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New work sheds light on the Etruscans, who may have founded Rome

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Re: New work sheds light on the Etruscans, who may have founded Rome

#51

Post by Koshkin »

folli wrote: post #36
riffraff wrote: post #14

My favourite part of the Etruscan language legacy is the letter "C" ("K" sound). It was originally a gamma ("G" sound), but the Etruscan language did not need it and they just used it as K. Then the Romans adopted the Etruscan alphabet, but they _did_ have both K and G sounds and so had to invent a new letter, even tho the original greek alphabet (and all its predecessors) already had it to begin with :)

One, quite famous, Roman surname is Caesar. Unlike the modern english pronunciation of his name, the pronunciation follows what you have written: Kaesar. In Germanic this morphed into "Kaiser", which is the german word for "Emperor". I find it quite interesting how the status and power of this one man was so widely recognized, that his surname was already used during Roman times (and still is in the German language)…

Actually, Caesar was not a surname (family name), it was more like a nickname. The name (using the modern spelling) was Gaius Julius.

Re: New work sheds light on the Etruscans, who may have founded Rome

#52

Post by hasmanean »

seanw444 wrote: post #44
1cvmask wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“The Latin alphabet evolved from the visually similar Etruscan alphabet, which evolved from the Cumaean Greek version of the Greek alphabet, which was itself descended from the Phoenician alphabet, which in turn derived from Egyptian hieroglyphics.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_alphabet

I'm disappointed the list ends there.

I know somebody who wrote a book on alphabets and said the Egyptian alphabet was based on some ancient Indian alphabet, which had its roots in some ancient astrological symbols.

There’s a lot of prehistory that is not well understood.

Re: New work sheds light on the Etruscans, who may have founded Rome

#53

Post by kragen »

hasmanean wrote: post #52
seanw444 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm disappointed the list ends there.

I know somebody who wrote a book on alphabets and said the Egyptian alphabet was based on some ancient Indian alphabet, which had its roots in some ancient astrological symbols. There’s a lot of prehistory that is not well understood.

It's not clear the Harappan symbols were an alphabet (the hieroglyphs certainly weren't) or even written language, though they're clearly symbolic. Nobody has any idea whether the Harappan symbols somehow relate to astrology. My best guess is that they're similar to heraldry, cattle brands, or graffiti tags: ideograms representing personal names or lines of descent. But I'm no expert in the field.

The main thing is that there's a lot of prehistory. The Stone Age was 3 million years long; people have been cooking their food for 1.75 million years; anatomically modern humans are 250,000 years old; behavioral modernity (elaborate graves, fishing, artifact diversity, common figurative art) is from 50,000 years ago, or perhaps as long as 80,000; the first proto-cities like Çatal Höyük date from 10,000 years ago; the city of Eridu is from 7500 years ago.

In places, "history" (in the sense of written records) is only 500 years old; in most of Europe it's less than 2000 years old. Imhotep built the first Egyptian pyramid only 4700 years ago, but in his day, people had already had brains pretty much the same as our own for ten times that long. 90% of the time of people painting pictures and burying their dead happened before Imhotep; half of the time of people living in cities happened before Imhotep. And 99% of the time of people with brains pretty much the same as our own was before Columbus.

That is, the founding of proto-cities like Çatal Höyük was as long ago for Imhotep as Imhotep is for us. But Imhotep didn't have writings from Çatal Höyük to read or archaeologists to investigate it.

Re: New work sheds light on the Etruscans, who may have founded Rome

#54

Post by tdeck »

1cvmask wrote: post #41
kragen wrote: post #28

An interesting thing the article somehow doesn't mention is that the Roman alphabet in which I'm more or less typing this (IN VVHICH I'M MORE OR LESS TYPING THIS) descends from the very scarce Etruscan letters, which descend from Greek. This is why the Roman alphabet revives letters like digamma and qoppa that had been obsolete in Greek for centuries.

“The Latin alphabet evolved from the visually similar Etruscan alphabet, which evolved from the Cumaean Greek version of the Greek alphabet, which was itself descended from the Phoenician alphabet, which in turn derived from Egyptian hieroglyphics.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_alphabet

Folks reading this thread would likely appreciate this video on the history of C:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=chpT0TzietQ

It goes into a lot of these evolutionary stages.

And the history of W:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sg2j7mZ9-2Y&vl=en

Re: New work sheds light on the Etruscans, who may have founded Rome

#55

Post by 1cvmask »

kragen wrote: post #53
hasmanean wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know somebody who wrote a book on alphabets and said the Egyptian alphabet was based on some ancient Indian alphabet, which had its roots in some ancient astrological symbols. There’s a lot of prehistory that is not well understood.

