Etruscan and Germanic

Latvian has F sound only in borrowings. Even then for older borrowings F was pronounced as P not so long time ago, like Fräulein - Preilene; Fritz - Pricis.

It could be same with Lithuanian, need to check.
p.s.
But then - same is also true for H, which comes from proto-IE. So could be we lost both sounds, only to recover them in XXth century.
 
for I know, some strata could have had this /f/ and very easily - the only languages in Europe I know which ignored this sound are the Finnic (of Finland) and the Basque (this one as gascon, transformed maybe the loaned F into /h/ or /-/, again a vague link between thiese two remote regions, by the way ? (some very old substratum?) but in the middle of them, we see ethnies which seem pronuncing /f/ without too much work: Celtic, Italic, Germanic, Greek - concerning Slavs I don't know, they don't seem to "found" for the /f/ upon IE roots...Even the Magyar speakers of Hungary have F in their apparently genuine vocabulary, spite their Finnic-Ugric origin (maybe an ancient P too?)-

I think there is a rule where proto-Uralic *p → Hungarian f.

I was reading a paper about Mansi lately, an Uralic language from the Ob river - and actually ugrian, not fennic. You have f.ex. Hungarian fü "grass" = Mansi pum. I don't know the Finnish equivalent. I don't draw any conclusion out of that, Finno-Ugric is completely out of my street.

So, no to early conclusion for now, I' ll see if I can make an opinion but I doubt there is a tight passed link between Germanic and Etruscan

Out of my long exchange with Taranis, two competing hypothesis can be drawn as far as the [f] is concerned :

1- F is a mechanistic outcome of language evolution
2- F is substrate driven.

Well, I guess this discussion inheritance vs. evolution will have sequels in other threads :) It is rather critical, as a matter of fact.
 
"Middle German" is a specifically linguistic term, which Sile used in a discussion about linguistics. If that was an attempt to talk about a geographic area such as central Germany, the Hallstatt culture was actually centred in Austria and southern Germany (although Celtic language and culture did later expand over a large area that, for a time, included parts of central Germany).

One couldn't conclude different than it was about geography. If it was thinking about Hallstatt or something different, well you'd have to see that with him...
 
- they have the very rare [f] phoneme.
- they have plural in -er/-ar/-ur
- they have a genitive singular in -s.

Well, it might be - and probably is - pure coincidence. I havn't read all the book, maybe I'll find something else in the vocabulary section, maybe not.
I don't think it is pure coincidence, we have the same plural in Kazakh as well: -er/-ar. When I say at 'horse', the plural is attar 'horses'. The -er/-ar depends on the first vowel of the word.
 
The only proven link between the Etruscan and the Germanic is the script. The Runic alphabet derived from the north-Etruscan alphabet.
 
Latvian has F sound only in borrowings. Even then for older borrowings F was pronounced as P not so long time ago, like Fräulein - Preilene; Fritz - Pricis.

It could be same with Lithuanian, need to check.
p.s.
But then - same is also true for H, which comes from proto-IE. So could be we lost both sounds, only to recover them in XXth century.


I wonder if it could not be a Finnic (not hungarian ugric) tendancy?
out of time answer, I avow but interesting in other threads concerning the compsition of neo-Baltic people
 
The only proven link between the Etruscan and the Germanic is the script. The Runic alphabet derived from the north-Etruscan alphabet.

It should be pointed out that the Germanic peoples probably had no direct contact with the Etruscans proper. Even though the Runic alphabet derives from the Etruscan alphabet, as you said, it most likely derives from any one of the northern variants of the alphabets, which were not used by the Etrsucans but by the multitude of ethnic groups that inhabited the Alps, including in particular by Celtic (the Leponti and Cisalpine Gauls) and Venetic groups (their variants are most similar to the Runic alphabets). There's also the Raetians "proper" (as opposed to the multitude of Indo-European peoples that were labeled by the Romans as "Raetians"), in the area of South Tyrol, which actually seem to have spoken an Etruscan-like language based on their inscriptions.
 
It should be pointed out that the Germanic peoples probably had no direct contact with the Etruscans proper. Even though the Runic alphabet derives from the Etruscan alphabet, as you said, it most likely derives from any one of the northern variants of the alphabets, which were not used by the Etrsucans but by the multitude of ethnic groups that inhabited the Alps, including in particular by Celtic (the Leponti and Cisalpine Gauls) and Venetic groups (their variants are most similar to the Runic alphabets). There's also the Raetians "proper" (as opposed to the multitude of Indo-European peoples that were labeled by the Romans as "Raetians"), in the area of South Tyrol, which actually seem to have spoken an Etruscan-like language based on their inscriptions.

