LOST LANGUAGE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 750, 24 August 1929, Page 29

LOST LANGUAGE

SECRET OF ETRUSCAN DIES WITH PROFESSOR The secret of Etruria's lost language was carried to the tomb by Professor Alfredo Trombetti, who died of a heart attack while bathing off the Lido recently. Last April the professor, most famous of Italy’s linguistic scholars, announced he was at last about to penetrate the veil of mystery which had shrouded the Etruscan tongue. Spurred by a government money grant as aid, he had made sure progress in deciphering inscriptions of the ancient pre-Roman people and comparing them with the Latin. He thought finally lie was on the verge of discovering the key, and so be able to shed light on the Etruscan racial origins and reconstruct at least some part of their literature. He kept his peace, and fellow Etruscan students never knew just what he had in mind. The work represented more than thirty years’ labour and he wished to reveal the fruit of his investigations only when they were complete, baring finally the secrets of the strange race, apparently neither Aryan or Semitic, to whom the Romans owed so much. The attack which ended his life was sudden and unexpected and therefore it was believed here he had carried liis lore into oblivion with him. Besides his familiarity with Etruscan, he was an expert in the American dialects, and at the Americauistic congress in Rome in September, 1926, he showed the great analogies between the Indo-Chinese and the North American tongues prior to the conquests. Professor Trombetti was born in Bologna in 1566, of poor parents. He worked as barber’s apprentice, studying at night and perfecting himself in languages and finally obtained a scholarship in the University of Bologne.