If the Etruscans inherited the West Greek alphabet from Greek migrants on the Italian peninsula, and the West Greek alphabet (in contrast to the Ionic) didn’t contain the letter Ξ, how/why does the Etruscan alphabet contain the letter Ξ?

by manwithmeasuringline

It is my understanding that the Etruscans got the alphabet from Western Greek migrants who settled on the Italian peninsula way back in the eighth century BCE. Unless I am mistaken, the West Greek alphabet didn’t contain the letter Ξ, which corresponded to the letter ס (samech) in the original Phoenician alphabet (I am guessing the Western Greeks concluded they had no use for this letter in their dialect and dropped it at some point). Yet, this letter is clearly present in the Etruscan alphabet, and I cannot find any explanation for this anywhere. Did the Etruscans inherit their alphabet before the Western Greeks dropped that letter? What gives?

Brassica_Catonis

There wasn't just a single western Greek alphabet, and western Greeks did use Ξ. See, for example, coins from Naxos in Sicily - on the earlier issues their xi looked more like a chi (unsurprising, as Naxos was a Euboean colony, and this is a typically Euboean letter form), with the conventional Ξ appearing in the later fifth century. For a Dorian example, see this inscription from Selinous (line 11 - unfortunately there's no photo so we can't see the actual letter form).