Alinei: The Etruscans were Turks
I have just finished reading Professor of
Linguistics, Mario Alinei’s book entitled Gli
Etruschi erano Turchi (The Etruscans were Turkish). As we can assume from
the title, the author claims an affinity between the Etruscans and Turkic
peoples. I know little about Etruscans, but being a Turkolog the title drew my
attention. The Etruscan origin of Turks (or vice verse) is not a mainstream
theory since according to the common knowledge, Turks arrived in Anatolia only
in the 11th century as an invading population, but Alinei claims
that Turks had lived in Anatolia very much earlier. According to his
hypothesis, the Anatolian Turks (who came from Troy) arrived and founded the
Etruscan Empire. Sincerely, at first sight, it seemed to me more a fantastic
idea rather than a reality, but my curiosity did not let me just discard the
book. Actually, I also had got some insight after some research in the field
that Turkic peoples must have lived in Anatolia even earlier than the common
knowledge teaches us.
Well, let me make some comments about the book!
He starts with the discovery of genetic
affinity between Turkic people and Etruscans which he confirms by linguistic
and cultural evidence. I reasoned in this way: if there is a genetic affinity,
it really means something! Of course, language affinity is not necessarily
equal to genetic affinity but he collects the evidence of the affinity between
these two peoples from other fields as well which strengths the possibility of
the linguistic affinity.
In general, he uses a clear,
understandable language (which is rare), an interdisciplinary approach (also
rare) taking support from genetics, linguistics, archaeological finds and
history. In my judgment, it should be a fundamental approach for all scholars
as without knowing the ‘background story’ it is impossible to have a clear
picture of a special field.
I focused especially on the linguistics part because
the rest is outside my competence and it would be difficult to make fair
comment. He gives a wordlist of 58 words with their etymology from Turkic
languages.
Although there are very few texts which can be
given relatively deeper analysis, and so making a comparison with other
languages more difficult, the author gives a considerable solution to the
origin of linguistic elements.
As far the linguistic evidence is concerned, some
of it clearly can have a connection with Turkic while others seem to me to need
more explanation. I know he had given Hungarian etymologies too in his other
writings for some words listed in this book. From his point of view, the
Hungarian or Turkic origins do not exclude each other, as he believes in the
existence of the big Ural-Altaic language family.
Actually, more than the linguistic evidence, the
genetic and cultural evidence has convinced me.
I think,
after so many traces in different fields the linguistic evidence also has to be
searched somewhere in Anatolia, more specifically, among Turkic languages. To my mind, some deeper analysis is definitely
needed, but looking at the big picture, he has discovered something very
interesting!
I recommend this book to everyone who is
interested in the origins of peoples and languages in general, but it can
satisfy the desire for knowledge by linguists in special fields like
Etruscology or Turkology as well.