Tyrsenian (also Tyrrhenian or Common Tyrrhenic), named after the Tyrrhenians ( Ancient Greek, Ionic: ''Tyrsenoi''), is a proposed extinct family of closely related ancient languages put forward by linguist Helmut Rix (1998), which consists of the Etruscan language of

northern Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a ra ...

central Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object. Central may also refer to: Directions and generalised locations * Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...

and south-western Italy, and eastern Corsica ( France); the

Rhaetic language Rhaetic or Raetic (), also known as Rhaetian, was a language spoken in the ancient region of Rhaetia in the eastern Alps in pre-Roman and Roman times. It is documented by around 280 texts dated from the 5th up until the 1st century BC, which were ...

of the Alps, named after the Rhaetian people; and the Lemnian language of the Aegean Sea.

Camunic The Camunic language is an extinct language that was spoken in the 1st millennium BC in the Valcamonica and the Valtellina in Northern Italy, both in the Central Alps. The language is sparsely attested to an extent that makes any classification ...

in northern

Lombardy Lombardy ( it, Lombardia, Lombard language, Lombard: ''Lombardia'' or ''Lumbardia' '') is an administrative regions of Italy, region of Italy that covers ; it is located in the northern-central part of the country and has a population of about 10 ...

, in between Etruscan and Rhaetic, may belong here too, but the material is very scant. The Tyrsenian languages are generally considered Pre-Indo-European and Paleo-European.

Classification

In 1998 the German linguist Helmut Rix proposed that three then unclassified ancient languages belonged to a common linguistic family he called ''Tyrrhenian'': the Etruscan language spoken in Etruria, the

of the southern Alps, and the Lemnian language, only attested by a small number of inscriptions from the Greek island of Lemnos in the Aegean Sea. Rix's Tyrsenian family is supported by a number of linguists such as Stefan Schumacher,

Carlo De Simone Carlo De Simone (4 March 1885 – 1951) was an officer in the Italian Army during World War II. Biography During most of the East African Campaign, Lieutenant-General De Simone commanded Italian forces in southern Italian Somaliland. However ...

, Norbert Oettinger, Simona Marchesini, or

Rex E. Wallace Rex E. Wallace (born September 13, 1952) is an American linguist and classical scholar specializing in Etruscan language, languages of ancient Italy, epigraphy, historical linguistics. He served as Professor of Classics at University of Massachus ...

. Common features among Etruscan, Rhaetic, Lemnian have been found in morphology, phonology, and

syntax In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituency) ...

. On the other hand, few lexical correspondences are documented, at least partly due to the scant number of Rhaetic and Lemnian texts and possibly also to the early date at which the languages split.

History

Tyrsenian was probably a Paleo-European language family predating the arrival of Indo-European languages in Europe.Mellaart, James (1975), "The Neolithic of the Near East" (Thames and Hudson) Helmut Rix dated the end of the Proto-Tyrsenian period to the last quarter of the

2nd millennium BC The 2nd millennium BC spanned the years 2000 BC to 1001 BC. In the Ancient Near East, it marks the transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age. The Ancient Near Eastern cultures are well within the historical era: The first half of the mil ...

and Simona Marchesini have proposed a much earlier date, placing the Tyrsenian language split before the Bronze Age. This would provide one explanation for the low number of lexical correspondences. In 2004

L. Bouke van der Meer Lammert Bouke van der Meer (born 1945 in Leeuwarden, Friesland) is a Dutch classicist and classical archaeologist specialized in Etruscology. He studied classics and archaeology at the University of Groningen, and received his Ph.D. from the same ...

proposed that Rhaetic could have split from Etruscan from around 900 BC or even earlier, at any rate no later than 700 BC since divergences are already present in the oldest Etruscan and Rhaetic inscriptions, such as in the

grammatical voices In linguistics, grammaticality is determined by the conformity to language usage as derived by the grammar of a particular speech variety. The notion of grammaticality rose alongside the theory of generative grammar, the goal of which is to form ...

of past tenses or in the endings of male ''gentilicia''. From around 400 BCE, the Rhaeti became isolated from the Etruscan area by the Cisalpine Celts, thus limiting contacts between the two languages. Such a late datation has not enjoyed consensus, because the split would still be too recent, and in contrast with the archaeological data, the Rhaeti in the second Iron Age being characterized by the Fritzens-Sanzeno culture, in continuity with late Bronze Age culture and early Iron Age Laugen-Melaun culture. The Raeti are not believed, archeologically, to descend from the Etruscans, as well as it is not believed plausible that the Etruscans are descended from the Rhaeti, while the relationship between the Etruscan and Rhaetic languages is thought to date back to a remote stage of prehistory. After more than 90 years of archaeological excavations at Lemnos, nothing has been found that would support a migration from Lemnos to

