and ostettu, we print apetu and ostetu, their identity with ampentu and ostentu is not at all obvious. While printing certain letters double, I warn the reader that they are single in the inscription, except where I note that they are double.

The earlier tables are in the Etruscan character, and will be read in the original by the very few who have leisure and taste for fundamental study. For all beside, the inscription must undergo a process of translation into another type, which involves delicate considerations. Oriental and Western Alphabets do not coincide throughout. First of all, we find in the EtruscoUmbrian but one letter for o and u, which is not wonderful ; for the letter, of which the Greeks made o, is the consonant Ain with the Phoenicians. Hebrew and Arabic characters (when written, as usual, without points, which are comparable to our accents) have but one letter Waw to denote ô and û; yet this does not imply that the languages have not the distinction. A Hebrew pronounces DD Sûs, a horse; and Tôra, the law. To write in Roman characters Sus and Tura for them, would misrepresent the language. Equally, when the Arabs pronounce Dain, a debt, and Dien, the faith, but write them alike, it would be wrong to do the same in our types. Of course, if we had no means of knowing the sound, we should have no choice; nor have we always the means in Umbrian. Nevertheless, finding in Roman letter Esono, sacred, and Futu, be thou; we learn how to transcribe the corresponding words from Etruscan character, which are neither to be Esunu and Futu, nor Esono and Foto. To insist on writing Esunu for Esono, and allege that this is difference of dialect, is to ignore the fact that the Etruscan character has no o separate from u. That the confusion rises out of the character, not out of the language, is doubly clear, when we find it to exist in the properly

PREFACE.

Etruscan inscriptions also, although the Etruscan and Umbrian languages are widely diverse. What they have in common, is, the imperfect alphabet.

But the deficiency as to o and u opens a wider subject. It is not o only that is defective, but d and g likewise; in fact b also is extremely rare. That the Umbrian and Etruscan languages, far less akin than Umbrian to Latin, should both be deficient in o, d, g, is a coincidence far too improbable to be received without strict and full proof. Until that is attained, we must positively disbelieve. On this ground, I think it too hastily concluded that the Etruscans had not the sounds o, b, g, d, merely because their alphabet is deficient.

Consider farther, if no literary cultivation yet existed in Italy, and a first effort were made to write the Italian language in modern Greek letters, what phenomena would meet us. The Greeks have no simple characters for our b, g, d; for their By are aspirated, and would be useless to an Italian, who, to express Bada might write wата as his best approximation. Locanda, he would write Xoxavтa, since vт in modern Greek is sounded as nd: here then he would get a real d sound: yet Amante would become aμavre, and we should have no clue to the fact that vr was to be differently sounded in λokavтa and aμavтe. Moreover Greek v being superfluous to Italy, o might (as probably in early Greek) do duty for Italian o and u. In that case evidently the defect of writing would not point to an unusual deficiency of sounds in the Italian language, but simply to a want of agreement between Italian sounds and those of the Greek alphabet. In like manner, the unsuitability of the Oriental alphabet is manifestly the cause of that phenomenon, which we see in Umbrian and Etruscan alike; and what makes this interpretation of the facts certainly

αμαντε.

correct, is, that the apparent deficiency of o an Umbrian vanishes, the instant we get the language i character.

More proof is not needed: yet more proof meets very surface. It is accepted by all as obvious fact inscriptions in Roman letter are later in time than t Their skill, beauty, and correctness is immensely supe to dwell on other proof, the final r, which replaces s first declensions, and in the gen. sing. of the 3rd, is conceded to be a later development, removing Umbrian more widely from Latin and Greek. If the earlier dialect had said ovem (a sheep) and fui (I was) as in Latin, but the later confounded o and u,. making uvem and fui, such later confusion would surprise no one. Just so the old Greeks distinguished λιμός and λοιμὸς, λúun and λnun, which the moderns confound; but to develop one sound into two, and come out upon agreement with Latin, is against nature. Now if it be hard to believe this as to o and u, how much more when it recurs with t and d also? This would make out, that (for instance) where the old Umbrians said something nearly like tato give, ticito say, uvem a sheep, the later Umbrians corrupted these into dato, dicito, ovem, which, by surprising good luck, give us the d and o just as in Latin. Surely the matter is plain to demonstration, that if the later dialect had this discrimination of d and t,-namely, d just where Latin has d, and t where Latin has t,-so had the earlier. Hence to write in Roman letter titu for ditu, (give thou,) does. but introduce a fictitious diversity of dialect, and puzzle a reader who has no time for continuous study. I have thought it my duty to interpret the two ambiguous characters of the Etruscan tables into o or u, into t or d, as the Roman tables give indication.

