Raetian language

Rhaetic or Raetic (), also known as Rhaetian, was a Tyrsenian 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 through the 1st century BC, which were found through northern Italy, southern Germany, eastern Switzerland, Slovenia and western Austria, in two variants of the Old Italic scripts. Rhaetic is largely accepted as being closely related to Etruscan.

The ancient Rhaetic language is not to be confused with the modern Romance languages of the same Alpine region, known as Rhaeto-Romance.

Classification

The German linguist Helmut Rix proposed in 1998 that Rhaetic, along with Etruscan, was a member of a language family he called Tyrrhenian, and which was possibly influenced by neighboring Indo-European languages. Robert S. P. Beekes likewise does not consider it Indo-European. Howard Hayes Scullard (1967), on the contrary, suggested it to be an Indo-European language, with links to Illyrian and Celtic. Nevertheless, most scholars now think that Rhaetic is closely related to Etruscan within the Tyrrhenian grouping.

Rix's Tyrsenian family is supported by a number of linguists such as Stefan Schumacher, Carlo De Simone, Norbert Oettinger, Simona Marchesini, and Rex E. Wallace. Common features between Etruscan, Rhaetic, and Lemnian have been observed in morphology, phonology, and syntax. On the other hand, few lexical correspondences are documented, at least partly due to the scanty number of Rhaetic and Lemnian texts and possibly to the early date at which the languages split. The Tyrsenian family (or Common Tyrrhenic) is often considered to be Paleo-European and to predate the arrival of Indo-European languages in southern Europe.: Italy was home to a number of languages in the Iron Age, some of them clearly Indo-European (Latin being the most obvious, although this was merely the language spoken in the Roman heartland, that is, Latium, and other languages such as Italic, Venetic or Ligurian were also present), while the centre-west and northwest were occupied by the people we call Etruscans, who spoke a language which was non-Indo-European and presumed to represent an ethnic and linguistic stratum which goes far back in time, perhaps even to the occupants of Italy prior to the spread of farming.

History

In 2004 L. Bouke van der Meer proposed that Rhaetic could have developed from Etruscan from around 900 BC or even earlier, and no later than 700 BC, since divergences are already present in the oldest Etruscan and Rhaetic inscriptions, such as in the grammatical voices of past tenses or in the endings of male ''gentilicia''. Around 600 BC, the Rhaeti became isolated from the Etruscan area, probably by the 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.: Se resta il fatto che la documentazione archeologica smentisce in tutta evidenza un rapporto filogenetico fra Etruschi e Reti, visti anche fenomeni di continuità come nell’ambito della produzione vascolare di boccali di tradizione Luco/Laugen (fig. 8), non è escluso che la percezione di prossimità esistenti fra la lingua e la scrittura delle due entità etniche possano avere indotto eruditi del tempo a costruite "a tavolino" un rapporto di parentela. (...) Helmut Rix dated the end of the Proto-Tyrsenian period to the last quarter of the 2nd millennium BC. Carlo De Simone 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.*

The language is documented in Northern Italy between the 5th and the 1st centuries BC by about 280 texts, in an area corresponding to the Fritzens-Sanzeno and Magrè cultures. It is clear that in the centuries leading up to Roman imperial times, the Rhaetians had at least come under Etruscan influence, as the Rhaetic inscriptions are written in what appears to be a northern variant of the Etruscan alphabet. The ancient Roman sources mention the Rhaetic people as being reputedly of Etruscan origin, so there may at least have been some ethnic Etruscans who had settled in the region by that time.

In his ''Natural History'' (1st century AD), Pliny wrote about Alpine peoples:

Pliny's comment on a leader named ''Rhaetus'' is typical of mythologized origins of ancient peoples, and not necessarily reliable. The name of the Venetic goddess '' Reitia'' has commonly been discerned in the Rhaetic finds, but the two names do not seem to be linked. The spelling as ''Raet-'' is found in inscriptions, while ''Rhaet-'' was used in Roman manuscripts; it is unclear whether this ''Rh'' represents an accurate transcription of an aspirated ''R'' in Rhaetic, or is merely an error.

Phonology

Our understanding of Rhaetic phonology is quite uncertain, and the working hypothesis is that it is very similar to Etruscan phonology.

Vowels

It appears that Rhaetic, like Etruscan, had a four-vowel system: /a/, /i/, /e/, /u/.

Consonants

Unlike Etruscan, Rhaetic does not seem to have the distinction between aspirated and non-aspirated stops. Consonant phonemes attested in Rhaetic include a dental (or palatal) affricate /ts/, dental sibilant /s/, palatal sibilant /ʃ/, nasals /n/, /m/ and liquids /r/, /l/.

Morphology

Nouns

The following cases are attested in Rhaetic:
* Nominative/Accusative: No ending
* Genitive: Ending ''-s''
* Pertinentive (locative to the genitive): Endings ''-si'' and ''-(a-)le''
* Locative: Ending ''-i'' (uncertainly attested)
* Ablative: Ending ''-s''

For plural, the ending ''-r(a)'' is attested.

Verbs

Two verbal suffixes have been identified, both known from Etruscan:
* ''-ke'' is the 3rd person preterite ending
* ''-u'' is the suffix that derives verbal nouns from preterite forms.

See also

* Rhaetian people
* Rhaetic alphabets
* Etruscan language
* Etruscan civilization
* Tyrsenian languages
* Camunic language
* Iceman (2017 film)

Notes

References

Sources

*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* Prosdocimi, Aldo L. (2003-4). "Sulla formazione dell'alfabeto runico. Promessa di novità documentali forse decisive". ''Archivio per l'Alto Adige'' 97–98.427–440
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

Further reading

* A. Baruffi, ''Spirit of Rhaetia: The Call of the Holy Mountains'' (LiteraryJoint, Philadelphia, PA, 2020),
*

External links

*
* .

{{Authority control

Languages of ancient Italy
Tyrsenian languages
Unclassified languages of Europe
Languages attested from the 1st millennium BC
Languages extinct in the 3rd century