Etruria Etruria () was a region of Central Italy, located in an area that covered part of what are now most of Tuscany, northern Lazio, and northern and western Umbria. Etruscan Etruria The ancient people of Etruria are identified as Etruscan civiliza ...

or to the Alps where Rhaetic was spoken. The indigenous inhabitants of Lemnos, also called in ancient times ''Sinteis'', were the Sintians, a Thracian population. While the results of the previous excavations indicate that the Early Iron Age inhabitants of Lemnos could be a remnant of a Mycenaean population and, in addition, the earliest attested reference to Lemnos is the Mycenaean Greek ''ra-mi-ni-ja'', "Lemnian woman", written in

Linear B Linear B was a syllabic script used for writing in Mycenaean Greek, the earliest attested form of Greek. The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries. The oldest Mycenaean writing dates to about 1400 BC. It is descended from ...

syllabic script.
Word study tool of ancient languages Scholars such as Norbert Oettinger, Michel Gras and Carlo De Simone think that Lemnian is the testimony of an Etruscan commercial settlement on the island that took place before 700 BC, not related to the Sea Peoples. Alternatively, the Lemnian language could have arrived in the Aegean Sea during the Late Bronze Age, when Mycenaean rulers recruited groups of mercenaries from Sicily, Sardinia and various parts of the Italian peninsula. A 2021 archeogenetic analysis of Etruscan individuals who lived between 800 BC and 1 BC concluded that the Etruscans may have been descendants of the populations that were widespread in Europe from at least the Neolithic period before the arrival of Indo-Europeans, as already argued by German geneticist Johannes Krause who concluded that it is likely that the Etruscan language (as well as Basque,

Paleo-Sardinian Paleo-Sardinian, also known as Proto-Sardinian or Nuragic, is an extinct language, or perhaps set of languages, spoken on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia by the ancient Sardinian population during the Nuragic era. Starting from the Roman ...

and Minoan) "developed on the continent in the course of the

Neolithic Revolution The Neolithic Revolution, or the (First) Agricultural Revolution, was the wide-scale transition of many human cultures during the Neolithic period from a lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of agriculture and settlement, making an incre ...

". The lack of recent Anatolian-related admixture and Iranian-related ancestry among the Etruscans, who genetically joined firmly to the European cluster, might also suggest that the presence of a handful of inscriptions found at Lemnos, in a language related to Etruscan and Rhaetic, "could represent population movements departing from the Italian peninsula".

Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could see ...

's (''Geography'' V, 2) citation from

Anticlides Anticlides of Athens (or Anticleides) ( grc, Ἀντικλείδης) 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 ...

attributes a share in the foundation of Etruria to the

Pelasgians The name Pelasgians ( grc, Πελασγοί, ''Pelasgoí'', singular: Πελασγός, ''Pelasgós'') was used by classical Greek writers to refer either to the predecessors of the Greeks, or to all the inhabitants of Greece before the emergenc ...

of Lemnos and Imbros. The Pelasgians are also referred to by Herodotus as settlers in Lemnos, after they were expelled from Attica by the

Athenians Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates a ...

. Apollonius of Rhodes mentioned an ancient settlement of Tyrrhenians on Lemnos in his '' Argonautica'' (IV.1760), written in the third century BC, in an elaborate invented '' aition'' of Kalliste or Thera: in passing, he attributes the flight of Sintian Lemnians to the island Kalliste to "Tyrrhenian warriors" from the island of Lemnos.

Languages

* Etruscan: 13,000 inscriptions, the overwhelming majority of which have been found in Italy; the oldest Etruscan inscription dates back to the 8th century BC, and the most recent one is dated to the 1st century AD. *

Rhaetic Rhaetic or Raetic (), also known as Rhaetian, was a language spoken in the ancient region of Rhaetia in the eastern Alps in pre-Roman and Roman times. It is documented by around 280 texts dated from the 5th up until the 1st century BC, which wer ...

