The Dictionary of the Etruscan Language (Dizionario della Lingua Etrusca, hereafter DETR) represents, without question, the first and, to date, the only comprehensive lexicon ever published on the Etruscan language. Its compilation required nearly thirty-five years of sustained scholarly labor on the part of its Author.
The work contains approximately 8,500 lexical entries — that is, every term attested in inscriptions of various kinds up to the present, specifically through the year 2012. For each of these entries, the DETR presents the full body of knowledge thus far established by linguistic scholarship, a discipline that has been engaged with the Etruscan language for over one hundred and fifty years. The Author takes particular satisfaction in having gathered and systematically presented the findings of the numerous preceding linguists, as well as those — by no means few — arrived at through his own original research. It must be acknowledged, of course, that a considerable number of aspects of the Etruscan language remain unresolved; indeed, for a substantial portion of the entries, the DETR records the notation "word of unknown meaning."
The DETR includes translations of approximately 2,000 Etruscan inscriptions, among them several of considerable length: The Inscription of the Orator (La scritta dell'Arringatore), The Inscription of San Manno di Perugia, The Funerary Eulogy of Laris Pulenas, and The Epitaph of Lartia Cilnia. With regard to the Tabula Cortonensis, the Tabula Capuana, and the Liber Linteus of the Zagreb Mummy, all individual lexical items are documented, accompanied by the translation of selected passages pertaining to specific entries.
The DETR incorporates the cumulative findings of all prior works that Professor Pittau had devoted to the Etruscan language, namely: The Language of the Nuragic Sardinians and the Etruscans (1981); Etruscan-Latin Lexicon Compared with Nuragic (1984); Etruscan Texts Translated and Annotated — with Vocabulary (1990); Origin and Kinship of the Sardinians and the Etruscans: A Historical-Linguistic Essay (1995); The Etruscan Language: Grammar and Lexicon (1997); Tabula Cortonensis, the Pyrgi Gold Tablets, and Other Etruscan Texts Translated and Annotated (2000); Dictionary of the Etruscan Language (2005); Italian Place-Names of Etruscan Origin (2006); Comparative Latin-Etruscan Dictionary (2009); The Major Texts of the Etruscan Language: Translated and Annotated (2011); Italian Lexicon of Etruscan Origin: 407 Common Nouns, 207 Place-Names (2011); Lexicon of the Etruscan Language (2013); 600 Etruscan Inscriptions: Translated and Annotated (2013).
The DETR will undoubtedly stand as one of the landmark contributions in the long history of Etruscan linguistic studies. The Author also harbors the well-founded hope that there may at last be dispelled the widespread misconception — prevalent even among educated individuals with a background in the humanities — that the Etruscan language remains an utter "mystery," a tongue of which nothing, or next to nothing, is known, one that still awaits complete decipherment from the very beginning.
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE
This masterpiece of Etruscan literature takes the form of an Etruscan-Italian dictionary; however, it can be easily read in any language. To celebrate the launch of the IPAZIA BOOKS' new website, we are exceptionally publishing its Preface in English. Thank you to all our readers.
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Massimo Pittau – (Nuoro, 6 February 1921 – Sassari, 20 November 2019) was an Italian linguist and glottologist, a scholar of the Etruscan language, the Sardinian language, and proto-Sardinian. He published numerous studies on Nuragic civilisation and historical Sardinia. His positions regarding the Nuorese dialect (the most conservative within the Romance language family) are close to those of the linguist Max Leopold Wagner, with whom he maintained an epistolary relationship. In 1971 he joined the Italian Society of Glottology, and approximately 10 years later the Milanese Glottological Society. For his works he received numerous awards.
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PREFACE by MASSIMO PITTAU
1. My professional and linguistic specialization is properly concerned with the "Sardinian language," which is my native tongue and which is widely known to be of Neo-Latin or Romance origin. Having always devoted serious attention to the language spoken by the Sardinians prior to their Latinization — the "proto-Sardinian or paleo-Sardinian" language, which I was the first to designate as the "Sardinian language" (lingua sardiana) — approximately thirty years ago I encountered certain Sardinian lexical items that appeared to correspond to an equal number of Etruscan vocabulary items. This line of inquiry was likely encouraged by the fact that, some decades earlier, two other linguists — Johannes Hubschmid and Gian Domenico Serra — had already argued for a connection between the Sardinian and Etruscan languages. In order to pursue this field of study, I was naturally compelled to engage rigorously and systematically with the Etruscan language as well. I should note that my specific scholarly interest in Etruscan dates back approximately thirty years.
