Due to popular demand, it's time to discuss pre-Indo-European languages. Time to crack open this can of worms, starting with one of the more famous ones: Etruscan. https://twitter.com/G4rfV1kernes/status/1249209194668003329

Etruscan is, for all we know, a language isolate though it could be related to other extinct languages spoken in what is now Italy, this family is known as Tyrsenian. It's written in the Old Italic script, making it somewhat easy to read for

people who can read the Latin alphabet. Now, I did hear there was an Etruscan-Latin dictionary which got destroyed, as a result we don't know much about Etruscan.
Now, here's an interesting tidbit. The word "person" in English may be of ultimately Etruscan origin.

It comes from Latin "persona", which possibly comes from Etruscan "phersu", or "mask".

Now, the majority of inscriptions in Etruscan go right to left, but more archaic inscriptions go left to right. Not to mention, it's hard to know where words separate in some inscriptions, as there are no markers showing where a word begins and ends in those inscriptions.

However, this is only a problem in *some* inscriptions, others separate them just fine.

Now, in my opinion, Etruscan phonology isn't anything special if you've studied Latin or Greek. Furthermore, Etruscan syntax isn't much to care about.

Now, on to some of the more minor languages (and also scripts): Eteocypriot. There isn't too much information on this language, no one even knows where it comes from or how its syntax works. However, what is good to note here is that its writing system

is (apparently) related to the Mycenaean Greek script (which wasn't derived from Phoenician like later Greek languages), but instead from the Linear A script, which is undeciphered.

Now, Iberian languages. Aquitanian, which is an early form of Basque. Not much to know here other than that.

Now, Basque. As far as I know this is the only pre-IE language still spoken in Europe. From a phonological perspective it's more of the same, but there are differences in syntax which are out of the scope of this thread (for now).

However, what is good to mention is that nouns can be inflected in 17 different ways! That's even more than Finnish.

Sadly, Basque is on the decline as more Basques switch to speaking in Spanish or French. But I hope it continues being spoken as it is a wonderful language. I would've thought Basques assimilated to IE languages over the years but apparently not.

Thanks for reading this thread.