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That website mentioned above is stark raving mad, is my guess. Reading the Phaistos Disk using modern Greek values? Forget about it.
Etruscan isn't completely deciphered. There's still been no Rosetta Stone that allows parallel reading. Most of the existing texts can be read because they're formulaic: So-and-so son of so-and-so, died aged n, held the magistracy of X, etc.
The supposed association between Basque and Etruscan is invalid. It was made many decades ago when they were among the few ergative languages known. The theory was A is unlike B, B is unlike C, therefore A must be like C. There is no resemblance at all between Basque and Etruscan apart from some typology.
These days the experts consider that Etruscan might be related to Indo-European, though all the similarities might also be due to borrowing (direction not known) -- and I mean way before the immediate pre-classical Latin period. The term Indo-Etruscan is sometimes used. This is highly tentative; you can't say it's generally accepted. That is, Etruscan is sometimes considered one of the branches of the "Nostratic" phylum.
Basque is still an isolate, its only relative being the ancient Aquitainian, which was very possibly its direct ancestor. Even less accepted than the Nostratic theory is the Dene-Caucasian theory, held by a small minority of respectable linguists and a great deal more cranks: this says Basque can be connected with North Caucasian (Abkhaz, Chechen etc), with Burushaski (an isolate in the Himalayas), with Sino-Tibetan, and with Na-Dene (Athabaskan, Tlingit, Navaho etc). Possibly Sumerian too.
These two theories are genuine scholarly extrapolations from existing knowledge -- that miracle cure Phaistos Disk site ain't!
Entire Thread Subject Posted By Posted Etruscan - where are we at? Max Quordlepleen 04/09/01 07:20 AM Re: Etruscan - where are we at? Capital Kiwi 04/09/01 07:46 AM Re: Etruscan - where are we at? Max Quordlepleen 04/09/01 08:04 AM Re: Etruscan - where are we at? NicholasW 04/09/01 03:11 PM Re: Etruscan - where are we at? Hyla 04/09/01 04:02 PM Re: Etruscan - where are we at? Bobyoungbalt 04/09/01 04:12 PM Linear B NicholasW 04/10/01 07:28 AM Re: Etruscan - where are we at? Max Quordlepleen 04/09/01 09:43 PM Re: Etruscan NicholasW 04/10/01 07:22 AM Re: Etruscan Max Quordlepleen 04/10/01 08:49 AM Re: Etruscan maverick 04/10/01 12:15 PM
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