This interest was considerably intensified when, in 1978, through the initiative of Massimo Pallottino and his collaborators, the Thesaurus Linguae Etruscae – I Indice Lessicale appeared [now in its second edition, edited by Enrico Benelli, Pisa–Rome 2009].
For the specific purposes of my research, I proceeded to compile entries for the entire lexical material contained in the aforementioned Thesaurus Linguae Etruscae, recording in each entry all the observations I had gathered as a result of both the discoveries made by previous Etruscologists and my own personal findings. It should therefore be noted that the present Dictionary of the Etruscan Language (abbreviated DETR) was begun by me in 1978, and thus represents a scholarly undertaking that has been in gestation for thirty-five years.
In the interim, I have published, in addition to numerous studies in specialist journals, eleven further works devoted to the Etruscan language, naturally over the course of many years.
A significant philological and editorial event in 1991 served to accelerate and refine my project of composing this Dictionary: the publication of Helmut Rix's Etruskische Texte, Editio Minor, I Einleitung, Konkordanz, Indices; II Texte (1991) (abbreviated ET). This substantial and foundational work represents a number of notable improvements over the previously valuable Thesaurus Linguae Etruscae: first and foremost, Rix and his collaborators subjected many Etruscan inscriptions to fresh autopsy, with the result that a considerable number were read more accurately and emended relative to prior readings. Secondly, whereas the Thesaurus Linguae Etruscae presents the linguistic material lemma by lemma, with only sparse and brief references to the contextual data in which each item appears in the inscriptions, the Etruskische Texte, in addition to a comprehensive index of all lexical items, presents the complete corpus of all Etruscan inscriptions discovered to date. These are transcribed in full, together with highly useful indications of place and — at least in generic terms — of date, all grouped according to their fundamental character or typology (funerary inscriptions, ownership inscriptions, gift inscriptions, dedicatory inscriptions, etc.).
My acceptance of the documentary evidence provided by the Etruskische Texte was necessarily total, as indeed has been the case for all other living Etruscologists. I, too, accepted not only Rix's readings of the various Etruscan inscriptions, but also the system of classification he adopted for each of them. Only rarely did I depart from Rix in the reading of a particular inscription, and I likewise declined to accept a limited number of his reconstructions or explanations of vocabulary items — in some instances because they seemed unnecessary, in others because they seemed untenable.
Above all, I did not accept — as almost all other Etruscologists have also shown signs of not accepting — the transcription Rix adopted for the two Etruscan sibilants, sigma and san (or sade), employing no fewer than eight distinct graphemes. These are undeniably too many, and they furthermore contradict the traditional and by now well-established convention among specialists in the Etruscan language regarding the transcription of those two phonemes. It is, moreover, barely necessary to recall that in linguistics it is an absolute rule that a single phoneme be represented by a single grapheme, and vice versa. The use of eight graphemes not only violates the eminently wise medieval principle that entia non sunt multiplicanda sine necessitate, but may also lead to the erroneous belief that Etruscan possessed as many as eight distinct sibilants.
On a different matter, I should note that I have made a certain documentary improvement upon the Etruskische Texte, in that the present Dictionary includes an appendix of 78 lexical items that are absent from the general Index of Rix's work — most likely because they had not been captured by the computers employed, presumably on account of an excessively large number of letters.
I should further note that, in addition to the entire Etruscan lexical material recorded in the Etruskische Texte, this Dictionary of the Etruscan Language also records and studies all material discovered after the publication of Rix's work (1991) as a result of new finds, subsequently published in the journal Studi Etruschi through its most recent volume, that of 2001.
2. Like all vocabularies or dictionaries pertaining to ancient languages, this Dictionary necessarily involves a process of "translation" — or at least of "proposed translation" — from the Etruscan language under study into the language through which it is studied (in this case, Italian). In conducting this process of "translation" or "proposed translation," I endeavored to incorporate into the Dictionary all the interpretive results that have hitherto been reached and established by previous Etruscologists, with respect to which I naturally carried out a process of selection and revision. To the interpretive findings achieved by other linguists, I have naturally added those which I believe myself to have reached and established independently.
