[19 glyphs here are aligned with the letters below] a, c, e, v, z, h, [theta], i, l, m, n, p, s', r, s, t, u, [chi], f
On older monuments [glyph] = k occurs as an archaic form of c; [glyph] = q; [glyph], a sibilant of some kind; and [glyph] = [glyph], this last mostly in foreign words. In the earlier monuments the cross-bars of e and v and h have a more decidedly oblique inclination, and s is often angular ([glyph]). The mediae b, g, d, though they often occur in words handed down by writers as Etruscan, are never found in the Etruscan inscriptions, though the presence of the mediae in the Umbrian and Oscan alphabets and in the abecedaria shows that they existed in the earliest form of the Etruscan alphabet, O is very rare. The form [glyph] (earlier [two glyphs] ) = f in south Etruscan and Faliscan inscriptions should also be mentioned. Its combination with [glyph] h shows that it had once served to denote the sound of digamma just as Latin F. The varieties of the alphabet in use between the Apennines and the Alps were first examined by Mommsen (_Inschriften nord-etruskischen Alphabets_, 1853), and have since been discussed by Pauli (_Altitalische Forschungen_, 1885-1894, esp. vol. iii., _Die Veneter_, p. 218, where other references will be found, see also VENETI).
5. The determination of the alphabet was followed by a large number of different attempts to explain the Etruscan forms from words in some other language to which it was supposed that Etruscan might be akin; Scandinavian and Basque and Semitic have been tried among the rest. These attempts, however ingenious, have all proved fruitless; even the latest and least fanciful (_Remarques sur le parenté de la langue étrusque_, Copenhagen, 1899; _Bulletin de l'Académie Royale des Sciences et des Lettres de Danemark_, 1899, p. 373), in which features of some living dialects of the Caucasus are cautiously compared by Prof. V. Thomsen (as independently by Pauli, see § 12), is at the best premature, and as to the numerals probably misleading. Worst of all was the effort of W. Corssen (_Die Sprache der Etrusker_, 1875), in whom learning and enthusiasm were combined with loose methods of both epigraphy and grammar, to revive the view of Buonarroti. The only solid achievement in the period of Corssen's influence (1860-1880) was the description of the works of art (tombs, vases, mirrors and the like) from the different centres of Etruscan population; Dennis's _Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria_ (1st ed., 1848; 2nd, 1878) contributes something even to the study of the language, because many of the figures in the scenes sculptured or engraved bear names in Etruscan form (e.g. _usils_, "sun"; or "of the sun," on the _templum_ of Placentia; _fufluns_;, "Bacchus"; _tu[ch]ul[ch]a_, a demon or fury; see Dennis, _Cities_, 2nd ed., frontispiece, and p. 354).