You're right, Germanic peoples probably had no direct contact with the Etruscans. Furthermore Germanic people are attested later than Etruscans.

While Etruscans had surely direct contacts with the Celts. Etruscans settled also in north Italy (the most northern-western Italian settlement was probably Melphum in Lombardy, never really discovered) and Etruscans had commercial contacts with Hallstatt culture via the Golasecca culture in north Lombardy that borders Swiztlerland. Hallstatt culture itself was probably an intermediary with Golasecca and the Etruscans in the Amber trade from the Baltic sea.

On the other hand, as you said, northern variants of Etruscan alphabet was used by a multitude of ethnic groups that inhabited the Alps, including the Raetians that seem to have spoken an Etruscan-like language. There are still today some examples of toponyms of supposed Etruscan origin in modern-day south Tyrol and Veneto:

* Velturno (Feldthurns) in south Tyrol from Etruscan Velthur

* Varna (Vahrn) in south Tyrol from Etruscan Varna or Varenna

* Feltre in Veneto from Etruscan Felth(u)ri (or Velthuri)
 
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It should be pointed out that the Germanic peoples probably had no direct contact with the Etruscans proper. Even though the Runic alphabet derives from the Etruscan alphabet, as you said, it most likely derives from any one of the northern variants of the alphabets, which were not used by the Etrsucans but by the multitude of ethnic groups that inhabited the Alps, including in particular by Celtic (the Leponti and Cisalpine Gauls) and Venetic groups (their variants are most similar to the Runic alphabets). There's also the Raetians "proper" (as opposed to the multitude of Indo-European peoples that were labeled by the Romans as "Raetians"), in the area of South Tyrol, which actually seem to have spoken an Etruscan-like language based on their inscriptions.

maybe these recent finds

http://altoadige.gelocal.it/tempo-l...ovati-due-menhir-dell-eta-del-rame-1.11218786

http://www.meteoweb.eu/2015/04/arch...al-venosta-risalgono-al-3000-a-c-foto/428638/

http://www.stonepages.com/news/archives/005499.html


The name Vinschgau (Ital: Val Venosta) is derived from the Rhaetian Venostes tribe,

may state a differing opinion

We just need to wait.
 
just some thought which could have taken place in other threads, as ever, because the human sicences are all linked one together

