-Thethis-,
Telephus -Thelaphe-, Odysseus -Utuze- or -Uthuze-. Of the few
terminations and words, whose meaning has been ascertained, the
greater part are far remote from all Graeco-Italian analogies; such
as, all the numerals; the termination -al employed as a designation
of descent, frequently of descent from the mother, e. g. -Cania-,
which on a bilingual inscription of Chiusi is translated by -Cainnia
natus-; and the termination -sa in the names of women, used to
indicate the clan into which they have married, e. g. -Lecnesa-
denoting the spouse of a -Licinius-. So -cela- or -clan- with the
inflection -clensi- means son; -se(--chi)- daughter; -ril- year;
the god Hermes becomes -Turms-, Aphrodite -Turan-, Hephaestos
-Sethlans-, Bakchos -Fufluns-. Alongside of these strange forms and
sounds there certainly occur isolated analogies between the Etruscan
and the Italian languages. Proper names are formed, substantially,
after the general Italian system. The frequent gentile termination
-enas or -ena(4) recurs in the termination -enus which is likewise
of frequent occurrence in Italian, especially in Sabellian clan-names;
thus the Etruscan names -Maecenas- and -Spurinna- correspond
closely to the Roman -Maecius-and -Spurius-. A number of names
of divinities, which occur as Etruscan on Etruscan monuments or
in authors, have in their roots, and to some extent even in their
terminations, a form so thoroughly Latin, that, if these names
were really originally Etruscan, the two languages must have been
closely related; such as -Usil- (sun and dawn, connected with
-ausum-, -aurum-, -aurora-, -sol-), -Minerva-(-menervare-) -Lasa-
(-lascivus-), -Neptunus-, -Voltumna-. As these analogies, however,
may have had their origin only in the subsequent political and
religious relations between the Etruscans and Latins, and in the
accommodations and borrowings to which these relations gave rise,
they do not invalidate the conclusion to which we are led by the
other observed phenomena, that the Tuscan language differed at least
as widely from all the Graeco-Italian dialects as did the language
of the Celts or of the Slavonians. So at least it sounded to the
Roman ear; "Tuscan and Gallic" were the languages of barbarians,
"Oscan and Volscian" were but rustic dialects.

But, while the Etruscans differed thus widely from the Graeco-Italian
family of languages, no one has yet succeeded in connecting them
with any other known race.