2543: Etruscans Nov 29, 2021

Indigeneity of a people to a land is not an easy thing to ascertain. Before the Anglo-Saxons in Britain, there were Celtic tribes, but before then archeological evidence points to several other waves of inhabitation. Likewise, while the pre-Roman Etruscans might not have literally been the first peoples on the peninsula, they are often considered to be the indigenous people before the Romans. Indeed, they contributed much to overall linguistic development, modifying the Greek alphabet into one that would go on to be used by the Romans and spread around the world, and gave many common words to the vocabulary of Indo-European languages. That said, they didn't speak an Indo-European language, and have generally obscure origins. Some have tried to create a language family from linguistic evidence found around the Alps and Adriatic, but this is not agreed upon.