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THE ALPHABET
Some scholars hold that this Etruscan alphabet was not the oldest Etruscan writing, but that an earlier one had existed before, which they term proto-Etruscan and which they consider not only as the prototype of the early Etruscan inscriptions, but also as the parent of various other alphabets, such as the North Etruscan (Raetic, Lepontic and Venetic), the East Italic of the Piceni, and the Sicel alphabet of the Siculi (the tribe which gave the name to Sicily). However, there is no document extant of the suggested "proto-Etruscan" alphabet.
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Development of Etruscan Script
The forms and order of the Etruscan letters of the Marsiliana tablet are confirmed by the slightly variant copies of the Etruscan alphabet (Fig. 222) on a vase found at Formello (near the site of the ancient Veii), now in the National Museum of Villa Giulia in Rome, and on a vase (containing also a partial syllabary) found in a chamber-tomb of Cervetri or Caere vetus, and now in the Etrusco-Gregoriano Museum of Rome, both vases belonging probably to the late seventh, or to the sixth
century B.C.
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Fig. 223-The Etruscan "classical" alphabet in all but final form.
As time went on there were reductions and other modifications in the Etruscan alphabet, which we can best follow on the many samplealphabets (Fig. 222) preserved by a rare kindness of fortune at Viterbo, Leprignano, Colle (beside those already mentioned from Marsiliana, Formello and Cære), belonging to the seventh-sixth century B.C. and those from Rusellæ, Chiusi (four copies), Bomarzo, and Nola (three copies) belonging to the fifth-third centuries B.C., and on a partial syllabary from Orbetello (Fig. 221, 1), of the sixth or fifth century B.C.
In the fifth century B.C., the Etruscan alphabet consisted of twentythree letters (Fig. 223), containing the digamma (F) and three signs for s of which, however, the bi-triangular s does not appear in Etruria proper, and the letters k and q soon fell into disuse.
About 400 B.C. the "classical" Etruscan alphabet took its final form, having twenty letters, that is four vowels (a, e, i, u) and sixteen consonants (g, v-digamma, z, h, th, l, m, n, p, san, r, s, t, ph, kh, f), the letter f having the form of the figure 8, and san representing a sound akin to s. Etruscan speech knowing no distinction between the voiced and breathed sounds b and p, d and t, k and g, the letters b and d never appear in pure Etruscan inscriptions, and after the disappearance of k and q the letter C was employed for g and k.