Regarding the results I have attained in the interpretation and hermeneutics of the Etruscan language, I must emphasize that they were achieved principally through the examination, analysis, and study of a very large quantity of lexical items and grammatical phenomena — in fact, of all available ones. In this endeavor I was greatly assisted by the use of computer technology — ably supported by my son-in-law, Dr. Filippo Pinna — both for purposes of research and for comparative analysis.
I must nonetheless specify that the computer as such never "discovers" anything, still less "invents" anything new, at least in the humanities and historical disciplines; in these fields it is merely an extremely useful instrument of assistance for scholars in their "discoveries" and "inventions," and above all it greatly accelerates their research and study.
3. The structural principles on which this Dictionary is organized are as follows. Being a vocabulary, it naturally presents lexical items individually and in strict alphabetical order, for simplicity following the Latin alphabet. The lexical items collected, analyzed, and — to the extent possible — elucidated both in their semantic values and grammatical annotations total approximately 8,500 lemmas.
a) Each lemma is transcribed following the now-traditional left-to-right convention and rendered in italic type, including indications of proposed reconstructions, expunctions performed, or expansions of abbreviations; e.g., [Arn]theal, Vel[u]s[i]; Ari{ari}tinial, Luvχumes{ai}; Atharina(l), Etri(al).
Original punctuation has been omitted entirely, both that marked within individual words (syllabic interpunction) and that marked between words, on the grounds that this Etruscan graphic convention is almost wholly irrelevant to the hermeneutic or interpretive aim that I have chosen and privileged in this work. The separation between words within an inscription is indicated by a blank space, as is done in all modern languages and as scholars consistently do with the Etruscan language itself. Similarly, line breaks in multi-line Etruscan inscriptions have been omitted, except where they also entail a significant conceptual division; in the latter case I have used the right-facing diagonal stroke / to indicate a change of line, and the left-facing diagonal stroke \ to indicate distinct locations on the same support bearing different sections of a single inscription.
In addition, many word fragments have been omitted, particularly those that were excessively brief.
Finally, indications of uncertain readings for specific letters within given words have also been omitted, unless I identified and indicated what seemed to me the correct or most probable reading. On this particular point, it is self-evident that a linguist who lacks the possibility of conducting an autopsy of one or more inscriptions has both the obligation and the scholarly interest to rely upon the proposals advanced by epigraphers who have actually carried out such an autopsy.
For each lemma, the abbreviation and numerical references employed by Rix's Etruskische Texte regarding its precise attestation are provided. However, I have considerably reduced those numerical references which are exceedingly numerous in the Etruskische Texte for the most common lemmas — particularly praenomina.
b) Lemmas constituting anthroponyms, theonyms, toponyms, or ethnonyms are transcribed with an initial capital letter, precisely as previous Etruscologists have done — for instance, Massimo Pallottino in his collection Testimonia Linguae Etruscae, and Carlo De Simone in his work Die Griechischen Entlehnungen im Etruskischen (1970). Since any vocabulary of any language clearly operates according to hermeneutic or "interpretive" criteria, it is evident that identifying and distinguishing anthroponyms graphically from appellatives, verbs, etc. is itself already an important act of "interpretation." This need was all the more pressing given that — as is well known — the vast majority of preserved Etruscan lexical items consists of anthroponyms (praenomina, gentilicia, and cognomina). By foregrounding these with an initial capital, appellatives, verbs, and so forth are naturally and readily isolated and identified — items with respect to many of which the serious problem of their actual semantic and grammatical interpretation remains open and pressing.
c) It is fairly well established that Etruscan anthroponymy corresponds in large measure to Latin anthroponymy and vice versa, as brilliantly demonstrated by the seminal work of Wilhelm Schulze, Zur Geschichte Lateinischer Eigennamen (1904) (abbreviated LEN). With the present Dictionary, I venture to believe that I have further extended the scope of that correspondence; this has been achieved both as a result of the numerous new Etruscan inscriptions discovered between 1904 and the present day, and by virtue of the other important and more recent volume by the continuators of Schulze's work — Heikki Solin and Olli Salomies, Repertorium nominum gentilium et cognominum Latinorum (1988) (abbreviated RNG). As a result of this research, I should note that I have found that approximately 80% of Etruscan anthroponyms correspond, with varying degrees of certainty, probability, or conjecture, to an equal number of Latin anthroponyms — specifically, to 1,586 Latin anthroponyms.
