Etruscan Alphabet

The Etruscan alphabet was the alphabet used by Etruscans to write their language. It contains 26 letters (in the model of alphabet), four are never used in Etruscan (B C D O).

Origin

Primer Marsiliana, circa 700 BC. AD

The Etruscan alphabet has its origins in the Greek alphabet , but it is unclear whether the adaptation has taken place in the Greek colonies of Italy or Greece or in Asia Minor. It is likely that this is the Greek colony of Ischia (then Pithekusa) in front of Cumae in the mid- ^seventh century BC. AD. In any case, it was a western Greek alphabet, where "X" was pronounced Etruscan Classic

Until about 600 BC. BC, the archaic form of the Etruscan alphabet remained almost unchanged and the writing direction was clear. From the ^sixth century BC. AD , developments appeared, guided by the phonology of the Etruscan and the letters representing phonemes nonexistent in Etruscan were abandoned.

In 400 BC. AD , it seems that all Etruria Etruscan alphabet used a conventional 20 letters, mostly written from left to right:

ACEVZHILMNPRSTUF

The following changes were made:

• B and D were abandoned, the corresponding sounds do not exist in Etruscan consonants sound ignorant (they will be reused by the Romans who needed to transcribe the sounds of Latin);
• K was also neglected, except in front of A, as in Latin KALENDAE ( Kalends ), and in the northern cities of Etruria;
• O disappears, replaced by U / Y (pronounced or);
• letters and are no longer used;
• an additional grapheme, whose shape resembles the current figure 8, is used for the consonant F.

This classic alphabet remained valid until about the ^second century BC. BC where he began to be challenged by the Latin alphabet. The Etruscan died shortly after.

Alphabet

The table below shows the alphabets Etruscan Archaic and Classical, so the equivalent letters in Greek and Latin alphabets (when they exist) and the reconstructed pronunciation:

Etruscan archaic	Etruscan Classic	Equivalent Greek	Equivalent Latin	Pronunciation
			A	Punctuation The Etruscan alphabet used two kinds of punctuation : the punctuation outside: it serves to separate the sentences and words ; Internal punctuation located, as its name suggests, within words. Its meaning has not yet been clearly defined. Tracks in the arts Small vases (ink?) Have ordered the entire alphabet on their periphery Computer encoding Unicode includes a block "Old Italic" - U 10 300 U 1033 F - which, although not strictly Etruscan contains characters from it directly. The creators of fonts are therefore based mainly archaic Latin inscriptions that use the last stage of Etruscan letters. Encoded outside the Basic Multilingual Plane, these characters are not easily viewable. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F 1030 1031 1032 References The Etruscans and Italy before Rome: Early History of the Social War Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, Antonio Giuliano, and Jean-Paul Thuillier, p. 165 See also Related articles Etruscan count Etruscan language Etruscan historiography Uncial Tablet Marsiliana External Links on (En) The Etruscan alphabet and language ( Jean-Paul Thuillier , professor at the Ecole Normale Suprieure ) (It) Etruscan Alphabet Sound Etruscan language - written remains Major texts: Cippo Perugino Guestbook Tabula Capuana Tabula Cortonensis Slats Pyrgi Liber Linteus Zagrabiensis Votive pieces: Liver of Piacenza Disc Magliano Portal of writing Language portal

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