Etruscans (was: minimal pairs)

[Miguel Carrasquer Vidal]

On Tue, 16 Jan 2001 20:30:05 +0100, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
<mcv at wxs.nl> wrote:

>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[?]"].

One further thought: if we link the words <toverona[rom]> and
<tavarsio> on the stele to Etruscan <tevarath> "referee, judge", a
plausible hypothesis would be that the deceased's function (performed
"for Holaie the Phokaian", whose "naphoth" he was, in a place called
"Serona") would have something to do with the administration of
justice (despite the spear and shield(?) with which he is depicted).
Now <(h)isto:r> (*wid-tor-) is (Homeric) Greek for "judge", but I
wonder if there is an attestation in Ancient Greek of a magistrature
*<eu-(h)isto:r>, as this would fit very well with Lemnian <evistho>
(the -r may have been weak in the Greek source dialect, or dispensed
with in Lemnian if the plural suffix in that language was -r, as it is
in Etruscan).

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