| Tyrsenian | |
|---|---|
| Tyrrhenian | |
| Geographic distribution: |
Southern Europe |
| Linguistic classification: | Tyrrhenian |
| Subdivisions: | |
Approximate area of Tyrsenian languages
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Tyrsenian (Tyrsenisch, also Tyrrhenian), named after the Tyrrhenians (Ancient Greek: Tursānoi, Tursēnoi, Turrhēnoi), is a closely related ancient language family proposed by Helmut Rix (1998), that consists of the extinct Etruscan language of central Italy, the extinct Raetic language of the Alps, and the extinct Lemnian language of the Aegean Sea.
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Rix assumes a date for Proto-Tyrsenian of roughly 1000 BC.
Cognates common to Raetic and Etruscan are:
Cognates common to Lemnian and Etruscan are:
Strabo's (Geography V, 2), citation from Anticlides attributes to Pelasgians of Lemnos and Imbros a share in the foundation of Etruria.[1]
A larger Aegean family including Eteocretan (Minoan language) and Eteocypriot has been proposed by G.M. Facchetti, referring to some possible similarities between the Etruscan language and ancient Lemnian (an Aegean language widely thought to be related to Etruscan), and some Ancient Aegean languages: such as Minoan, Eteocretan and Philistine languages. If these languages could be shown to be related to Etruscan and Rhaetic, they would constitute a pre-Indo-European phylum stretching from the Aegean islands and Crete across mainland Greece and the Italian peninsula to the Alps. 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, Lemnian and Rhaetic languages. James Mellaart has proposed that this language family is related to the pre-Indo-European Anatolian languages, based upon place name analysis.[2] From another Minoan branch would have come the Eteocretan and Philistean languages.[3] However, this is by no means a common view; there are just as serious attempts to link Eteocretan and Eteocypriot with Semitic, and mainstream scholarship takes no position. Facchetti himself claims that it is only a hypothesis.
A relation with the Anatolian languages within Indo-European has been proposed (Steinbauer 1999;[4] Palmer 1965), but is not generally accepted (although Leonard R. Palmer did show that some Linear A inscriptions were sensible as a variant of Luwian). If these language s are an early Indo-European stratum rather than pre-Indo-European, they would be associated with Krahe's Old European hydronymy and would date back to a Kurganization during the early Bronze Age.
Robertson has suggested a link between the Tyrrhenian languages and the Northeast Caucasian languages, by comparing the latter principally with Etruscan.[5]
The language group would have died out around the 3rd century BC in the Aegean (by assimilation of the speakers to Greek), and as regards Etruscan around the 1st century AD in Italy (by assimilation to Latin). Finally, Raetic died out in the 3rd century AD, by assimilation to Vulgar Latin in the south and to Germanic in the north.
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