Classification
The Etruscan language has been difficult to analyze, due to its being an isolate. Bonfante, a leading scholar in the field, says "... it resembles no other language in Europe or elsewhere ...." The ancients were aware that Etruscan was an isolate. In the 1st century BC, the Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus stated that the Etruscan language was unlike any other.
The phonology is known through the alternation of Greek and Etruscan letters in some inscriptions (for example, the Iguvine Tables), and many individual words are known through loans into or from Greek and Latin, as well as explanations of Etruscan words by ancient authors. A few concepts of word formation have been formulated (see below). Modern knowledge of the language is incomplete.
Read more about this topic: Etruscan Language