QA 6_1_1

Q: Did the Etruscans speak Latin?

A: No, although the Etruscan civilization is considered as the precursor culture to Ancient Rome, the Etruscans did not speak Latin.  In fact, Latin developed in Latium, in central western Italy, as a descendant of the Proto-Indo-European language, from the Italic language family.  The Etruscans had their own language, a non-Indo-European language, probably related to the Tyrsenian language family.  Etruscan and Latin co-existed in the Italian peninsula for a few centuries, and even some Etruscan words entered the Latin language, such as the word Rome itself.  Finally, Etruscan became extinct in the 1st century AD, after being completely superseded by Latin.  Unfortunately, very few documents in Etruscan have survived to our time.  Thus, modern scholarship still has a rather limited knowledge of the Etruscan language.