Etruscans

[David L. White]

> [DGK]
> Yes, phonetic naturalization of loanwords must be normal, otherwise
> languages which borrow extensively would accumulate hundreds of phonemes.
> My objection was to the claim that */trosy-/ would have evaded the general
> metathesis /sy/ > /ys/ (postulated by Dr. White to explain non-lengthening in
> Epic Greek genitives) because it was perceived as a foreign word,

        That is not what I meant to say.  Since at least some intervocalic
/s/ had been lost by the time of Mycenean, the (posited) change of /sy/ to
/is/ must have been before this, perhaps far back in the pre-Greek period,
whereas the borrowing of /trosia/, or whatever, was presumably (or at least
by hypothesis) later.  Perhaps there is some obscure (to me) evidence which
would rule this out.  If so, I beg to be enlightened.  In any event, my
claim is not that /trosia/ escaped by being foreign, which would indeed be
bizarre, but rather that it escaped by being later.

Dr. David L. White