supposed knowledge subsides within a very small compass.
One conclusion indeed is confirmed by* the Etruscan .monuments,
which we also derive from the old writers, namely, th a t
the Etruscan language was much more strongly distinguished,
from the Hellenic and the Latin than was either the Oscau
or Umbrian. The. Romans often term the Tuscans “ barbari,”
an epithet bestowed on people whose language was entirely,
foreign to their own, and which is never found: to have sheen,
ascribed to th e Sabines or Oscans, or the kindred nations^© the
southward of the Tiber. The Tuscan language was apparently
much more remote in its general character from the idiom
of Latium than was that of the§|mbrians.orof the Opici. It is
well-known that while in Latin the consonants consist\chiefly
of the middle class of mutes and jof;tenues, ©r. o | hajd^nd^soft
b u t not aspirated letters, the Etruscan alphabet had no middle
or, soft consonants, and abounded in aspirates. Thjs^ cannot
be supposed to have arisen merely; from the want of orthographical
signs. The Etruscans might have borrowed, s&ftj
muteg as-well as the others from the Greeks ov> Phoenicians^
They likewise wanted the vowel o, and expxessed;’4^oA^)Htby
Apulu. .Unlike the Latin and Greek, this language accumu>
lated consonants, and produced words such as a Roman mouth,
could scarcely axticul ate. The omission of short vowje|s
to have arisen from the attempt to throw the accent powerfully,
on the initial syllables and 4o shorten words in pronunciatiQ^
as in Elchsentre, which in the Etruscan represents ’AXeferSpoc,
in Menle for Menelaus, and Hercle for Heracles. For Minerva,
they wrote either Minerfe or, the vowel of the,second syllable
being neglected, Menrfa. For Met^llus, first contracted to
Meteli, we .find Methlnal, and for Marcanius, Marcani, Marc-
nial.& On comparing the Perusian monument, which is the.
greatest specimen of genuine Tuscan writing extant, with the
Eugubian tables, an entire difference in the whole system of
orthography and pronunciation becomes strikingly manifest.*
* This inscription was discovered in the year 1822, and published by Vermi-
glioli in his “ Saggio di congetture sulla grande Inscrizione Etrusca, Perugia 1824.”
The broad side of the stone pillar contains twelve lines, which are -re*d' by the
editor as follows:—“ Eulat tanna larexul | amefachr lautn felthinas e [; st la aph-
unas slel eth earn [ texan phusleri tesns teis j rasnes ipa am a hen napr | xij fel-
This habit of abbreviating rendered the Etruscan pronunciation
hostile; as Mtiller observes, to grammatical flexions, and
seems to have made great havoc among the varieties of ending
and other modifications of Greek and Latin words. The Greek
names Peleus and Tydeus became contracted to Pele and Tute.
Scarcely a-trace is to be found of the Latin and Greek termination
'Opmaseulinc nouns in* os or us. The native Tuscan
narpes-end in vo'Wels, as - Leone; * Gfelne, Felche, Canxna,
Thurmna, M'arcani, Pherini, Rapli, Petru, Precu, Rexu; or
with consonants, as in the prmnames: Larth, Aonth. Here
indeed it may be'argued, from a passage in the grammarian
Agretius, that the Etruscan had, originally an s, but gradually
elided itf-in pronunciation, as we know that the Romans sometimes
;put<w for us. Feminine nouns, however, end in a, as it
appears from the? names ©L the goddesses Thalna, Menerfa,
Lash on the patetse» and from the female prmnames Thana,
Larthia, Phastia, Feilia in lists of*, the- dead, a circumstance
however that, indicates' no nearj relation to ‘ the Greek and
Latin, since imGbthic and Frankish, and-even Hebrew, femit
nine namCs often have tne same ending. Forms such as Larthia
and Phastia- are indeed not so frequent as the abbreviated
Larthe' and Phasti. The Tuscans had, however, a genitive
Jormed like the ?Greek. Marcha and Lentia made Marchas
and Lentias*, and words 'ending‘in a consonant added us in
the genitive: thus Arnthial and Tanchfil made Amthialus and
Tanchfilus, j Even a dative in si may he made out with probable
evidence. That m marked the accusative and c the
a b la tiv e 's -merely a1 conjecture. The mi found at the beginning
of inscriptions may be shown with probability to stand
for eifu, marking an affinity with the, Greek conjugations in
which; however, cannot be traced further. The initial syllables
which denoted family relations, al indicating descent, and sa
the relation of marriage,. are scarcely explicable from the
thina thuras aras pe | ras cemulmlescul xuci eh j esci epi tularu J aulesi felthinas
arxnal cl | ensi tbii thils cuUa cenu | pic phelic larthals aphunes | den thunchul-
the | phalas chiem phusle felthina, j hintha cape munidet masu | naper sranxl thii
phlasti f {-dthina hut naper penexs | masa acnina d d aphuna fel | thinam lerxinia
intimame | r chi felthina xias atene ] tesne eca felthina thuras th | aura helu tesne
rasne cei ] tesus teis rasnes ehimths p | el thutaa cuna aphunam ena j hen naper
d d n l hatbuthse | (Mülldr1# Etrusker» Einl. lib. xvi. s. 6 K};; *