Etruscans
The mystery is still there concerning the Etruscans –
The phonetic question of South Germanic, second unvoicing of consonants, recall me the same phenomenon upon Hungary Magyar language and the no-voicing of Italian (+ spiration of unvoiced and even voiced consonants in Toscan dialects), opposite to the most of other romances evolution where no-gemination, voicing and lenition are common enough. All that could lead us to think an old population, present in Central Europe from Hungary to the Western Alps, could have had an influence on this evolution or lack of evolution. But let's be cautious. Every situation is a bit different and could be born upon different cirocnstances.
That said, what do we know for sure concerning Etruscan phonetic? Not too much: the orthography can abuse us very easily. And the substratum responsible (hypothesis) for the unvoicing could very well be foreign to Estruscan origins, and having acted on it as it can have acted on other learned languages. So this phonetic tendancy was maybe not provocated by genuine Etruscan phonetic habits.
Leaving here this complicated question of voicing, unvoicing, hard spirations and soft spirations which merit more attention in an other thread, let’s look at the culture:
For I red in Wiki and other abstracts (no scholar work at hand for Etruscans) it seems the Villanovia stage of culture preceded the well identified original Etruscan stage of Culture in N-E Italy. And the Etruscan paradygmus seems coinciding with a change in society, more hyerarchized and more luxious with East-Mediterranean clear influences. Even in the core of Etruscan territories it seems all sepultures were not completely homogenous: Hypogees, Tumuli for the site, more cremation but a bit of inhumation at same time for the mode? The cremation was already present among Villanovians (I think they were rather Osco-Umbrians people waiting more information). The big Etruscan towns were the first big ones in this part of Europe, and equiped with hydraulic engineering, fact which evocates me Near-East rather than “barbarian” Central Europe. The genetic surveys – helas only about mt-DNA – show links with Neolithic Central Europe but too with Anatolians - – but estimated at 3000 BC for Anatolians - and today Turcs. The cattle itself shows links with Near-East (not with the human people, but with their cattle!). The language on its side shows links with one of the Rhaetian lands languages and with old Lemnian.
All that makes difficult to discard a certain heterogeneity in the Etruscan world and an Eastern influence, but how and at what level ? .Trade exchanges can abuse us in part, but the strange big Hut Urns and some specific deportment of Etruscans we had not traces of them before put me to think they were not autochtonous for a long time in Italy, and they were of at least partly different stock compared to first Villanovians, even if we can figure out some common Anatolian or North-Near-Eastern imput in Hungary upon I-Eans at initial Urnfields times, what is not proved. But were they the same? Dubious. Concerning absence of traces of invasion, we know archeology cannot always give us too precise clues about tribes moves. Without the accounts made by ancient writers in Antuquity, could we weight and trace the moves of entire sets of celtic and germanic tribes from Northern Germany into Gaul and Iberia and Portugal? Not sure. Trade? Raids? Migrations?...
And Etruscans seem having been good sailors so… I avow I’m tempted to think in the famous Sea People story, when I see these Shekelesh, Shardana (with the horned helmet and the ‘kilt’ évocating Ugarit by instance) and Teresh rising in History, some time before (1300/1200 BC), and menacing the Egyptian Empire, far East for Italy. It seems the center of these great perturbations was the Egea Sea and its islands. The people concerned could have been evolved tribes of pre-I-Ean-Anatolian languages, around Eastern Greece, Egea and Western Anatolia, pushed away by I-Eans descending along western shores of the Black Sea and coming also from East or Central Anatolia. I'm not up to date concerning this “dark” period and we have more tan 400 years span between the big problems of the Egyptians empire (middle of 13° century BC) created by the Sea Peoples and the supposed 800 BC period of first Etruscans in Italy. ?… But I find simpler to imagine this people were settled more Eastwards during the egyptian events, before going to settle in far West. That said, during Tholos Nuraghi period in Sardinia, the Egee weapons seem appearing about the 1200 BC, accrediting possibly an early colonization of the island coinciding with the Sea People, what comes to contradict my hypothesis where I tried to link the Etruscans daybreak in Italy to the fresh colonization by a Teresh set. Who knows? Not me for now.
 
I find it unbelievable that these professors of language who have access to over 10000 etruscan words cannot figure out where they originate.
 
Angela, as I know, the connection between the Etruscan and the Old Hungarian (and so the Finnish) is mainly due to an Italian linguist, Mario Alinei, who taught at the University of Utrecht and now lives in Tuscany. But Alinei wasn't the first to make this connection. Etruscan and Old Hungarian/Finnish are considered both agglutinative language. Some of the ancient languages of Near Est were agglutinative: Hattic, Sumerian, Hurrian, Urartian... But also the Basque is considered by many linguists an agglutinative language. Agglutination is an ancient typological feature and does not imply a linguistic relation according to many scholars though. I have read Alinei's work some years ago and I found it not very believable on a historical level not to mention that Alinei is commonly criticised for his theories. The very ancient typological feature of Etruscan could be due to an ancient migration from Near East or as well to a very ancient Mediterranean pre-Indo-European substratum (in the ancient Greek is called the pre-Greek substrate).

Etruscan: An Archaic Form of Hungarian (Il Mulino, Bologna – 2003).

http://www.continuitas.org/texts/alinei_etruscan.pdf


https://www.mulino.it/isbn/9788815093820

- I'm replying here to a post in another thread, but its much more sensible to reply in this context here, namely on the question of Etruscan and Uralic and Mario Alinei's ideas: According to him, there basically only ever were three language families in Europe (Basque, Indo-European and Uralic, which he associates with the Y-Haplogroups R1b, R1a and I, I think, when the R1b from the Cantabrian ice age refuge" theory became hip, he was the first to jump the waggon - I don't need to tell anyone of you how insanely dated that idea is by now), therefore his idea that Etruscan must be part of Uralic. From the Indo-European perspective I find the PCT insane, because it has all the problems that you have with the Anatolian hypothesis, multiplied by hundred. You have to explain not only how PIE has common words for "wheel", "yoke" and "horse", but also "cow", "ewe", "swine", etc. which the Paleolithic Europeans obviously didn't have. Back to Uralic, the sound changes that Alinei proposes places Etruscan quite high up in the Uralic "tree", specifically as part of the Ugric languages (spoken in the Urals region, with the exception of Hungarian). I might add that the Ugrian languages exhibit a sound change akin to Grimm's Law in Germanic, by which *k > *h (compare the word for 'fish', Finnish, Estonian "kala" with Hungarian "hal", Khanty "khul"). I might add that there's _no evidence_ whatsoever of Uralic languages in Central Europe before the arrival of the Magyars, which was a relatively late, historic event. And I'm also unaware of any Etruscan toponyms from north of the Alps (so much about the "Urnfielders were Etruscans idea" brought up recently...
 