This extensive — indeed very extensive — correspondence between Etruscan and Latin anthroponymy carries significant implications at the socio-political and cultural level: it clearly demonstrates that the two societies, Etruscan and Roman, lived in close contact and interpenetration over a prolonged period, almost in a state of tight symbiosis, particularly during the centuries of the Roman monarchy and the Republic. (It is worth noting in passing that at its origins Rome will have been a mixed city — socially and linguistically mixed — given that it had arisen precisely on the boundary between Etruria and the Latium Vetus, which was the River Tiber. And it is not coincidental that the very name of Rome is in all likelihood Etruscan, identical to the Etrusco-Latin word ruma, meaning "breast, bosom," and denoting the great "indentation" that the Tiber forms opposite the Isola Tiberina; LEGL, 2nd Appendix.) More specifically, at the properly linguistic level, this correspondence allows one to infer that many Etruscan words — far more numerous than has hitherto been supposed — entered the Latin lexicon, and conversely that many Latin words entered the Etruscan lexicon.
It is also possible and permissible to identify a chronological criterion for this reciprocal lexical exchange between the two languages: at the outset, during the period of the monarchy, when even an Etruscan dynasty — that of the Tarquins — held the scepter in Rome for more than a century, Etruscan linguistic influence upon Latin will have predominated over Latin influence upon Etruscan. Subsequently, during the republican period, when the Romans succeeded in penetrating Etruria, conquering one Etruscan city after another, Latin linguistic influence will have predominated over the inverse Etruscan influence.
d) It is fairly well established that in all languages anthroponyms carry an individual value, inasmuch as they denote or identify a single human individual or a single family or social group; yet in origin all anthroponyms were appellatives (nouns or substantivized adjectives) that instead denoted or indicated a genus, species, or class. This fact — now firmly established — implies that Latin and Etruscan anthroponyms do not merely identify a single individual or a single family or gens, but in many cases also evoke corresponding appellatives, Latin or Etruscan. For example, the Latin gentilicia Caesius, Claudius, Plaut(i)us, Ruscius, corresponding respectively to the Etruscan CAISIE, CLAVTIE, PLAUTE, RUSCI, also recall the Latin adjectives caesus ("with blue or greenish eyes"), claudus ("lame, limping"), plautus ("flat, broad"), and the noun ruscus ("butcher's broom"), etc. This implies that it is highly probable and plausible that the Etruscan language also possessed the adjectives *CAISE ("with blue or greenish eyes"), *CLAVTE ("lame, limping"), *PLAUTE ("flat, broad"), and the noun *RUSCE ("butcher's broom"), etc. This probable occurrence is of great importance for the eventual interpretation and translation of Etruscan vocabulary — both with regard to already documented and known words, perhaps merely sharing the same root, and with respect to others that may be discovered in the future. For this reason I have decided to indicate not only the Latin anthroponyms corresponding to the Etruscan ones, but also — where possible — the corresponding Latin appellatives. E.g.: Alapu "Alapone" (masc. gentilicium or cognomen, to be compared with Lat. Alapo,-onis and with Lat. alapa "slap, blow to the face"); Alne "Alnio" (masc. gentilicium, to be compared with Lat. Alnius and with Lat. alnus "alder tree"). All of this is highlighted in the dedicated "Latin–Etruscan Index" appended to the volume.
To summarize this important point: the established extensive correspondence between Etruscan and Latin anthroponyms constitutes a significant perspective and direction in the hermeneutics and interpretation of the Etruscan language. Since it is highly probable that a substantial number of Latin words entered the Etruscan language — far more than has hitherto been supposed — it is entirely legitimate and indeed methodologically useful, in interpreting individual Etruscan vocabulary items, to invoke corresponding Latin words that, on phonological grounds, present themselves as potentially cognate or homonymic with the Etruscan items under examination. I should specify in precise terms that I have identified and recorded in the "Latin–Etruscan Index" no fewer than 487 Latin vocabulary items that, with varying degrees of certainty, probability, or conjecture, find or may find correspondence in an equal number of Etruscan vocabulary items — a by no means negligible quantity.
