IE /st/ > Etruscan /z/

ERobert52 at aol.com ERobert52 at aol.com
Wed Mar 31 12:10:32 UTC 1999


[ moderator re-formatted ]

Adolfo Zavaroni writes:

>  could give s+th' > s+z > z. The equivalence <sth> = <ths> is attested in
> Raetic where the word <castri> is written also <caszri>,

I don't think you should rely too heavily on this for your argument. I presume
you are referring to the Steinberg inscriptions, which alone of the Raetic
inscriptions are outdoor rock inscriptions. They contain a number of
difficulties in reading. Z differs from T by the addition of one horizontal
stroke. Z occurs nowhere else in Raetic except one of the Magre' inscriptions
and many writers transcribe it as a kind of T. Also we do not know how to
apportion Etruscan and Venetic influence on the Raetic writing system(s). If
the latter, it is a D, not a Z. Without doubt words supposed to be cognate
written with Z in Etruscan are written with this or one of the four other kinds
of T in Raetic. But what can be made of these different letters phonologically
is not clear.

BTW, am I the only person whose mail system messes up when people put
things in <angled brackets> that could be construed as HTML commands?

Ed. Robertson



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