Tyrsenian languages
Encyclopedia
Tyrsenian named after the Tyrrhenians
(Ancient Greek
: Tursānioi, Tursēnioi, Turrhēnioi), is a closely related ancient language family
proposed by Helmut Rix
(1998), that consists of the extinct Etruscan language
of central Italy, the extinct Raetic language
of the Alps
, and the extinct Lemnian language
of the Aegean Sea
.
Cognates common to Raetic and Etruscan are:
Cognates common to Lemnian and Etruscan are:
Strabo
's (Geography V, 2), citation from Anticlides
attributes to Pelasgians
of Lemnos
and Imbros
a share in the foundation of Etruria.
(Minoan language) and Eteocypriot
has been proposed by G.M. Facchetti, referring to some possible similarities between the Etruscan language and ancient Lemnian (an Aegean language widely thought to be related to Etruscan), and some Ancient Aegean languages: such as Minoan
, Eteocretan
and Philistine language
s. If these languages could be shown to be related to Etruscan and Rhaetic, they would constitute a pre-Indo-European
phylum stretching from the Aegean islands
and Crete
across mainland Greece
and the Italian peninsula
to the Alps
. Facchetti proposes a hypothetical language family derived from Minoan in two branches. From Minoan he proposes a Proto-Tyrrhenian from which would have come the Etruscan
, Lemnian
and Rhaetic languages. James Mellaart
has proposed that this language family is related to the pre-Indo-European Anatolian languages, based upon place name analysis. From another Minoan branch would have come the Eteocretan and Philistean languages. However, this is by no means a common view; there are just as serious attempts to link Eteocretan and Eteocypriot with Semitic
, and mainstream scholarship takes no position. Facchetti himself claims that it is only a hypothesis.
within Indo-European
has been proposed (Steinbauer 1999; Palmer 1965), but is not generally accepted (although Leonard R. Palmer did show that some Linear A
inscriptions were sensible as a variant of Luwian). If these languages are an early Indo-European stratum rather than pre-Indo-European, they would be associated with Krahe's Old European hydronymy
and would date back to a Kurganization during the early Bronze Age
.
, by comparing the latter principally with Etruscan
.
), and as regards Etruscan around the 1st century AD in Italy (by assimilation to Latin
). Finally, Raetic died out in the 3rd century AD, by assimilation to Vulgar Latin
in the south and to Germanic
in the north.
Tyrrhenians
The Tyrrhenians or Tyrsenians is an exonym used by Greek authors to refer to a non-Greek people.- Earliest references :...
(Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
: Tursānioi, Tursēnioi, Turrhēnioi), is a closely related ancient language family
Language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term 'family' comes from the tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a...
proposed by Helmut Rix
Helmut Rix
Helmut Rix was a German linguist and professor of the Sprachwissenschaftliches Seminar of Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg, Germany....
(1998), that consists of the extinct Etruscan language
Etruscan language
The Etruscan language was spoken and written by the Etruscan civilization, in what is present-day Italy, in the ancient region of Etruria and in parts of Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna...
of central Italy, the extinct Raetic language
Raetic language
Raetic is an extinct language spoken in the ancient region of Raetia in the Eastern Alps in pre-Roman and Roman times. It is documented by a limited number of short inscriptions in two variants of the Etruscan alphabet...
of the Alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
, and the extinct Lemnian language
Lemnian language
The Lemnian language is a language of the 6th century BC spoken on the island of Lemnos. It is mainly attested by an inscription found on a funerary stele, termed the Lemnos stele, discovered in 1885 near Kaminia. However, fragments of inscriptions on local pottery show that it was spoken there by...
of the Aegean Sea
Aegean Sea
The Aegean Sea[p] is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
.
The evidence
Rix assumes a date for Proto-Tyrsenian of roughly 1000 BC.Cognates common to Raetic and Etruscan are:
- Etr. zal, Raet. zal, "two";
- Etr. -(a)cvil, Raet. akvil, "gift";
- Etr. zinace, Raet. t'inaχe, "he made".