e) The established phonetic correspondence between Etruscan and Latin anthroponyms has proved very useful not only because it has often made it possible to determine with complete ease that a given Etruscan word was indeed an anthroponym and not an appellative or a verb (e.g., ar since = "Arunte Sincio" and not ar[u]since as a verb; StEtr 54, 1988, 176), but also because, in the first instance, it has dispelled doubts of inauthenticity that existed regarding certain Etruscan anthroponyms; secondly, because it has sometimes permitted the accurate reconstruction of an Etruscan anthroponym that reached us in an epigraphically corrupt form; and finally because it has on occasion demonstrated the complete superfluity of a hypothetical reconstruction of anthroponyms previously assumed to be corrupt.
f) I consider it important to state in advance that with respect to Etruscan anthroponyms — even in the inscriptions translated by me — I proceeded to effect "translation" on the basis of the forms of the corresponding Latin anthroponyms: e.g., Afle "Afilio" (cf. Lat. Afilius); Petru "Petrone" (cf. Lat. cognomen Petro,-onis); Tamsnies "of Tamsinio" (cf. Lat. Tamsinius), etc. In cases where I found no correspondence between an Etruscan anthroponym and a Latin one, I proceeded to "translate" the former as if the latter had in fact existed, and performed the phonetically presumable "translation" accordingly, prefixing it with an asterisk, as is conventional in linguistics to denote a form that is hypothesized but not actually attested: Pvnace "*Punacio," Tarcste "*Tarcestio," Teitu "*Taetone."
This decision to "translate" Etruscan anthroponyms was determined by two considerations: first, in actual practice we customarily "translate" Etruscan anthroponyms and theonyms corresponding to Greek ones — for instance, Atunis as "Adonis," Aχle as "Achilles," Pultuce as "Pollux," etc.; second, because it is both unclear and grammatically incorrect to employ formulations such as these: Arznal "of the Arznei," Caial "of the Cai," Teusinal "of the Teusinei," Petrual "of the Petrui," Pumpual "of the Pumpui" — for the reason that none of these five feminine anthroponyms contains any definite article whatsoever.
4. The genuine problem of "translation," however, does not concern Etruscan anthroponyms, but rather arises — and imposes itself with particular urgency — with respect to all other vocabulary items, namely nouns, adjectives, numerals, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions. As a general prefatory observation, it is important to note that in the "translation" of Etruscan lexical items — as indeed of those belonging to any other ancient language — historical linguistics distinguishes, and cannot but distinguish, between results that are certain, those that are probable, and those that are hypothetical (TETC, p. 20). It is absolutely necessary to recognize that, in general, the results formulated and proposed by historical linguistics, with regard to any linguistic domain whatsoever, are in the vast majority of cases merely probable — more or less probable — while certain results are proportionally far less numerous. The reason for this lies in the fact that historical linguistics possesses no genuine instrument of verification, control, or testing comparable to the tool employed by the natural sciences: the experiment and its indefinite repetition. Historical linguistics — but indeed all disciplines of a historical character and interest — cannot cause past events to recur, still less subject them to verification or control, that is, to experimentation. And this is the precise reason why the pronouncements of historical linguistics are only rarely characterized by certainty, while in the vast majority of cases they are characterized solely by probability — which may also be called verisimilitude, or greater or lesser likelihood, depending on individual cases.
Being fully persuaded, as I declare myself to be, of this methodological principle relative to our field of specialization, it should be noted that in this Dictionary I make very extensive use of the adverb "probably," placed before the interpretations or translations proposed either by myself or by other linguists.
5. Beyond the small amount of the certain and the very large amount of the probable that I have advanced in this work with respect to individual Etruscan vocabulary items and translated Etruscan passages, I have also admitted the hypothetical. Approximately two years ago, at a well-attended public lecture at which I was also present, a colleague of mine — a linguist who had spent several years studying the now-famous Tabula Cortonensis, with the final result of proposing a translation of only a few brief phrases — made a point of declaring, clearly with reference to me (who had already published a proposal for the complete translation of that inscription), though without naming me: "Whoever attempts to translate the Tabula Cortonensis does so at their own risk and peril!" My colleague was, and remains, entirely correct. To translate is always to proceed at one's own risk and peril — even when one undertakes to translate the simplest of Etruscan inscriptions, or even the most straightforward Latin or Greek sentence. Even the linguist or philologist who sets out to translate the simplest of Phaedrus's or Aesop's fables risks making an error: a momentary lapse of attention is sufficient to incur the risk and peril of committing even a serious interpretive and translational error.
