The making of alphabetic writing systems in Central Italy. Some remarks about Etruscan and related alphabets|Formazione delle scritture alfabetiche in Italia centrale. Riflessioni sul caso dell'etrusco e alfabeti connessi

Etruscan alphabet was created following a path that was consistently different from what happened in similar instances in the ancient Mediterranean. Past research has often missed these peculiarities; the rare attempts to explain them have usually involved the elaboration of not always satisfying theoretical models. The paper aims to explain the circumstances surrounding the creation of the Etruscan alphabet by putting it in the proper social and historical context. When the Etruscan alphabet first appeared, Southern Etruscan cities where multilingual communities, including their upper classes. Parallels with writing systems employed elsewhere seem to suggest that the peculiarities of the Etruscan alphabet in its initial stages can be best explained as an attempt to create a writing system which could be used for all these languages at the same time.