Etruscana (was: some Proto-Quendic grammar)

On Sunday, November 16, 2003, at 11:43 AM, Andreas Johansson wrote:

[snip]
> Etruscan's relatives? Are there any languages known be related to
> Etruscan?
The language on the stele found on Lemnos bears strong structural
resemblances
to Etruscans and is considered by many to be related.
(Must add a page on this to my website.)

Apart from that - no, there are no obvious links.

In 1925 Paul Kretschmer put forward a theory linking Etruscan to IE or, as
he called then, 'Indogermanisch'.  According to him, the IE were descended
from 'Urindogermanisch' (i.e. what we now call PIE), which had a sister
language, 'Urrätotyrrhenisch' (Proto-Raet-Tyrrhenic) from which were
derived
Raetian, Etruscan, and Pelasgic (the pre-Greek language of Greece) inter
alia.
Both Urindogermanisch & Urrätotyrrhenisch were, he said, descended from a
common
ancestor 'Protindogermanisch' - _not_ our PIE, but one generation back,
i.e. the Nostratic that some now theorize about.

I don't think anyone now adheres to Kretschmer's actual theory - but I'm
fairly certain there are still similar ideas about that link Etruscan with
with the IE of Anatolia (Hittite, Luwian etc) and/or with Nostratic.

Of course, inevitably, some have linked it with Basque' IIRC others hsve
suggested
links to the Dravidian langs; and I dare say someone, somewhere, somewhen
has suggest
a link with most of earth's different language families.   This seems to
be the
common fate of language isolates.

Ray
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