Tyrsenian (also Tyrrhenian or Common Tyrrhenic), named after the

Tyrrhenians Tyrrhenians (Attic Greek: ''Turrhēnoi'') or Tyrsenians ( Ionic: ''Tursēnoi''; Doric: ''Tursānoi'') was the name used by the ancient Greeks authors to refer, in a generic sense, to non-Greek people. While ancient sources have been interp ...

(

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...

, Ionic: ''Tyrsenoi''), is a proposed extinct

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

of closely related ancient languages put forward by linguist

Helmut Rix Helmut Rix (4 July 1926, in Amberg – 3 December 2004, in Colmar) was a German linguist and professor of the Sprachwissenschaftliches Seminar of Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg, Germany. He is best known for his research into Indo-Euro ...

(1998), which consists of the

Etruscan language Etruscan () was the language of the Etruscan civilization, in Italy, in the ancient region of Etruria (modern Tuscany, western Umbria, northern Latium, Emilia-Romagna, Veneto, Lombardy and Campania). Etruscan influenced Latin but was eventua ...

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 r ...

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 a ...

and south-western Italy, and eastern Corsica (

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

); 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 wer ...

of the

Alps The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Sw ...

, named after the

Rhaetian people The Raeti (spelling variants: ''Rhaeti'', ''Rheti'' or ''Rhaetii'') were a confederation of Alpine tribes, whose language and culture was related to those of the Etruscans. Before the Roman conquest, they inhabited present-day Tyrol in Austria, ...

; and the

Lemnian language 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 ...

of the

Aegean Sea The Aegean Sea ; tr, Ege Denizi ( Greek: Αιγαίο Πέλαγος: "Egéo Pélagos", Turkish: "Ege Denizi" or "Adalar Denizi") is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It is located between the Balkans ...

. Camunic in northern

Lombardy (man), (woman) lmo, lumbard, links=no (man), (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , ...

, 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

proposed that three then unclassified ancient languages belonged to a common linguistic family he called ''Tyrrhenian'': the

spoken in Etruria, the

of the southern Alps, and the

, only attested by a small number of inscriptions from the Greek island of

Lemnos Lemnos or Limnos ( el, Λήμνος; grc, Λῆμνος) is a Greek island in the northern Aegean Sea. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within the Lemnos regional unit, which is part of the North Aegean region. The p ...

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. Howeve ...

, Norbert Oettinger, Simona Marchesini, or Rex E. Wallace. Common features among Etruscan, Rhaetic, Lemnian have been found in

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines * Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts * Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...

phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

, 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 ( constituenc ...

. 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 The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, D ...

in Europe.Mellaart, James (1975), "The Neolithic of the Near East" (Thames and Hudson)

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 The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

. 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 un ...

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 The Fritzens-Sanzeno culture is an archaeological culture attested in the late Iron Age, from ca. 500 BC until the end of the first century BC, in the Alpine region of Trentino and South Tyrol; in the period of maximum expansion it also reached ...

, in continuity with late Bronze Age culture and early Iron Age

Laugen-Melaun culture The Laugen-Melaun culture (from German ''Laugen-Melaun-Kultur'') or Luco culture (in Italian) developed between the late Bronze Age and the early Iron Age in the Alps, between Trentino, South Tyrol, East Tyrol, and in the Engadin. The term, ...

. 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

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 Etruscans. Thei ...

or to the

where Rhaetic was spoken. The indigenous inhabitants of Lemnos, also called in ancient times ''Sinteis'', were the

Sintians The Sintians (; grc-gre, Σίντιες), "the Raiders, the Plunderers", from Ancient Greek ''sinteis'', "destructive") were known to the Greeks as pirates and raiders; they are also referred to as a Thracian people who once inhabited the area ...

, 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 Mycenaean Greek is the most ancient attested form of the Greek language, on the Greek mainland and Crete in Mycenaean Greece (16th to 12th centuries BC), before the hypothesised Dorian invasion, often cited as the '' terminus ad quem'' for th ...

''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 The Sea Peoples are a hypothesized seafaring confederation that attacked ancient Egypt and other regions in the East Mediterranean prior to and during the Late Bronze Age collapse (1200–900 BCE).. Quote: "First coined in 1881 by the Fren ...

. Alternatively, the Lemnian language could have arrived in the

during the

Late Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...

, when Mycenaean rulers recruited groups of mercenaries from

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

Sardinia Sardinia ( ; it, Sardegna, label=Italian, Corsican and Tabarchino ; sc, Sardigna , sdc, Sardhigna; french: Sardaigne; sdn, Saldigna; ca, Sardenya, label= Algherese and Catalan) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, aft ...

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 Johannes Krause (born July 17, 1980 in Leinefelde) is a German biochemist with a research focus on historical infectious diseases and human evolution. Since 2010, he has been professor of archaeology and paleogenetics at the University of Tübingen ...

who concluded that it is likely that the

(as well as

Basque Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous co ...

