Etruscans (was: minimal pairs)

[Steve Gustafson]

Ed Selleslagh wrote:

<<The general aspect of the language is flecting, with elements that recall
(P)IE
(e.g. -c, Lat. -que, Greek -te, but that could be contamination), but more
similar to e.g. Lydian (-l, -s genitives), apparently with a strong initial
accent and pileups of consonants. In short: like a cousin rather than a
descendant of ('narrow') PIE.>>

There are a number of things about Etruscan that suggest some kind of
relationship to PIE.

There seems to be some kind of inherited pattern of ablaut in several
lexical items in Etruscan: e.g. nom. clan, gen. clens, dat. clensi, nom. pl.
clenar, "son."  The noun endings themselves (-s genitive, -si dative, -ar
[from *-az or *-ans?] plural) seem to strongly resemble what has happened in
other IE languages.  A locative case or derived adjective predictably ends
in -ti or -thi.

Etruscan feminines typically end in -i or -a, resembling the two thematic
feminine types in Sanskrit.  (Uni, Ati, Menrva, Klutmsta)

Some pronouns: 1st sing. nom. mi, acc. mini.  3d sing an (he, she), in (it).
"This" is ita or eta; also ica or eca.  Accusatives of these add -n.

Adjectives derived from nouns usually add -iu or -(e)na; e.g. the family
name of Lars Porsena, and such Etruscan-Latin names as Furius.

Verbs show an apparently consistent past in -ce: turce (he, she, it gave);
svalce (he, she, it lived).  A possible sigmatic aorist?  especially since
some historians of Romance have blamed the palatalisation of Latin 'c' on
the Etruscans.  Imperatives show either a naked stem (tur!) or the
ending -thi.

The numerals, as is well known, hardly look IE, but you do have: 7 semph,
and 9 nurph.  7 *sep-, *seb- seems to be common Mediterranean as well as IE.

I have wondered about whether the Etruscans are somehow related to the
proto-Germans.  Like the Germans who must have spoken PIE with a terrible
brogue, the Etruscans seem to have done great phonetic violence to Greek
words they imported.  Klytaimnestra = Clutmsta,  Herakles = Hercle,
Menelaos = Menle, Polydeuces = Pulutuk, Diomedes = Zimite.  These names also
make you wonder whether their script was somehow inadequately supplied with
vowels, or made heavy use of abbreviated forms.

Much of Etruscan inflection and derivation, in so far as we can figure it
out at this remove, looks like a well-worn IE language of relatively recent
date.  So do most of their pronouns and particles.  It's the Etruscan
vocabulary that no one has yet been able to figure.

--
    We will walk into the snow, and we will keep walking, until
    we reach the grey horizon.

    Ceterum censeo sedem Romanam esse delendam.