Etruscans (was: minimal pairs)

[Miguel Carrasquer Vidal]

On Sun, 14 Jan 2001 03:21:09 -0000, "Douglas G Kilday"
<acnasvers at hotmail.com> wrote:

>Examination of the Lemnian stele does not favor the hypothesis of Etruscan
>emigration from Anatolia. The alphabet of the stele and similar minor
>inscriptions found on Lemnos belongs to the Euboico-Chalcidian family, not
>directly related to the Phrygian alphabet used in NW Anatolia and Gordium,
>and out of place among the East Ionian and Cycladic alphabets typical of the
>Aegean. Features include the Lemnian use of the zigzag sign as a sibilant
>(not a vowel as in Phrygian), the fricative value of H (vocalic in East
>Ionian), the psi-shaped chi (X-shaped in Cycladic and EI), and the existence
>of vau (digamma, already extinct in EI). The Lemnian alphabet is clearly an
>intrusion from the West. Indeed it is difficult to derive this alphabet
>directly from Euboea without going through the Chalcidian models of Greek
>communities in Italy. For details see Carlo de Simone, "I Tirreni a Lemnos:
>l'alfabeto" in Studi Etruschi LX, 1994, pp. 145-63.

But Lemnos is only 50km or so off the Chalcidian coast.  It is
definitely not an Ionian, Aeolic or Cycladic island.  In fact, the
surprising thing would be if the alphabet did *not* belong to the
Euboico-Chalcidian family.

>The stele contains the phrase <holaies' naphoth> which is plausibly
>'grandson of Holaie'; Lemn. Holaie = Hylaeus (A. Trombetti, "La lingua
>etrusca", Firenze 1928, pp. 188-92). <Naphoth> corresponds to Etr. <nefts>,
><nef(i)s'> which is a loanword from Umbrian (A.J. Pfiffig, "Die etruskische
>Sprache", Graz 1969, p. 297).

Larissa Bonfante says the word was borrowed in Etruscan from Latin,
and in fact it might have been borrowed from any Indo-European
language having a reflex of *nepot-, including Greek (Homeric
<nepodes>) or even Carian (<nchoth> or <nphoth> "child", if I can
trust Woudhuizen's sources [Meriggi]).  So this word is rather
inconclusive, except that it's obviously easier to go from <naphoth>
to <nefts> than the other way around.

>The stele also contains <aker tavars'io
>vanalasial>, evidently the name of the honored/deceased in regular Etruscan
>form: Aker = praenomen, Tavars'io = gentilicium, Vanalasial = metronymic.

The two lines are usually read: "vanalasial s'eronai morinail / aker
tavars'io" (I'm sure there's a reason for reading "vanalasial", but on
every copy I've seen, what I read is: "va.m.ala.sial:
s'eronaimorinail").  There is no compelling reason not to accept your
alternative reading "Aker Tavars'io / Vanalasial S'eronai Morinail",
but if the first 3 words are the name of the deceased, what is the
meaning of <s'eronaimorinail>, apparently the genitive of "in Seruna,
in Murina"?

I'm personally convinced that the name of the deceased is "S'ivai", as
the central message of the stele seems to be (repeated twice: in the
front center, and on the side):  S'ivai evistho S'eronaith sialchveis'
avis' maras'm av[is' ais'] / S'ivai avis' sialchvis' maras'm avis'
aomai  [approxiamtely: "Sivai, "evistho" in Seruna, of years 60[?]
and[?] 5[?] years died[?]"].

>Other features of the inscription indicate that "Lemnian" should be regarded
>as a dialect of Archaic Etruscan, not a separate language, and hence not
>sufficiently remote from mainland Etruscan to serve for reconstruction of
>"Uretruskisch" or "Proto-Tyrrhenian". The Lemnian phrase <sialchveis' avis'>
>corresponds to Recent Etr. <s'ealchls avils> 'of sixty years (of age)' (or
>40 if you follow Torp's numeral scheme; cf. TLE 98). Note that Etr. <avils>
>is a genitive sg./pl. 'of year(s)'. The Lemnian dative phrase <holaies'i
>phokiasiale> 'to Hylaeus the Phocaean' corresponds in form to Recent Etr.
><larthiale hulchniesi> (TLE 84) and several Arch. Etr. dedicatory
>inscriptions.

On the other hand, Lemnian shows little or no trace of the ubiquitous
Etruscan 3rd.p. preterit ending -ce (there is <phoke>, but in view of
<Holaies'i Phokiasiale>, one can doubt whether this is a verb or a
reference to Phocaea), and it is in fact impossible to recognize any
verbal form in Lemnian (maybe -io ?).  The gap between <naphoth> and
<nefts> has already been commented on.  Neither <z> nor <f> occur in
this short fragment (and how would Lemnian have rendered <f>?), and
Etr. <u> (no <o>) is Lemnian <o> (no <u>) [this might merely be an
orthographic issue, in view of Morina=Murina].  Lemnian <mara> in the
formula <sialchvis' avis' maras'm avis'> must surely be a numeral, but
fits none of the Etruscan ones (the only one that comes even remotely
close is <mach> "5", a little bit closer [but still remote] if we
consider the derivative <muvalch> "50", showing that the -ch was not
part of the root, but probably identical to -c(h) "and" [cf. PIE
*pen-kwe "... and 5"], so something like *mawa-k(h) "[... and ]5",
*mawa-alkh "50").  In sum, I see little reason to think that Lemnian
differs only trivially from Etruscan, despite the fact that it is
clearly related to it.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl