Fluent Etruscan in 30 days! (was: Latin perfects)

[Rick Mc Callister]

[snip]

>I've a pet crank theory that Etruscan might be related to the non-IE
>substrate spoken by the boat-people that seems to be present in
>Germanic.  This is a far-fetched hypothesis.

	Adolfo Zavaroni's version of Etruscan in I documenti etruschi
suggests links to Germanic --but (as I remember) he sees Etruscan as an IE
language
	He uses linguistic comparison in a way that the Bonfantes rail
against BUT his idea that Etruscan <z> /ts/ & <s'> correspond to IE /st/ is
interesting
	I don't know how Zavaroni situates Etruscan in IE, though
	I'd like to hear more about your theory, though --although I'm sure
IE-list is not the place, maybe on Nostratic list

>There do seem to be some vocabulary coincidences:  -aisar-, Etruscan for
>"gods;" cf. ON -aesir-, "celestial gods."  Both Etruscan and Germanic
>had plurals in -aR, which in the case of Germanic represents *-az.

	Someone pointed out to me that ON aesir was from *ansar [or
something similar]

>When borrowing Greek mythological names and other words, the Etruscans
>did phonetic violence to 'em that resembles the Germanic sound shift.
>Specifically, Greek b, d, g > p, t, k in Etruscan.  Kastor stayed Castur
>in Etruscan, but Polydeukes became Pulutuk.  (And Pulutuk became Pollux
>in Latin.)

	or Pultuce
	Zavaroni's view is that the Etruscans essentially invented folk
etymologies for figures in Greek mythology

	As much as anything else. Etruscan's lack of voiced stops reminds
me of Minoan & Cypro-Minoan scripts, which also lack these. Etruscan,
however, did have aspirated stops, which [I believe] were also lacking in
Minoan & Cypro-Minoan Aegean scripts [unless kh, ph & th were really
unvoiced fricatives].