, Paleo-Sardinian 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 inc ...

". 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 s ...

'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 ...

and

Imbros Imbros or İmroz Adası, officially Gökçeada (lit. ''Heavenly Island'') since 29 July 1970,Alexis Alexandris, "The Identity Issue of The Minorities in Greece And Turkey", in Hirschon, Renée (ed.), ''Crossing the Aegean: An Appraisal of the 1 ...

. The Pelasgians are also referred to by

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria (Italy). He is known fo ...

as settlers in Lemnos, after they were expelled from

Attica Attica ( el, Αττική, Ancient Greek ''Attikḗ'' or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the city of Athens, the capital of Greece and its countryside. It is a peninsula projecting into the Aegean ...

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 Apollonius of Rhodes ( grc, Ἀπολλώνιος Ῥόδιος ''Apollṓnios Rhódios''; la, Apollonius Rhodius; fl. first half of 3rd century BC) was an ancient Greek author, best known for the '' Argonautica'', an epic poem about Jason and ...

mentioned an ancient settlement of Tyrrhenians on Lemnos in his ''

Argonautica The ''Argonautica'' ( el, Ἀργοναυτικά , translit=Argonautika) is a Greek epic poem written by Apollonius Rhodius in the 3rd century BC. The only surviving Hellenistic epic, the ''Argonautica'' tells the myth of the voyage of Jas ...

'' (IV.1760), written in the third century BC, in an elaborate invented ''

aition An origin myth is a myth that describes the origin of some feature of the natural or social world. One type of origin myth is the creation or cosmogonic myth, a story that describes the creation of the world. However, many cultures have stor ...

'' of

Kalliste An apple of discord is the core, kernel, or crux of an argument, or a small matter that could lead to a bigger dispute. It is a reference to the Golden Apple of Discord ( grc, ) in the story of the ''Judgement of Paris'' which, according to G ...

Thera Santorini ( el, Σαντορίνη, ), officially Thira (Greek: Θήρα ) and classical Greek Thera (English pronunciation ), is an island in the southern Aegean Sea, about 200 km (120 mi) southeast from the Greek mainland. It is the ...

: 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 were ...

: 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. * Camunic: 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 The Cippus Perusinus is a stone tablet (cippus) discovered on the hill of San Marco, near Perugia, Italy, in 1822. The tablet bears 46 lines of incised Etruscan text, about 130 words. The cippus is assumed to be a text dedicating a legal contr ...

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 Eteocypriot is an extinct pre-Indo-European language that was spoken in Cyprus by the pre-Hellenic population until the Iron Age. The name means "true" or "original Cypriot" parallel to Eteocretan, both of which names are used by modern scholars ...

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-Europ ...

family stretching from (at the very least) the Aegean islands and

Crete Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, ...

across mainland

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wi ...

and the Italian peninsula to the

. A proposed relation between these languages has also been made previously by Raymond A. Brown. Michael Ventris, who successfully deciphered

with

John Chadwick John Chadwick, (21 May 1920 – 24 November 1998) was an English linguist and classical scholar who was most notable for the decipherment, with Michael Ventris, of Linear B. Early life, education and wartime service John Chadwick was born at ...

, 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 James Mellaart FBA (14 November 1925 – 29 July 2012) was an English archaeologist and author who is noted for his discovery of the Neolithic settlement of Çatalhöyük in Turkey. He was expelled from Turkey when he was suspected of involvem ...

has proposed that this language family is related to the pre-Indo-European languages of

Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...

, based upon place name analysis. From another Minoan branch would have come the Eteocretan language. T. B. Jones proposed in 1950 reading of

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 langua ...

within

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Du ...

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'', Wiesb ...

and would date back to a '' Kurganization'' during the early

Northeast Caucasian languages

A number of mainly Soviet or post-Soviet linguists, including

Sergei Starostin Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin (russian: Серге́й Анато́льевич Ста́ростин; March 24, 1953 – September 30, 2005) was a Russian historical linguist and philologist, perhaps best known for his reconstructions of hypothet ...

, suggested a link between the Tyrrhenian languages and the

Northeast Caucasian languages The Northeast Caucasian languages, also called East Caucasian, Nakh-Daghestani or ''Vainakh-Daghestani'', is a family of languages spoken in the Russian republics of Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia and in Northern Azerbaijan as well as in ...

in an Alarodian language family, based on claimed sound correspondences between Etruscan,

Hurrian The Hurrians (; cuneiform: ; transliteration: ''Ḫu-ur-ri''; also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri or Hurriter) were a people of the Bronze Age Near East. They spoke a Hurrian language and lived in Anatolia, Syria and Norther ...

, 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 Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

), and as regards Etruscan around the 1st century AD in Italy (by assimilation to

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

).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