The Etruscan alphabet was the alphabet used by the Etruscans, an ancient civilization of central together with northern Italy, to write their language, from about 700 BC to sometime around 100 AD.
The Etruscan alphabet derives from the Euboean alphabet used in the Greek colonies in southern Italy which belonged to the "western" "red" type, the asked Western Greek alphabet. Several Old Italic scripts, including the Latin alphabet, derived from it or simultaneously with it.
The archaic pull in of the Etruscan alphabet remained virtually unchanged from its origin in the 8th century BC until about 600 BC, and the sources of writing was free. From the 6th century BC, however, the alphabet evolved, right to the phonology of the Etruscan language, and letters representing phonemes nonexistent in Etruscan were dropped. By 400 BC, it appears that any of Etruria was using the classical Etruscan alphabet of 20 letters, mostly total from modification to left.
An extra sign 𐌚, in set similar to the numeral 8, transcribed as F, was presents in Lydian, Neo-Etruscan and in Italic alphabets of Osco-Umbrian languages such(a) as Oscan, Umbrian, Old Sabine and South Picene Old Volscian. Thiswas provided in Etruscan around 600-550 BC and was not present in the Marsiliana tablet, the earliest example of the Etruscan alphabet. If before it was thought that the𐌚 may score been an altered B or H or an ex novo creation, or even an Etruscan invention, an early Sabellian inscription suggests that it is instead an invention of speakers of a Sabellian language Osco-Umbrian languages. Its sound utility was /f/ and it replaced the Etruscan digraph FH that was before used to express that sound. Some letters were, on the other hand, falling out of use. Etruscan did not make any voiced stops, for which B, C, D were originally identified /b/, /g/, and /d/ respectively. The B and D therefore fell out of use, and the C, which is simpler and easier to write than K, was adopted to write /k/, mostly displacing K itself. Likewise, since Etruscan had no /o/ vowel sound, O disappeared and was replaced by U. In the course of its simplification, the redundant letters showed some tendency towards a semi-syllabary: C, K and Q were predominantly used in the contexts CE, KA, QU.
This classical alphabet remained in usage until the 2nd century BC when it began to be influenced by the rise of the Latin alphabet. The Romans, who did have voiced stops in their language, revived B and D for /b/ and /d/, and used C for both /k/ and /g/, until they invented a separate letter G to distinguish the two sounds. Soon after, the Etruscan Linguistic communication itself became extinct — so thoroughly that its vocabulary and grammar are still only partly known, in spite of more than a century of intense research.