And yet one has the obligation to take risks — not only in historical linguistics, but in every science. Progress in all disciplines, whatever their character and type — "exact" sciences, natural sciences, historical sciences, etc. — is precisely the result of the risk taken by a scientist, indeed of the risks taken collectively by scientists in general. Their errors, the product of their willingness to take risks, are in reality everywhere the price paid for the advancement of the sciences — of any science whatsoever. This is recognized even in popular wisdom, expressed in the well-known proverb "Nothing ventured, nothing gained." Scientists who never take risks in their pronouncements are not properly "scientists" at all, but are merely "repeaters" of others' discoveries. I have already had occasion to write that in linguistics too "a bold hypothesis is far better than no hypothesis at all; indeed, from a bold hypothesis — which may ultimately prove erroneous — put forward by one linguist, a better hypothesis may subsequently emerge, and even the definitive one, advanced by a later linguist." This, I have argued, is the precise and profound meaning of G. W. F. Hegel's well-known thesis of the "positivity of error" (RIOn, VI, 1, 144).
With this preamble established, I specify that the present Dictionary admits not only the certain and the probable, but also the hypothetical. And just as I make very extensive use of the adverb "probably" to signal the probable, I likewise make considerable use of the adverb "perhaps" — placed before the translation of an Etruscan word or passage and further reinforced by a following question mark in parentheses (?) — to signal the hypothetical.
There nonetheless remains a certain number of Etruscan lexical items for which we are not yet in a position to make any assertion regarding their actual semantic value or their grammatical annotations. For each of these I have accordingly limited myself to the notation "word of unknown meaning." Unfortunately, the number of these "Etruscan words of unknown meaning" remains fairly large, and it is toward resolving their status that the concerted hermeneutic efforts of all students of Etruscan linguistics must evidently be directed.
6. In this Dictionary, each lemma or vocabulary item is transcribed in accordance with the precise documentation available — that is, in the exact form of the morphological markers that characterize it. This means that no noun or adjective is normalized to the nominative case, nor is any verb reduced to its first person singular indicative present form or infinitive (which are moreover often unknown), but rather each is left in its actually attested form and translated as such: e.g., clensi "to the son" (dative singular), clenarasi "to the sons" (dative plural), celati "in the chamber" (locative), caresri "to be constructed" (gerundive). It is evident that a procedure of this kind would appear entirely elementary if applied to dictionaries of Latin or Greek, whereas it is absolutely indispensable in a dictionary of the Etruscan language, given its character as a language that is only very partially and very sparsely documented and, moreover, still imperfectly understood.
For each lemma, cross-references are consistently provided to all other forms characterized by different morphemes (unless they appear in immediately adjacent alphabetical entries), as well as to lexical items sharing the same root — that is, cognates or formally related items. This latter feature — the systematic indication of shared roots, which I have undertaken with minute care — is of great importance for the further advancement of knowledge of the Etruscan language, since logically, in this language too, lexical items were interconnected through "root clusters." It is even reasonable to suppose that the fundamental roots of Etruscan lexical items were not especially numerous — just as they are not especially numerous in any language.
7. As is apparent from some examples I have already provided, for the purpose of analyzing the examined lemmas I employ the same grammatical apparatus — and the corresponding terminology — as is used in the study of Latin, with specific reference to the same nomenclature of nominal and adjectival declension cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, locative, ablative) and of verbal moods and tenses (indicative, subjunctive, gerundive, participle, present, preterite, etc.). I naturally recognize that the contents and values of, for instance, the Latin genitive and dative are not exactly identical to their Etruscan counterparts; but then the same observation applies equally to the contents and values of the Latin genitive and dative in relation to their counterparts in Ancient Greek — and yet it is an established fact that the grammatical apparatus derived from Latin is routinely and unproblematically employed in the analysis of Greek, and vice versa. The actual application, which I have carried out in this Dictionary, of the Latin grammatical apparatus to the study of the Etruscan language has given me the full conviction that this apparatus, though not perfectly suited to Etruscan, is nonetheless adequately appropriate in sufficient measure and manner.
Moreover, I was neither able nor willing to depart from the now lengthy tradition of linguistic studies on Etruscan, conducted over at least a century and a half by dozens of scholars who likewise employed the Latin grammatical apparatus with complete confidence and with positive results that are plain for all to see. I was neither able nor willing to distance myself from that long line of Etruscological linguists in order to follow instead certain recent scholars who delude themselves into believing they are advancing the study of the Etruscan language by some extraordinary degree through having invented ex novo a new grammatical apparatus — or rather a new grammatical terminology — to be employed exclusively in the study of Etruscan. The result, in my modest opinion, has been that this new grammatical and terminological apparatus, rather than bringing clarity and elucidation to the Etruscan language, has contributed substantially to introducing further confusion and obscurity — which is precisely the last thing that the study of Etruscan needed.
