Tyrsenian, also called Tyrrhenian or Common Tyrrhenic, is a family of closely related extinct ancient languages proposed by linguist Helmut Rix in 1998, grouping pre-Indo-European, Paleo-European languages once spoken across the Italian Peninsula, the Eastern Alps, Corsica and the Aegean island of Lemnos. Member languages include Etruscan, known from about 13,000 inscriptions, Raetic, from about 300 inscriptions, Lemnian, from two or three inscriptions, and the possibly related Camunic, known from roughly 170 inscriptions. The languages went extinct between the 6th century BC and the 1st century AD, Etruscan surviving latest.
Facts
RegionItalian Peninsula, Eastern Alps, Corsica, Lemnos 1 Speaker CountExtinct family with no living speakers. Lemnian died out on Lemnos around the 6th century BC, Etruscan was assimilated to Latin by about the 1st century AD, and the latest Raetic inscriptions date to the 1st century BC. Proto-Language StatusReconstructed only in outline. Helmut Rix (1998), who first proposed the Tyrsenian family, dated the end of the Proto-Tyrsenian period to the last quarter of the 2nd millennium BC; the small surviving corpus of Raetic and Lemnian inscriptions limits fuller reconstruction. 1 Sources
1. Wikipedia: Tyrsenian Languages
Wikimedia FoundationTyrsenian languages, Wikipedia, infobox region field
[[Italian Peninsula]], [[Eastern Alps]], [[Corsica]], [[Lemnos]]
Tyrsenian languages, Wikipedia, Extinction section
The language group seems to have died out in Lemnos around the 6th century BC (by assimilation of the speakers to Greek), and as regards Etruscan around the 1st century AD in Italy (by assimilation to Latin).
Tyrsenian languages, Wikipedia, Origin section
Helmut Rix dated the end of the Proto-Tyrsenian period to the last quarter of the 2nd millennium BC.
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