Etruscans

Etruscans (also Tuscans; Greek Tyrrēnoi, Tyrsēnoi; Latin Etrusci, Tusci; Etruscan Rosenna) — the ancient inhabitants of Italy. In the first millennium BC, they occupied a vast territory in the northwestern part of the Apennine Peninsula (ancient Etruria, modern Tuscany). The Etruscans created a highly developed civilization, with an intensive urban life, a distinctive art, and a writing system formed on the basis of the Greek alphabet.

Since the 19th century, scholars have attempted to link the Etruscan language with various Indo-European (Hittite, Greek, Armenian, Albanian, etc.) or non-Indo-European (Dravidian, Egyptian, Hungarian, Finnic, Turkic, and others) languages. In 1899, V. Thomsen published a study titled “Notes on the Relatives of the Etruscan Language”, in which he proposed connections between Etruscan and the languages of the North Caucasus. N. Marr and others later supported connection between the Caucasian and Etruscan language.

Throughout the 20th century, there were fragmentary attempts to relate the Etruscan language to the Kartvelian (Georgian) group, but the identification of linguistic correspondences took on a systematic character after the publication of R. Gordeziani’s monograph “Etruscan and Kartvelian” (1980). He was later joined by like-minded scholars such as A. I. Nemirovsky, E. I. Fournier, G. Garbini, and others.

The third volume of “Mediterranean–Kartvelian Relations” (published in 2007) is entirely devoted to the question of the Etruscan language and its relationship to the Kartvelian family. According to the theory developed in these studies, the Etruscan language belongs to the pre-Greek linguistic world, and its formation occurred as follows: after the migration of Caucasian—primarily Kartvelian—tribes (at the turn of the 3rd–2nd millennia BC) into the Aegean–Anatolian region, a group of languages related to Kartvelian—known as the Minoan, Western Anatolian-Pelasgian group—emerged on the basis of the Aegean substrate.

As this group gradually differentiated (beginning from the 20th century BC), the formation process of a whole range of pre-Greek and pre-Italic languages took place. Around the 13th–12th centuries BC, the so-called Dardanian (Trojan) language gave rise to the Tyrrhenian language, and after the migration of its speakers into Italy, to Etruscan.

From this perspective, the relationship between Etruscan and the Kartvelian languages is systematic and manifests itself on all levels of linguistic comparison — in grammatical structure (phonology, morphology, etc.) as well as in vocabulary.

Literature: ავალიანი ე., ეტრუსკოლოგიის ნარკვევები, თბ., 2005; კობახიძე ე., ეტრუსკული საკულტო ტერმინოლოგია (სემანტიკა, გენეზისი), თბ., 1994; მისივე, ეტრუსკები ანტიკურ ლიტერატურაში, თბ., 2007; Beekes R., The Origin of the Etruscans, Amsterdam, 2003; Beekes R., Van de Meer L.B., De Etrusken Spreken, Muiderberg, Coutinho, 1991; Bonfante G., Bonfante L., The Etruscan Language: an Introduction, Manchester, 2000; Etruscan Life and Afterlife: A Handbook of Etruscan Studies, ed. L. Bonfante, Detroit, 1986; Pallottino M., Etruscologia, Milano, 1973; Pfiffig A., Die etruskische Sprache. Versuch einer Gesamtdarstellung, Graz, 1969; Pfiffig A.J., Einführung in die Etruskologie. Probleme, Methoden, Ergebnisse, Darmstadt, 1972; Pittau M., La Lingua Etrusca. Grammatica e lessico, Nuoro, 1997; Rix H., Etruskische Texte, Bd. 1–2, Tübingen, 1991; Steinbauer D., Neues Handbuch des Etruskischen. Scripta Mercaturae, 1999; Wallace R.E., Zikh Rasna: a Manual of the Etruscan Language and Inscriptions, Beech Stave Press, 2008.

R. Gordeziani