- a genitiveGenitive caseIn grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...
suffix -s in all three languages; - a second genitive suffix -a in Raetic, -(i)a in Etruscan;
- the past active participle -ce in Etruscan, -ku in Raetic.
Cognates common to Lemnian and Etruscan are:
- dative-caseDative caseThe dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink"....
suffixes *-si, and *-ale, attested on the Lemnos Stele (Hulaie-ši "for Hulaie", Φukiasi-ale "for the Phocaean") and in Etruscan inscriptions (e.g. aule-si "To Aule" on the Cippus PerusinusCippus PerusinusThe Cippus Perusinus is a stone tablet discovered on the hill of San Marco, near Perugia, Italy, in 1822. The tablet bears 46 lines of Etruscan text exquisitely carved into it...
). - a past tense suffix *-a-i (Etruscan <-e> as in ame "was" (< *amai); Lemnian <-ai> as in šivai "lived").
Strabo
Strabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
's (Geography V, 2), citation from Anticlides
Anticlides
Anticlides of Athens lived after the time of Alexander the Great , and is frequently referred to by later writers. At least four works may be attributed to him; whether these works were all written by Anticlides of Athens cannot be decided with certainty. None survive, except in scanty quotations:1...
attributes to Pelasgians
Pelasgians
The name Pelasgians was used by some ancient Greek writers to refer to populations that were either the ancestors of the Greeks or who preceded the Greeks in Greece, "a hold-all term for any ancient, primitive and presumably indigenous people in the Greek world." In general, "Pelasgian" has come...
of Lemnos
Lemnos
Lemnos is an island of Greece in the northern part of the Aegean Sea. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within the Lemnos peripheral unit, which is part of the North Aegean Periphery. The principal town of the island and seat of the municipality is Myrina...
and Imbros
Imbros
Imbros or Imroz, officially referred to as Gökçeada since July 29, 1970 , is an island in the Aegean Sea and the largest island of Turkey, part of Çanakkale Province. It is located at the entrance of Saros Bay and is also the westernmost point of Turkey...
a share in the foundation of Etruria.
Aegean language family
A larger Aegean family including EteocretanEteocretan language
The Minoan language was spoken in ancient Crete before it was replaced with the language of the mainland; the relationship between Minoan and Greek is unknown. While attempts have been made to connect it to other languages, Minoan must be considered unclassified until a linguistic affiliation can...
(Minoan language) and Eteocypriot
Eteocypriot
Eteocypriot was a pre-Indo-European language spoken in Iron Age Cyprus. The name means "true" or "original Cyprian" parallel to Eteocretan, both of which names are used by modern scholarship to mean the pre-Greek languages of those places. Eteocypriot was written in the Cypriot syllabary, a...
has been proposed by G.M. Facchetti, referring to some possible similarities between the Etruscan language and ancient Lemnian (an Aegean language widely thought to be related to Etruscan), and some Ancient Aegean languages: such as Minoan
Linear A
Linear A is one of two scripts used in ancient Crete before Mycenaean Greek Linear B; Cretan hieroglyphs is the second script. In Minoan times, before the Mycenaean Greek dominion, Linear A was the official script for the palaces and religious activities, and hieroglyphs were mainly used on seals....
, Eteocretan
Eteocretan language
The Minoan language was spoken in ancient Crete before it was replaced with the language of the mainland; the relationship between Minoan and Greek is unknown. While attempts have been made to connect it to other languages, Minoan must be considered unclassified until a linguistic affiliation can...
and Philistine language
Philistine language
The Philistine language is the extinct language of the Philistines, spoken— and rarely inscribed— along the coastal strip of southwestern Canaan...
s. If these languages could be shown to be related to Etruscan and Rhaetic, they would constitute a pre-Indo-European
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
phylum stretching from the Aegean islands
Aegean Islands
The Aegean Islands are the group of islands in the Aegean Sea, with mainland Greece to the west and north and Turkey to the east; the island of Crete delimits the sea to the south, those of Rhodes, Karpathos and Kasos to the southeast...
and Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
across mainland Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
and the Italian peninsula
Italian Peninsula
The Italian Peninsula or Apennine Peninsula is one of the three large peninsulas of Southern Europe , spanning from the Po Valley in the north to the central Mediterranean Sea in the south. The peninsula's shape gives it the nickname Lo Stivale...
to the Alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
. Facchetti proposes a hypothetical language family derived from Minoan in two branches. From Minoan he proposes a Proto-Tyrrhenian from which would have come the Etruscan
Etruscan language
The Etruscan language was spoken and written by the Etruscan civilization, in what is present-day Italy, in the ancient region of Etruria and in parts of Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna...
