Etruscans and Veneti

Ais appears to be pan-italic, as it is present in Umbrian esono- (divine),
Oscan aisusis and Venetian aisu (god). This is generally
interpreted as a borrowing from Etruscan, but this is unlikely, since this
word appears also in a Gaulish inscription from Paris as Esus.

The territory of north-eastern Italy and the adjacent regions of modern
Slovenia and Austria used to be inhabited in Roman times
by the tribes of Veneti.

Venetic is the language of the Iron Age Este culture. There are over 200
inscriptions, though none over ten words long, written
from the VI to the I century BC in an Indo-European language. The
inscriptions use an Etruscan-like alphabet.

Venetic is believed to be a single group very close to Italic, Illyrian and
Celtic. Obvious are contacts with Etruscan and maybe Rhaetian.

IDEA: As Etruscans were colonizing the Venetic neighbour regions around
-600, and as the Venetic alphabet is clearly
based in that of the Etruscans, it seems quite evident that high culture was
debt to Etruscans.

Example inscription: "mego zontasto sainatei reitiai porai egeotora aimoi ke
louzerophos" (in Latin would be: me donavit sanatrici
Reitiae / Rectia bonae Egetora pro Aemo et -que liberis) meaning "Egetora
gave me to the Good Reitia the Healer on behalf of Aemus
and the children".

The reflection of Indo-European stops is very similar [in Venetic] to Latin
and Illyrian - voiced aspirates disappear. New spirants
f, h, ts appear, the Indo-European labiovelar *KW was preserved.

Golasecca with iron and celtoid population (Lepontics).

The Urnfield Culture is generally assumed to have Celtic, or Proto-Celtic
speaking (Sergent, 1996), (Mallory, 1989), and also its
northern Italian extensions: the Paleo-Venetian culture associated with
inscriptions in an Indo-European tongue generally thought to
be close to Latin (Sergent, 1996), and the Golasecca culture, associated
with inscriptions in an early Celtic dialect called Lepontic
(Sergent, 1996), (Lambert, 1997).

The Lepontic was spoken in the lake region of northern Italy between -700
and -400; however, it most probably was used
before and after this date as well, though we have no existing proof of
that. The Lepontic peoples lived along the periphery of a
number of other groupings of people and in close contact with the Ligurians
and Rhaetians (non-Indoeuropean tribes of the
north part of Italy), in addition to the Etruscans and Venetians, and that
is why their language is considered to be mixed in
various ways with these others. Scientists agree to the statement that
Lepontic Celts came here during one of the first waves of
Celtic expansion over Europe and lived in the region until they were
eventually assimilated by the expanded Latin (Roman) state
(or by the later-arrived Senone Gauls, who represented the next major Celtic
wave). We can only state that Lepontic was a
P-Celtic tongue, but of a specific group different from both Brythonic and
Goidelic. [After, the] Gauls came to Northern Italy in the
early 4th century BC breaking up this balance of ethnic groups in the
region.

Urnfield Culture (-1300), with cremation, spreads to the Lacio.

The ancient Romans used incineration many centuries.

Both cremation and inhumation were practiced by the Umbro-Oscans.

We know that Italic languages suffered significant phonetic changes due to
pre-Indo-European population of Italy, especially this
influenced Umbrian, Picene and Volscian. It looks like Latin also had not
only lexical influence of Etruscan, but phonetic as well.

The Latin had sister languages also in Italy (Oscan, Umbrian, Falisc, etc.).
These, along Latin constitute the
Italic languages, that lead to suppose that there was once a proto-Italic
that might have been spoken around -1200.

IDEA: The Italic languages would have splitted from a Illyro-Celto-Italic
branch by influx of the substrate language/s present in Italy ?
In the other hand, the Celto-Illyrian would be more near to Celtic and
Illyrian in the north as it was already IE (Terramare Culture).

At Ancona begins the coast of that part of Gaul known as Gallia Togata
[North Italy, Po Bassin]. The Siculi [Epiro-Macedonians, also
Pelasgians] and the Liburni [Illyrian tribe] possessed the greater part of
this district [since -1200, as the presence of Illyrians and Epirotes
is posterior to the Trojan War], and more particularly the territories of
Palma, of Praetutia, and of Adria. These were expelled by the Umbri
[Italics, as Urnfield invaders, -1200], these again by the Etrurians [around
-600, the colonists will be known as Raethians], and these in
their turn by the Gauls [by -400, Celtics that will be the dominant ethnic
element in the Po Basin at the arrival of the Romans]. (Pliny).