It's not clear the Harappan symbols were an alphabet (the hieroglyphs certainly weren't) or even written language, though they're clearly symbolic. Nobody has any idea whether the Harappan symbols somehow relate to astrology. My best guess is that they're similar to heraldry, cattle brands, or graffiti tags: ideograms representing personal names or lines of descent. But I'm no expert in the field. The main thing is t…

There also some excavations of what could potentially be proto-cities like Boncuklu Tarla which is over 11800 years old and had a sewer system:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boncuklu_Tarla

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/culture/archaeologists-unearth-anci...

Re: New work sheds light on the Etruscans, who may have founded Rome

#56

Post by kragen »

tdeck wrote: post #54
1cvmask wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“The Latin alphabet evolved from the visually similar Etruscan alphabet, which evolved from the Cumaean Greek version of the Greek alphabet, which was itself descended from the Phoenician alphabet, which in turn derived from Egyptian hieroglyphics.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_alphabet

Folks reading this thread would likely appreciate this video on the history of C: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=chpT0TzietQ It goes into a lot of these evolutionary stages. And the history of W: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sg2j7mZ9-2Y&vl=en

Ritchie wrote a great history of C for HOPL II: https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/chist.html

Oh, not that C?

Re: New work sheds light on the Etruscans, who may have founded Rome

#57

Post by kragen »

1cvmask wrote: post #55
kragen wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not clear the Harappan symbols were an alphabet (the hieroglyphs certainly weren't) or even written language, though they're clearly symbolic. Nobody has any idea whether the Harappan symbols somehow relate to astrology. My best guess is that they're similar to heraldry, cattle brands, or graffiti tags: ideograms representing personal names or lines of descent. But I'm no expert in the field. The main thing is t…

There also some excavations of what could potentially be proto-cities like Boncuklu Tarla which is over 11800 years old and had a sewer system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boncuklu_Tarla https://www.aa.com.tr/en/culture/archaeologists-unearth-anci...

That's amazing! Thank you! Sounds like the sewer thing is still uncertain.

Re: New work sheds light on the Etruscans, who may have founded Rome

#58

Post by simorley »

fsckboy wrote: post #7

Isn't it a bigger/more important mystery why proto-indo european language was so successful at supplanting the local languages it intermixed with? Rather than why the Etruscans kept speaking their own language. I'm really curious if there were positive "network effects" of increasingly large populations of neighbors speaking compatible languages (even if they formed a gradient as the Romance languages did from Rome t…

> Isn't it a bigger/more important mystery why proto-indo european language was so successful at supplanting the local languages it intermixed with?

Language domination tends to stem from conquest and/or domination of the population or flatout genocide. Also, if the established elites speak it, the population will most likely follow. The spread of PIE probably mimicked the spread of european languages around the world.

Why is english spoken in us, canada, australia, nz, etc? Why is spanish spoken in much of the americas. Why is english, german, portuguese, french, etc spoken all over africa? Conquest, genocide, mass rapes, etc.

The real question is what technology/tool/etc gave the PIE speakers an advantage over speakers of non-PIE languages ( semitic, basque, etc.). Also how were central asians, east asians, southeast asians, etc able to withstand the PIE onslaught.

Re: New work sheds light on the Etruscans, who may have founded Rome

#59

Post by mapster »

jaclaz wrote: post #43
mapster wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems there are collections all thru Italy. I’ve been to two museums with impressive Etruscan collections just in Le Marche alone (Ancona, Sasso Feratto)

You mean, I believe, Sassoferrato (which was actually Sentinum in roman times). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sassoferrato I think that all was found there comes not from Etruscan settlements, but rather from the battlefield: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sentinum or from the umbri and sanniti, or from the later romans, etruscans were reknown and appreciated for their…

Yes, sorry, Sassoferrato. Thanks for the clarification. The museum and town are a great way to spend an afternoon. You must really have some good stories.

Re: New work sheds light on the Etruscans, who may have founded Rome

#60

Post by jaclaz »

mapster wrote: post #59
jaclaz wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean, I believe, Sassoferrato (which was actually Sentinum in roman times). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sassoferrato I think that all was found there comes not from Etruscan settlements, but rather from the battlefield: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sentinum or from the umbri and sanniti, or from the later romans, etruscans were reknown and appreciated for their…

Yes, sorry, Sassoferrato. Thanks for the clarification. The museum and town are a great way to spend an afternoon. You must really have some good stories.

You are welcome of course, only FYI those museums you cite are only very small ones, compared with the "main" ones, if you happen to be back to Italy, and you like the Etruscan art, you should visit the Etru in Rome (I believe it is the largest one) and the Guarnacci in Volterra:

https://www.museoetru.it/discover-the-museum

https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museo_etrusco_Guarnacci

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