our year 12 class translated Livy's accounts of the Roman wars around 300 BCE. This was when I was nearly derailed and I wanted to research the accounts of the "other side". Of course direct accounts are unobtainable because there are no decipherable Etruscan texts available.

The problem of how to present observations about 3 or 4 alphabets without access to the fonts left me the unacceptable alternative to wordy descriptions about a table (Boeree's). Certainly the Phoenician, Etruscan and Early Greek fonts are available for MS Word, but it is no straightforward task for this author to transfer the characters to the blog's HTML. I felt I didn't have the time to follow up on this.

share your discoveries, good reference resources, website links, podcasts, image or video resources.

I suppose it is fairly obvious, but I had never really thought seriously about the direction in which we write. The more I think about it, it seems more logical to write the "Ox ploughing" way - you are already at the side of the page, why not just turn around and come back the way you have come? Think about the saved travel of your arm and hand! I find this quite fascinating.

The Etruscans basically had no sexual discrimination with men and women being equals in society.

There is not necessarily a genetic link between two languages which use the same writing system. Vajda also quotes the cases of Hindi/Urdu, and Serbian/Croatian where two language are very closely related yet have very different scripts.


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References:

Anonymous¹
Anonymous 2010, ‘The religion of the Etruscans’, review of The religion of the Etruscans by NT de Grummond & E Simon, University of Texas, viewed 8 May 2010,
http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/excerpts/exdegrel.html

Anonymous²
Anonymous 2010, ‘Etruscan Myths’, review of Etruscan Myths by L Bonfante& J Swaddling, University of Texas, viewed 8 May 2010,
http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/excerpts/exbonetp.html

Bouree¹
Boeree, CG 2009, The evolution of alphabets, Shippensburg University, viewed 8 May 2010, http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/evolalpha.html.

Boeree²
Boeree, CG 2009, The origin of the alphabet, Shippensburg University, viewed 8 May 2010,
http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/alphabet.html

Hooker¹
Hooker, R 1996, Rome: the Etruscans, Washington State University, viewed 8 May 2010 http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/ROME/ETRUSCAN.HTM

Omniglot¹
Agar, S 2010, Etruscan alphabet, Omniglot: writing systems & languages of the world, viewed 8 May 2010, http://www.omniglot.com/writing/etruscan.htm

van der Meer¹
van der Meer, LB 2008, Liber Linteus Zagrabiensis: A Comment on the Longest Etruscan Text,Bryn Mawr College, viewed 8 May 2010, http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2008/2008-05-37.html