IDEA: That would point to a later arrival of the Italic tribes to Italy.

L' étruscologue italien, Mario Torelli, a écrit dans une étude de l'ancienne
religion étrusque à propos de la présence latine
dans l'Italie préhistorique: après avoir attiré l'attention sur la
"singulière et jusqu'à présent sous-estimée 'suprémacie' de l'ambiance
latino-falisque et italique orientale sur celle étrusque" il affirme que "la
contribution humaine latine,
falisque et italique à la phase intense de développement culturel d'époque
villanovienne a été vraiment énorme"
La documentation de cette affirmation se trouve dans la série d'emprunts au
Latin et aux langues Italiques dans la théonymie étrusque:
Ana Anna, Maris Marte, Menerva Minerva, Uni Iuno, Suris Soranus, Nethuns
Neptunus, Satre Saturnus, Vetis/Veive Vediovis,
Selvans Silvanus. Ce que cette documentation démontre, en effet, c'est ni
plus ni moins la présence latine et
italique dans l'Italie pré-villanovienne, c'est à dire du II millénaire au
plus tard.

ETRUSCAN DIVINITIES: mainly Mediterranean as Aplu (Apolo), Silvano, Turma
(Hermes or Mercury) Losna (Luna, Moon),
Esta (Vesta) along others unknown (Tinia as Zeus), Turanna (as Fortune),
Fufluns (as Baccus), Sethlans (as Vulcanus).

Herodotus: "therefore their king divided the
whole Lydian people into two parts, and he appointed by lot one part to
remain and the other to go forth from
the land; and the king appointed himself to be over that one of the parts
which had the lot to stay in the land,
and his son to be over that which was departing; and the name of his son was
Tyrsenos. So the one party of
them, having obtained the lot to go forth from the land, went down to the
sea at Smyrna and built ships for
themselves, wherein they placed all the movable goods which they had and
sailed away to seek for means of
living and a land to dwell in; until after passing by many nations they came
at last to the land of the
Ombricans [Umbrians], and there they founded cities and dwell up to the
present time: and changing their name they
were called after the king’s son who led them out from home, not Lydians but
Tyrsenians, taking the name from him."

IDEA: So they found stablished Italic tribes in the Tuscany [around -1100].

The Umbri are thought to have been the most ancient race in Italy, it being
supposed that they were called "Ombrii" by the Greeks, from
the fact of their having survived the rains which had inundated the earth.
We read that 300 of their towns were conquered by the Tusci
[Etrurians] (Pliny).

Next to this comes the seventh region, in which is Etruria, a district which
begins at the river Macra, and has often changed its name.
At an early period the Umbri were expelled from it by the Pelasgi; and these
again by the Lydians, who from a king of theirs were named
Tyrrheni, but afterwards, from the rites observed in their sacrifices, were
called, in the Greek language , Tusci (Pliny).

UMBRI were not PELASGIAN

South of Rome there were two main cultures: the Adriatic, with inhumation
and extended in those areas occupied by Illyrians,
in the Adriatic side [Messapics]; and the culture Fosse Tombs in the
Tyrrhenian side, including also Sicily [Sicani ?].

CONCLUSION: It is not clear that the Italics entered Italy with the first IE
that arrive to the Penninsula around -2100.
In whichever case, these IE would be represented by the Euganei, but we
don't know any realistic filiation for them.
In the other side, being the Terramaricoles a derivation of the Balkanic
Vucedol culture, many times identified as
Illyrian... In the other side we must not forget that Bell Beakers
(supposedly carriers of a Italo-Celtic language)
also were present in North Italy, so that the Urnfield peoples would have
not found a nation and language too different
from themselves (being themselves sprout from Bell Beakers).
Around -1200 Italy suffered first an invasion of peoples that carried the
Urnfield culture to the north: the Golasecca
(or Celtoid Lepontics) and the Este (or Illyrian Liburnians / Venetians),
implying the cremation of the deceased.
The Urnfield peoples also reached the Tuscany, but there would be
represented by Celto-Italics that suffered an strong influence
from a non-IE substrate, so driving away the Italic branch from the common
language. The Urnfield expansions also led to
expulsions of native peoples of Greece and Turkey, and then many choosed
Italy as destiny, as will be seen.

