Latin perfects and Fluent Etruscan in 30 days!

[Eduard Selleslagh]

At 21:14 28/07/99 +0200, you wrote:

[ moderator snip ]

>[Damien Erwan Perrotin]

>The idea is interesting, but probably inexact as am- is not present only
>in Latin but also in Lydian (ama : to love) and in Breton (afan : to
>kiss from an older Brythonnic *ama). It is still possible that the
>Lydian form was a borrowing from an Etruscan-like tongue of the Aegean,
>but that is quite unlikely for Breton. So there can be only three
>explainations for the ressemblance you point out :
>a: chance ressemblance (always possible)
>b: Etruscan borrowed the word from Latin or from Celtic
>c: Etruscan is remotely linked to IE and this root is a remnant of this
>old relationship.

>Personnally, I favor the third thesis, but there is still work to do
>before proving it.

>Damien Erwan Perrotin

[Ed]

Has it been proven that the Breton afan was  derived from an originally
Brythonic *ama? (I have no problem with the reconstruction itself, I even
mentioned it in a different way).  Brythonic languages like Welsh contain
large numbers of words that are most likely loans from Latin. It's all a
matter of timing, of course.

It could very well be that b.(from some early Celtic or Italic, later:
Latin), maybe even back and forth, and c. were involved. According to M.
Carrasquer's Stammbaum, which I subcribe to, IE and Etruscan (and the like)
are cousins. (I can send you the GIF file, but not via this list).
The only thing I'm pretty convinced of is that the Etr. and Lat. am- and
the Lat. amb- (IE m.b-) roots are related, the problem is 'how?'. The
scarcity of data about the direct relatives of Etruscan are a major obstacle.

Ed.

Eduard Selleslagh
B-9120		Haasdonk (Beveren)
Belgium
Phone & Fax: +32-3-775.69.69	E-Mail: edsel at glo.be