Implicitly, these recent scholars still pay tribute to what I consider to be a genuine prejudice or pseudoconcept: that the Etruscan language is entirely unlike all others and cannot be connected with or compared to any other language.
8. Entirely free as I am — and declare myself to be — from this pseudoconcept, I have also, wherever this seemed feasible, proceeded to establish comparisons between an Etruscan lexical item and a corresponding one from other languages. This comparative procedure has naturally been most productive with Latin and Greek, but — for the reasons explained earlier — above all with Latin. E.g.: Crespe "Crispius" (masc. gentilicium, to be compared with Lat. Crispius and with Lat. crispus "curly, wavy, rippled"); Cumlnas "(of) Cumelius" (masc. gentilicium in fossilized patronymic genitive, to be compared with Lat. Cumelius and with Lat. cumulus "heap, pile" — hitherto of uncertain etymology); Latherialχ (Latherial-χ) "and of Lateria" (fem. gentilicium in the genitive, to be compared with Lat. Laterius and with Lat. later,-eris "brick" — hitherto without established etymology).
In the numerous cases similar to those cited, three derivational or etymological possibilities present themselves: either the Etruscan lexical item derives from the Latin one, or the Latin item derives from the Etruscan, or finally both items derive independently from an original common base. It is readily understood that the resolution of this problem must be sought lexical item by lexical item — a task that I have not undertaken in the present work, as it would have been excessively lengthy and demanding, transforming this work into a Dictionary of the Etruscan Language, properly speaking. On this particular subject I limit myself to indicating how one might proceed in such further investigation, with reference to what I believe I have accomplished in my other work, Etruscan–Latin Lexicon Compared with Nuragic (LELN).
A properly derivational and etymological treatment has, however, also been carried out by me — being in those cases altogether straightforward and even self-evident — with respect to the Etruscan lexical items relating to Greek mythology: Aivas "Ajax," derived from Greek Aíuas; Aχmemrun "Agamemnon," derived from Greek Agamémnon, etc.
9. In addition to the "translation" of many Etruscan lexical items (including anthroponyms), the present Dictionary provides "translations" of approximately 1,600 inscriptions, translated in full or in part, in accordance with interpretations offered as certain, probable, or hypothetical. These translated inscriptions appear under the entries for those lexical items I judged most significant, and a complete list of them has also been presented in a separate appendix, employing the abbreviated references adopted by Rix's Etruskische Texte but arranged in strict Latin alphabetical order.
In translating these Etruscan inscriptions, I was guided by the criterion of translating or attempting to translate the longer and more complex inscriptions, while omitting those that are brief and readily comprehensible. Among the shorter inscriptions, I have provided translations only for those presenting particular interpretive difficulties.
The major Etruscan texts I have translated appear in a separate appendix entitled "The Long Etruscan Texts," specifically: "The inscription of the Arringatore," "The inscription of San Manno di Perugia," "The funeral eulogy of Laris Pulenas," "The epitaph of Lartia Cilnia," "The Golden Tablets of Pyrgi," "The Cippus of Perugia," and the Tabula Cortonensis. The Tabula Capuana and the Liber Linteus of the Zagreb Mummy, by contrast, are represented in the Dictionary through all their individual vocabulary items, together with the translation of select passages relating to particular lemmas (all of which are now included in my aforementioned recent work, The Major Texts of the Etruscan Language — Translated and Annotated).
10. The scholarly bibliography relating to the Etruscan language has by now grown to vast proportions, and for that reason it could not be included — whether in full or even in part — in a dedicated bibliographical appendix; the present volume would have been twice its current length, and I would have needed to work for another two or three years to compile it, with no prospect of achieving completeness in any case. I have therefore limited myself to citing, on a lemma-by-lemma basis, only the essential bibliography, referenced each time by means of the relevant abbreviations adopted.
