Latin perfects and Fluent Etruscan in 30 days

[Adolfo Zavaroni]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Ed. Robertson wrote:

> The Kaminia stele from Lemnos shows beyond doubt that there were speakers of
> an Etruscoid language situated not far from Lydia. Lydian itself does not
> appear closely related to Etruscan and its relatives genetically, but there
> may be Etruscoid substrate influence on Lydian...

> You don't have to believe the Etruscans and Raeti came from Anatolia, but
> Etruscoid was spoken in that area.

I do not know the Lidian. Certainly I doubt that Etruscan
came from Anatolia. As for the Lemnian, Carlo de Simone,
"I Tirreni a Lemno", 1996, quotes an article by
R. Drews and the book "In search of the Indo-Europeans" etc.
by J. P. Mallory whose conclusions are similar :
1) R. Drews:  "settlers from Etruria established themselves
on Lemnos (and wrote the inscription)".
2) Mallory: "The similarity between Etruscan and Lemnian is too
great to be explained by anything other than a more direct and
immediate historical connection, possibly involving a visit to
Lemnos by Etruscan traders".
3) de Simone, p. 88: "Etruscan and Lemnian cannot be connected
to the most ancient pre- or para-Hellenic linguistic stratum."
The Lemnian 'Tyrrenoi' came from west (i. e. from Italy).

> ... if one tends to detect or imagine cognates in IE roots
> as part of the interpretation process, one cannot then go and point to
> these 'cognates' and say that they prove a relationship. That would be
> a bit tautological, unless the volume of the evidence was
> overwhelming.

I agree on the tautological aspect of the interpretations. However
I think that the 'metodo calcolatorio' (and similar), used by deserving
scholars like Pallottino or Rix and consisting in supposing that
an Etruscan formula corresponds to a Latin or Italic or Greek formula
for circumstantial reasons, is more tautological because discarding
linguistic bases a priori, one has less elements at disposal
(it is supposed that the circumstantial reasons must be always
searched together with the linguistic etyma).

> According to Lejeune, there are 2 Venetic words that may be explained
> by comparison with Germanic alone, although in general Venetic appears
> to be very close to Latin:
> .an.s'ore.s <->? Gothic 'ansts' (grace/favour) , and
> SSELBOISSELBOI <->? Gothic 'silba' (self)

> Any others in mind?

*mainly* by comparison with Germanic. Add:

'frivi', 'teuters', 'kvidor', 'verkvaloi' and many Personal names
(Tival-, Crumelon-, Raupat-, Lem-on-, Qualt-, Ege-t-, Urkl- etc.)
for which there is the circumstance of the cognominatio
by synonymy (as well as in Etruscan, on my mind).

As for the common ancestors of Etruscans and Rhaeti, I never
formulated even the question, because I am yet too involved
in gathering epigraphic data. However your suggestions on the
chronologies are very interesting.

Adolfo Zavaroni