Etruscan Decipherment: Translation of Etruscan Inscriptions - Paperback

by Stuart L. Harris (Author)

For the first time, Etruscan Decipherment presents the beauty and complexity of Etruscan literature. The resulting texts embrace a range of topics that evince linguistic mastery. Translation was made possible by the discovery of a hundred bilingual inscriptions in an older script called Old European. The language is Finnish, once spoken throughout Europe. The script is a syllabary with over seventy different combinations of consonants and vowels. Because it is a syllabary, each letter spells a word, which means that even a short inscription expands into a long sentence.