, Lemnian
Lemnian language
The Lemnian language is a language of the 6th century BC spoken on the island of Lemnos. It is mainly attested by an inscription found on a funerary stele, termed the Lemnos stele, discovered in 1885 near Kaminia. However, fragments of inscriptions on local pottery show that it was spoken there by...
and Rhaetic languages. James Mellaart
James Mellaart
James Mellaart is a British archaeologist and author who is noted for his discovery of the Neolithic settlement of Çatalhöyük in Turkey. He was also expelled from Turkey suspected of involvement with the antiquities black market and was involved with the so-called Mother goddess controversy in...
has proposed that this language family is related to the pre-Indo-European Anatolian languages, based upon place name analysis. From another Minoan branch would have come the Eteocretan and Philistean languages. However, this is by no means a common view; there are just as serious attempts to link Eteocretan and Eteocypriot with Semitic
Semitic languages
The Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 270 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa...
, and mainstream scholarship takes no position. Facchetti himself claims that it is only a hypothesis.
Anatolian languages
A relation with the Anatolian languagesAnatolian languages
The Anatolian languages comprise a group of extinct Indo-European languages that were spoken in Asia Minor, the best attested of them being the Hittite language.-Origins:...
within Indo-European
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
has been proposed (Steinbauer 1999; Palmer 1965), but is not generally accepted (although Leonard R. Palmer did show that some Linear A
Linear A
Linear A is one of two scripts used in ancient Crete before Mycenaean Greek Linear B; Cretan hieroglyphs is the second script. In Minoan times, before the Mycenaean Greek dominion, Linear A was the official script for the palaces and religious activities, and hieroglyphs were mainly used on seals....
inscriptions were sensible as a variant of Luwian). If these languages are an early Indo-European stratum rather than pre-Indo-European, they would be associated with Krahe's Old European hydronymy
Old European hydronymy
Old European is the term used by Hans Krahe for the language of the oldest reconstructed stratum of European hydronymy in Central and Western Europe...
and would date back to a Kurganization during the early Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
.
Northeast Caucasian languages
Robertson has suggested a link between the Tyrrhenian languages and the Northeast Caucasian languagesNortheast Caucasian languages
The Northeast Caucasian languages constitute a language family spoken in the Russian republics of Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, northern Azerbaijan, and in northeastern Georgia, as well as in diaspora populations in Russia, Turkey, and the Middle East...
, by comparing the latter principally with Etruscan
Etruscan language
The Etruscan language was spoken and written by the Etruscan civilization, in what is present-day Italy, in the ancient region of Etruria and in parts of Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna...
.
Extinction
The language group would have died out around the 3rd century BC in the Aegean (by assimilation of the speakers to GreekKoine Greek
Koine Greek is the universal dialect of the Greek language spoken throughout post-Classical antiquity , developing from the Attic dialect, with admixture of elements especially from Ionic....
), and as regards Etruscan around the 1st century AD in Italy (by assimilation to Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
). Finally, Raetic died out in the 3rd century AD, by assimilation to Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin is any of the nonstandard forms of Latin from which the Romance languages developed. Because of its nonstandard nature, it had no official orthography. All written works used Classical Latin, with very few exceptions...
in the south and to Germanic
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
in the north.
See also
- Tyrrhenoi
- Etruscan civilizationEtruscan civilizationEtruscan civilization is the modern English name given to a civilization of ancient Italy in the area corresponding roughly to Tuscany. The ancient Romans called its creators the Tusci or Etrusci...
- Minoan civilizationMinoan civilizationThe Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age civilization that arose on the island of Crete and flourished from approximately the 27th century BC to the 15th century BC. It was rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century through the work of the British archaeologist Arthur Evans...