A few days ago, I received a mail concerning the North Picene language and the Novilara Stele. The language appears to have been present in NE Italy around the first millenium BCE. The stele in question reads thus:
mimnis . edut . gaarestadesI was asked whether this language looks related to Etruscan or Rhaetic languages and in my honest opinion it's not. While it appears to have an Indo-European-like look, it continues to defy translation. We might note some grammatical patterns in it. The ending -ten marks a number of words here (aiten, paten, treten) and is similar to a second person plural ending found in PIE languages. The words teu and eus remind me vaguely of the Indo-European pronouns *tu "you" and *n̥s "us". Some words appear to be marked by an accusative singular ending -m as we typically find in Indo-European languages (rotem, polem) and others appear to be marked with the tell-tale Indo-European nominative ending *-s (gaarestades, lutuis, ands, sotris).
rotnem . uvlin . partenus
polem . isairon . tet
sut . trat . nesi . kruvs
tenag . trut . ipiem . rotnem
lutuis . θalu . isperion . vul
tes . rotem . teu . aiten . tasur
soter . merion . kalatne
nis . vilatos . paten . arn
uis . balestenag . ands . et
ut . iakut . treten . teletau
nem . polem . tisu . sotris . eus