11. I have already stated that I, too, accepted — as indeed all other Etruscologists are doing — the Etruscan lexical material in the form and arrangement presented by Rix's Etruskische Texte. I have also stated that I did not accept the solution he adopted for the transcription of the sibilant consonants using eight distinct graphemes. For this reason, I had initially decided to return to the now-traditional transcription — that is, to the use of just two graphemes: s for sigma and ś for san (or sade). I accordingly invested considerable effort in attempting to recover the traditional transcription of the two sibilants in all Etruscan lexical items in which they appear, drawing primarily on the Thesaurus Linguae Etruscae. However, this operation aimed at restoring and recovering in the lexical material only the distinction between s and ś ultimately proved not merely cumbersome and time-consuming, but practically dangerous. Given that the distinction among the eight graphemes used by Rix resides in the letters s or sigma — simple or surmounted by acute or grave accents, or by both — any attempt to restore this distinction across such a large number of words would inevitably have resulted in numerous errors through inadvertence, ultimately furnishing readers and scholars with no small number of incorrectly spelled words. (And for this very reason, it is entirely legitimate to doubt that inadvertence in writing such words did not occur on numerous occasions even on the part of the compilers of the Etruskische Texte themselves. One need only consider that in the first tablet of Pyrgi (Cr 4.4) all punctuation was omitted; in the Cippus of Perugia (Pe 8.4) a letter and two words were dropped; in the general Index 78 words were omitted; etc.) To avoid this hazard, I would have needed personally to conduct the autopsy of a very large number of Etruscan inscriptions — an operation that was obviously impossible. Accordingly, after numerous attempts and a prolonged period of indecision, I was compelled to yield to this serious difficulty and took the drastic decision to abandon not only Rix's eight-grapheme transcription of the two sibilants, but also the traditional two-grapheme transcription, employing in this Dictionary solely the letter s [though in the corrected portions of the text the distinct transcription of the two sibilants s and ś is maintained].
I will naturally be reproached that this unifying decision deprives the reader of the ability to recognize where the consonant san occurs. My advance response is that in actual practice no Etruscologist observes the distinction in pronunciation between sigma and san, given the well-known fact that the use of the two letters is completely reversed in southern Etruria as compared to northern Etruria.
I readily acknowledge, then, that my drastic decision predisposes to a pronunciation error with respect to the two Etruscan sibilants; yet one should consider that in practice a more serious and far more frequent error among Etruscologists is that of pronouncing the digamma F as [v] rather than as [u] — for instance, Velia and vinum rather than Uelia and uinum. Furthermore, it is exceedingly rare to hear an Etruscologist pronounce the Etruscan consonants as they ought to be pronounced, that is, as aspirated stops [th, ph, kh]; and so forth.
But then, an Etruscologist who undertakes a comprehensive and general work on the Etruscan language such as this Dictionary should step forward and explain in advance how they intend to proceed in order to escape the chaos into which the Etruskische Texte has plunged us regarding the transcription of the two sibilants — a chaos that only their author will be able to resolve, as we all hope, in the editio maior of his work, which he apparently was in the process of preparing [though, regrettably, he has since passed away in the interim].
Moreover, one must not overlook the fact that the present work is not primarily epigraphic in character, but is primarily linguistic, in which context a perfectly precise transcription of vocabulary items is by no means indispensable.
Finally, one must consider that the simplification I have adopted regarding the two sibilants will render the search for lexical items considerably easier, whereas searching through the Etruskische Texte is, regrettably, greatly difficult and exceedingly frustrating.
12. I conclude by stating that, as the final and overall result of my work, I have no hesitation in declaring my conviction that I have composed and published a work of sound general value — both as a work that aims to provide a comprehensive synthesis of all that has hitherto been scientifically established regarding the Etruscan language, and as a work that aims to constitute a useful instrument toward further progress in Etruscan linguistics. I likewise hold the conviction — or at least the hope — that with the publication of this work, the widely held opinion will at last entirely disappear, even among educated persons with a humanistic background, that the Etruscan language is still an unsolved "mystery," a language of which nothing or almost nothing is known, a language still awaiting complete "decipherment" from the very beginning. And in like manner, I hold the conviction — or at least the hope — that the perpetually recurring farce of self-proclaimed "decoders" of the Etruscan language will finally cease: those discoverers of the "key" or "cipher" of this language, who periodically — year after year, almost month after month — step boldly and cheerfully forward and offer themselves to the mass media, attracting their attention for at least a few weeks.
Massimo Pittau Sassari, October 2005
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