: 300 inscriptions, the overwhelming majority of which have been found in the Central Alps; the oldest Rhaetic inscription dates back to the 6th century BC. *

Lemnian The Lemnian language was spoken on the island of Lemnos, Greece, in the second half of the 6th century BC. It is mainly attested by an inscription found on a funerary stele, termed the Lemnos stele, discovered in 1885 near Kaminia. Fragments of ...

: 2 inscriptions plus a small number of extremely fragmentary inscriptions; the oldest Lemnian inscription dates back to the late 6th century BC. *

: may be related to Rhaetic; about 170 inscriptions found in the Central Alps; the oldest Camunic inscriptions dates back to the 5th century BC.

Evidence

Cognates common to Rhaetic and Etruscan are: Cognates common to Etruscan and Lemnian are: * shared dative-case suffixes ''*-si,'' and ''*-ale'' ** attested as Etruscan 'to Aule' on the Cippus Perusinus inscriptions ** attested as Lemnian 'for Hulaie', 'for the Phocaean' on the

Lemnos Stele The Lemnian language was spoken on the island of Lemnos, Greece, in the second half of the 6th century BC. It is mainly attested by an inscription found on a funerary stele, termed the Lemnos stele, discovered in 1885 near Kaminia. Fragments of ...

* a past tense suffix ''*-a-i'' ** - as in 'was' ( ← ''*amai'') in Etruscan ** - as in 'lived' in Lemnian * two cognate words describing ages ** Etruscan 'and aged sixty-five' ** Lemnian 'aged sixty'

Fringe scholarship and superseded theories

Aegean language family

A larger ''Aegean'' family including Eteocretan, Minoan and Eteocypriot has been proposed by G. M. Facchetti referring to some alleged similarities between on the one hand Etruscan and

, and on the other hand languages like Minoan and Eteocretan. If these languages could be shown to be related to Etruscan and Rhaetic, they would constitute a

pre-Indo-European language The Pre-Indo-European languages are any of several ancient languages, not necessarily related to one another, that existed in Prehistoric Europe and Southern Asia before the arrival of speakers of Indo-European languages. The oldest Indo-Europe ...

family stretching from (at the very least) the Aegean islands and Crete across mainland Greece and the Italian peninsula to the Alps. A proposed relation between these languages has also been made previously by Raymond A. Brown. Michael Ventris, who successfully deciphered

with John Chadwick, also thought there to be a relation between Etruscan and Minoan. 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,

and

languages. James Mellaart has proposed that this language family is related to the pre-Indo-European languages of Anatolia, based upon place name analysis. From another Minoan branch would have come the Eteocretan language. T. B. Jones proposed in 1950 reading of Eteocypriot texts in Etruscan, which was refuted by most scholars but gained popularity in the former Soviet Union. In any case, a relationship between the Etruscan language and the Minoan (including Eteocretan and Eteocypriot) is considered unfounded.

Anatolian languages

A relation with the

Anatolian languages The Anatolian languages are an extinct branch of Indo-European languages that were spoken in Anatolia, part of present-day Turkey. The best known Anatolian language is Hittite, which is considered the earliest-attested Indo-European language. ...

within Indo-European has been proposed, but is not accepted. 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 (german: Alteuropäisch) is the term used by Hans Krahe (1964) for the language of the oldest reconstructed stratum of European hydronymy (river names) in Central and Western Europe.Hans Krahe, ''Unsere ältesten Flussnamen'', Wiesbad ...

and would date back to a '' Kurganization'' during the early Bronze Age.

Northeast Caucasian languages

A number of mainly Soviet or post-Soviet linguists, including Sergei Starostin, suggested a link between the Tyrrhenian languages and the Northeast Caucasian languages in an

Alarodian The Alarodian languages are a proposed language family that encompasses the Northeast Caucasian (Nakh–Dagestanian) languages and the extinct Hurro-Urartian languages. History The term Alarodian is derived from Greek ''Ἀλαρόδιοι ...

language family, based on claimed sound correspondences between Etruscan, Hurrian, and Northeast Caucasian languages, numerals, grammatical structures and phonologies. Most linguists, however, either doubt that the language families are related, or believe that the evidence is far from conclusive.

Extinction

The language group seems to have died out around the 3rd century BC in the Aegean (by assimilation of the speakers to Greek), and as regards Etruscan around the 1st century AD in Italy (by assimilation to Latin).Freeman, Philip
The Survival of Etruscan
p. 82 The latest Rhaetic inscriptions are dated to the 1st century BC.

Notes

References

Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * . * {{DEFAULTSORT:Tyrsenian Languages Pre-Indo-Europeans Proposed language families