As for b, several theories are primâ facie possible. The form.

of the letter denotes that it comes direct from Greeks or Romans. It is not in the Etruscan alphabet. If imported from Rome, it may never have succeeded in establishing itself thoroughly in practical use; and hence the vacillations between p and b. Or if it came from the Greeks of Italy, it may have borne the sound v, so that no letter of the alphabet was specifically appropriated to b. But it suffices to point at matters which we need to know, before we can understand the phenomena before us. I only add, that the Umbrian letter which I write w, because it answers to the Roman consonant v (our w), has just the form of Hebrew 2.

The case of g is different; for it is extremely rare even in the Roman letter. Only two words begin with g, viz., Grabouio, gomia; in the middle of words we have mugatu, cringatro, juenga, agre, conegos. In gr, ng, it is possible that c grammatically is truer than g, and that the liquid turned c into g, as nt, tr, pr, are sounded nd, dr, br. Juenga seems to be corrupt Latin, Juvenca. If conegos (= conicatos) means, as I suspect, rex-factus, related to Germ. könig, the sound of g may have been foreign and exceptional. The verbal stem Muga has participle Muieto, showing g to pass into y. So the name of Iguvium is written with i (y) for g systematically in the Roman letter, and alternately with c and i in the Etruscan. Nay, in close contact we have (Ib. 2) "totas Ijowinas, totâper Icowinâ." This suggests that the Umbrian g in Iguvium had the sound of soft German ch or soft guttural g. In other instances what was properly an Umbrian g may have degenerated into a rough guttural gh, which is often conceived of as guttural r. It is known by us as "the Northumberland burr;" but it is really an Arabic Ghain, somewhat softened, as by Persians and Greeks. Many Germans and French pronounce r with this defect; and M. Hanoteau, in his Zouave grammar, writes the

Arabic Ghain as a modified r. The Umbrians have a secondary r; I suspect that it is a gh in disguise, and partially accounts for the deficiency of g.

More words are needful concerning this peculiar r, which appears as rs in the Roman letter, and constitutes the second great distinction of dialect. We cannot attain certainty as to the sounds, nor does anything essential turn upon them: only, if we can gain an approximate idea, it helps us to imagine the laws of conversion, from r to rs, to 1, to d, as well as to simple r. I will briefly express an opinion. I cannot think the analogy of r, rs, to pp, po, to be accidental; and when I consider the words Τυρσηνο, Τυῤῥηνο, Turchini, Ταρχων, I conclude that the sounds pp, po were nearly rch, rsh; ch meaning here soft German ch. In fact the two sounds might both be rendered rch in German, with only that change in ch which is provincially admitted. So too, whenever Umbrian rs is exchangeable with ṛ, I suspect it to mean rsh, which the Roman characters could not more precisely express than by rs. The r may have been the Northumberland burr, whether softer or rougher; whether as Greek y or as Arabic Ghain, naturally changeable into pure r, as in Umbrian itself Arfertur is also written Arfertur and Armo, Armo, Arsmo are identical. Much less need we wonder to find Ar, in Latin Arcesso, for Umbriṛ; ferehtro and suféraclo for feretrum and subférculum; peraie

πρωϊος, рwïos, peru frons (pápa). Common r is so often lisped into 1, by individuals and nations, that no further explanation is needed of suffering the same change. The passage of ṛ into d might admit learned, recondite, ambitious theories, where d and themselves interchange: but it is here perhaps enough to say, that if an Umbrian ṛ (= gh) passes into Latin d, an explanation is found in the inability of the Latins to pronounce the guttural. Thus the "Attighian brothers" might become