Minoan, Etruscan, and Related Languages

"I hope that the text can be widely disseminated among the scholars in this field. If my experience is any indication of the likely response, it will be treasured. . . . Jatsemirskij clearly was set for a productive academic career that realistically could have culminated in finally cracking the code. In the wake of his passing, the book must be made available."

-Bernard Taylor, PhD, Research Professor, Loma Linda University

How are Linear A, Etruscan, and the ancient languages of the Mediterranean related? While the interrelationships among Indo-European languages have been studied extensively, much less is known about the languages that preceded them and their relationships. Here, scholar Sergej Jatsemirskij presents a comprehensive, comparative study of the Tyrrhenian languages of the eastern Mediterranean. Etruscan is the best-known example of them because of its greater number of extant inscriptions, but Jatsemirskij adds another dimension by introducing a comparative study with the older Minoan language of ancient Crete (written with the script known as Linear A).

Jatsemirskij, having initially explored these linguistic relationships in detail in his PhD thesis, continued this investigation at length for another decade, ultimately culminating in this volume. Tragically, his brilliant flame faded too soon, and, succumbing to pancreatic cancer at the age of thirty-seven, he was not able to see this book published. However, the editors felt that his extensive research should become available to all scholars, thus this volume.