VENETS

Venetic speakers are sometimes identified as Italics or Illyrians, but
evidently they were none of them, though closely related to
these two groups. Also Venetic has close ties with P-Celtic and Germanic
languages.

Attested that Venetic was near to the Latin group.

IDEA: In the other side to deny the filiation of Venetic with Illyrian is
unreasonable since the Illyrian toponymy reflects the language
spoken before the arrival of the Slavs to Dalmatia (around 500 AC), enough
time as to evolve after two millennia in the region (please
think over the different evolution of Spanish and Romanian, as in "cuatro"
and "patru").

IDEA: In fact the Illyrian has not left inscriptions... but being the
Venetic an Illyrian branch that would display that the Illyrian, coming
from a culture common for Celtics and Italics (the Urnfield Culture), it
would be logic to branch Illyrian with Celto-Italic, in fact
modern Albanese ressembles more Italian than any Celtic language.

INFO: Veneti could correspond to Alb. vendi 'homeland, country' hence an
Illyrian name.

INFO: Latin dies day => Rumanian zi. Also in Venetic: *DO- > zono (where
Italic got dono, "I give"). So it
seems that Venetic and Romanian suffered a similar substrate influence.

INFO: Contrarily to the theory stablished by Romanian linguists, the
Romanian sprout in the southern Balkans, not in Romania
as many evidences point it.

VENETIC ITALIAN DIALECT: It follows the main Italian characteristics, but
with some major exceptions as the sonorization of
intervocalic PTK, the group LI becomes j (ALIO > ajo); group SCI > s,
consonantic sonority, and loss of final -E (PANE > pan).

IDEA: The high degree of retention of Latin/Italian characteristics would
confirm then that the substrate language of this dialect
did not differed too much from Italic.

Herodotus (i. 196) includes under the name of Illyrians the Heneti or
Veneti, who lived at the head of the gulf; in another passage
(iv. 49) he places the Illyrians on the tributary streams of the Morava
river [Bosnia].

Appian, The Foreign Wars: "In order to make use of his leisure in the
meantime, Sulla marched against the Eneti, the Dardani
[Illyrian tribe], and the Sinti, tribes on the border of Macedonia, who were
continually invading that country, and devasted their territory."

Herodotus had heard of the Heneti or Eneti on the Adriatic, and he speaks of
Eneti as Illyrians.

Herodotus, The Histories: "The wisest of these, in our judgment, is one
which I have learned by inquiry is also a custom of the
Eneti in Illyria."

VENETI = HENETI = ILLYRIANS

IDEA: It seems probable that there was an Illyrian tribe known as Venetic
near Kosovo, but that by logic reasonement, they
would have occupied the areas colonized by the Illyrian Liburnians.

IDEA: If the Venetic was an Illyrian dialect, by theory with the help of
modern Albanian it could be possible
to understand partly Venetic inscriptions

PART 2

IDEA: Another possibility would be that the Pannonians of Hungary conquered
the previous IE tribes of Dalmatia, even
some near Kosovo (Eneti), and some in the Troad (Eneti and Teucrians in the
area). So the Pannonians would be
both ethnic and geographic origin of the Illyrian / Venetic tribes, being
one of these the Veneti of Italy, coming to the
penninsula with other Illyrian tribes as the Liburnians or the Messapians.
In whichever case, till the filiation
of Venetic would not be clear, it will be difficult to explain the arrival
of the Italics.

At Ancona begins the coast of that part of Gaul known as Gallia Togata
[North Italy, Po Bassin]. The Siculi [Pelasgians] and the Liburni
[Illryians] possessed the greater part of this district, and more
particularly the territories of Palma, of Praetutia, and of Adria. These
were
expelled by the Umbri, these again by the Etrurians, and these in their turn
by the Gauls. (Pliny).

IDEA: The fact that a Illyrian tribe occupied the Po Basin before the
Italics point to an early date: maybe -1100 ? Also the fact to
don't mention Venetics points that they were originated from the Illyrians
or from the Umbri...

Catone, autore vissuto tra III e II secolo a. C., per qualificare i Veneti
di stirpe troiana (Plin. Nat. Hist. III, 130:
"Venetos troiana stirpe ortos auctor est Cato").

IDEA: And as can be seen in the Anatolian section, the Trojans seem to be
related to Paeonians / Pannonians, and these
related to Illyrians... Moreover a branch of Paeones dwelt in the Troad.

