Etruscans (was: minimal pairs)

[Kreso Megyeral]

Steve Gustafson wrote:

>I have wondered about whether the Etruscans are somehow related to the
>proto-Germans.  Like the Germans who must have spoken PIE with a terrible
>brogue, the Etruscans seem to have done great phonetic violence to Greek
>words they imported.  Klytaimnestra = Clutmsta,  Herakles = Hercle,
>Menelaos = Menle, Polydeuces = Pulutuk, Diomedes = Zimite.  These names also
>make you wonder whether their script was somehow inadequately supplied with
>vowels, or made heavy use of abbreviated forms.

The same thing occurs in Albanian in borrowings from Latin (imperator -
mbret, parentem - prind, fossatus - fshat), so I suppose it has nothing to
do with the script.