- I'm replying here to a post in another thread, but its much more sensible to reply in this context here, namely on the question of Etruscan and Uralic and Mario Alinei's ideas: According to him, there basically only ever were three language families in Europe (Basque, Indo-European and Uralic, which he associates with the Y-Haplogroups R1b, R1a and I, I think, when the R1b from the Cantabrian ice age refuge" theory became hip, he was the first to jump the waggon - I don't need to tell anyone of you how insanely dated that idea is by now), therefore his idea that Etruscan must be part of Uralic. From the Indo-European perspective I find the PCT insane, because it has all the problems that you have with the Anatolian hypothesis, multiplied by hundred. You have to explain not only how PIE has common words for "wheel", "yoke" and "horse", but also "cow", "ewe", "swine", etc. which the Paleolithic Europeans obviously didn't have. Back to Uralic, the sound changes that Alinei proposes places Etruscan quite high up in the Uralic "tree", specifically as part of the Ugric languages (spoken in the Urals region, with the exception of Hungarian). I might add that the Ugrian languages exhibit a sound change akin to Grimm's Law in Germanic, by which *k > *h (compare the word for 'fish', Finnish, Estonian "kala" with Hungarian "hal", Khanty "khul"). I might add that there's _no evidence_ whatsoever of Uralic languages in Central Europe before the arrival of the Magyars, which was a relatively late, historic event.

Clearly all of the Alinei's theory is somewhat questionable.


And I'm also unaware of any Etruscan toponyms from north of the Alps (so much about the "Urnfielders were Etruscans idea" brought up recently...

It's obvious that, especially culturally and linguistically, the Etruscan civilization since the Orientalizing period had very little to do with the Urnfielders. The main link between the Etruscans and the Urnfielders is the Proto-Villanovan culture.


From DNA and Etruscan Identity by Philip Perkins.

One, first put forward by Nicolas Fréret in ad 1741, suggested an origin in Germanic areas North of the Alps (Stenger 1994: Pallottino 1985, 86). An apparent support for this theory is shared elements of material culture that are found in the Iron Age Urnfield Cultures of circum-Alpine areas that extend as far south as central Italy. These connections certainly exist, for example Gabriele Zipf has recently examined the similarities – and differences – in figurative decoration of artefacts in France and Italy between the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages (Zipf 2004). Another study of Italian metalwork has identified connections, particularly in the sun-boat / bird protome motif, that suggest the movements of artisans from central Europe and the Baltic between the 10th and the 8th centuries (Iaia 2005, 238–43). The similarities are usually not now considered to be the result of the mass movements of peoples, but rather the result of shared cultural traits, similar, tribal, levels of social complexity and trade Peroni 2004, 166–71). However, from the Villanovan period onwards, as Etruscan culture develops, study of the Urnfield phenomenon in Etruria tends to be rather compartmentalized from its study north of the River Po, and potentially rewarding systematic comparative study between the two areas is rarely undertaken, despite the recent spectacular growth in knowledge of the Iron Age in Italy north of the Po and neighbouring areas (Marzatico and Gleirscher 2004, 161–449). In the Etruscan period it is the Mediterranean connections that take centre stage, although cultural and economic exchange across the Alps is well documented and studied, even if there are still gaps in the archaeological record (Aigner Foresti 1992; Parlavecchia 1992, 157–221; Camporeale 2004).
 
Nothing is evident, but the links with East mediterranea plus the maritime skills and urbanism skills plus linguistic facts and more and more distinction from the Urnfield phenomenon push myself to favorize a LIGHT ethnic imput from East (Egea shores? W and E?) - the constant ancient Etruscan DNA <> Anatolian Turkish proximity, even if not dated, and distance from Basques, have to be "calibred" in time, sure. &: we know we cannot take the today Toscan population as a good testimony for ancient Etruscans, maybe already a mix of numerous "autochtones" and rare "newcomers"?
 
the impact would have been more cultural than demic: the Celtic speaking populations of North Italy wore some typically Etruscan parts of dress if I remember well
 

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