The Illyrians were stablished in the north coast of the Adriatic Sea since
-1300. Among the Illyrian tribes, there were the Dalmatians
and the Pannonians as the most famous. Another group of Illyrians, the
Messapians, crossed the sea and colonized the Adriatic
coast of Italy, these left some epigraphic material.

History of Rome (Ab Urbe Condita) by Titus Livius:
To begin with, it is generally admitted that after the capture of Troy,
whilst the rest of the Trojans were massacred, against two of them
-- Aeneas and Antenor -- the Achivi refused to exercise the rights of war,
partly owing to old ties of hospitality, and partly because these
men had always been in favour of making peace and surrendering Helen. Their
subsequent fortunes were different. Antenor sailed into
the furthest part of the Adriatic Sea, Enetians who had been driven from
Paphlagonia by a revolution and after losing their king
Pylaemenes before Troy were looking for a settlement and a leader. The
combined force of Enetians and Trojans defeated the Euganei,
who dwelt between the sea and the Alps and occupied their land. The place
where they disembarked was called Troy, and the name was
extended to the surrounding district; the whole nation were called Veneti.

ENETIANS were not TROJANS: "combined force of Enetians and Trojans".

IDEA: The fact to mention a country with a name of a tribe doesnot imply to
have similar language, take the case of the Germanic
Franks in France; but such situation would point to a period of dominance at
least.

"As to Aeneas, Antenor, and the Enetians, and, in a word, the survivors of
the Trojan War that wandered forth into the whole inhabited
world - is it proper not to reckon them among the men of ancient times? For
it came about that, on account of the length of the campaign,
the Greeks of that time, and the barbarians as well, lost both what they had
at home and what they had acquired by the campaign; and so,
after the destruction of Troy, not only did the victors turn to piracy
because of their poverty, the still more the vanquished who survived
the war. And, indeed, it is said that a great many cities were founded by
them along the whole sea-coast outside of Greece, and
in some places in the interior too." (Strabo).

And others say that a tribe called Eneti, bordering on the Cappadocians,
made an expedition with the Cimmerians and then were driven
out to the Adriatic Sea. But the thing upon which there is general agreement
is, that the Eneti, to whom Pylaemenes belonged, were the
most notable tribe of the Paphlagonians, and that, furthermore, these made
the expedition with him in very great numbers, but, losing their
leader, crossed over to Thrace after the capture of Troy, and on their
wanderings went to the Enetian country, as it is now called.
According to some writers, Antenor and his children took part in this
expedition and settled at the recess of the Adriatic, as mentioned by
me in my account of Italy. It is therefore reasonable to suppose that it was
on this account that the Eneti disappeared and are not to be
seen in Paphlagonia. (Strabo).

Maeandrius says that the Eneti first set forth from the country of the White
Syrians [north Turkey]and allied themselves with the Trojans,
and that they sailed away from Troy with the Thracians and took up their
abode round the recess of the Adrias, but that the Eneti who
did not have a part in the expedition had become Cappadocians [have changed
language]. (Strabo).

At any rate, Sophocles says that at the capture of Troy a leopard's skin was
put before the doors of Antenor as a sign that his house was
to be left unpillaged; and Antenor and his children safely escaped to Thrace
with the survivors of the Heneti, and from there got across
to the Adriatic Henetice. (Strabo).

Livy, History of Rome: Antenor sailed into the furthest part of the
Adriatic, accompanied by a number of Enetians who had been driven
from Paphlagonia by a revolution and after losing their king Pylaemenes
before Troy were looking for a settlement and a leader.

IDEA: Such Enetians not necessarily were native Paphlagonians but colonists
from the Balkans expelled by natives.

In the Illiad, Homer refers to the Paphlagonians as one of the most ancient
nations of Asia Minor, derived from the Eneti or Heneti. This
reference has prompted speculations that the Paphlagonians are a stray
branch of the Veneti, who migrated from the Balkans to settle at
the head of the Adriatic. Others suggest that the Paphlagonians are kin to
the Macedonians tracing common roots to the Phrygians.

IDEA: As in the Anatolian section it seems that the Trojans can be linked to
Teucrians, and those to Pannonians/Paeones, and
the last are related to the Illyrians, the mith about a common ancestry
between Veneti and Trojans could be recognized.