avoided.[1] By throwing off the vocal and consonantal terminations, and by the weakening or rejection of the vowels, this soft and melodious language was gradually changed in character, and became intolerably harsh and rugged.[2] They changed, for example ramuθaʃ into ramθa, Tarquinius into Tarchnaʃ, Minerva into Menrva, Menelaos, Polydeukes, Alexandros, into Menle, Pultuke, Elckʃentre. The indistinct and rugged nature of their pronunciation is shown most clearly by the fact that at a very early period the Etruscans ceased to distinguish o from u, b from p, c from g, d from t. At the same time the accent was, as in Latin and in the more rugged Greek dialects, uniformly thrown back upon the initial syllable. The aspirate consonants were treated in a similar fashion; while the Italians rejected them with the exception of the aspirated b or the f, and the Greeks, reversing the case, rejected this sound and retained the rest—θ, φ, χ, the Etruscans allowed the softest and most pleasing of them, the φ, to drop entirely except in words borrowed from other languages, and on the other hand made use of the other three to an extraordinary extent, even where they had no proper place; Thetis for example became Thethis, Telephus Thelaphe, Odysseus Utuze or Uthuze. Of the few terminations and words, whose meaning has been ascertained, most have not the most distant analogy to the Græco-Italian languages; such as the termination al employed as a designation of descent, frequently of descent from the mother, e. g. Canial, which, on a bilingual inscription of Chiusi, is translated by Cainia natus; and the termination sa in the names of women, used to indicate the clan into which they have married, e. g. Lecnesa denoting the spouse of a Licinius. Cela or clan, with the inflection clensi means son; seχ daughter; ril year; the god Hermes becomes Turms, Aphrodite Turan, Hephæstos Sethlans, Bakchos Fufluns. Alongside of these strange forms and sounds there certainly occur isolated analogies between the Etruscan and the Italian languages. Proper names are formed, substantially, after the general Italian system. The frequent gentile termination enas or ena[3] recurs in the termination
- ↑ To this period belong e. g. inscriptions on the clay vases of Cære, such as, miniceθuamimaθumaramlisiaiθipurenaieθeeraisieepanamineθunastavhelefu, or mi ramuθaʃ kaiufinaia.
- ↑ We may form some idea of the sound which the language now had from the commencement of the great inscription of Perusia; eulat tanna larezul amevaχr lautn velθinase stlaafunas sleleθcaru.
- ↑ Such as Mæcenas, Porsena, Vivenna, Cæcina, Spurinna. The vowel in
