Pelasgian Place-names

[David L. White]

> Isn't Tarhuntassa securely located as a neighbor to Kizzuwatna?
> (I envision this about as far east as the borders of southwest Asia
> Minor can be stretched.  I have heard that Tarhuntassa = later Tarsus.)

        That would be interesting, if true.  Both words look like possible
/turs^/ words to me.  (Perhaps we should rename these "/tors^/ words".
This lack of a distinction between /u/ and /o/ is annoying.)

> How old a god is Tarhun(d/t)?  Could he possibly be pre-Anatolian (ie.
> Pelasgian on the theory that Pelasgian <> Anatolian)?

        I do not know, but the form of the name is very close to Etruscan
version of "Tarchun", as in various names that come down in Latin as
"Tarquin-", which is a little suspicious.

> But I think the answer must be no.  Tarhun(d/t) is as Anatolian as St.
> Brigid is Irish.  In that case, did the founders of Tarhuntassa append
> a foreign -assa suffix to give their city name "class?"  (I'm from
> Minneapolis so I'm familiar with this practice.)

        My guess, as has been indictated, is that a good many of the rather
suspiciously far-flung Pelasgian names have that sort of origin.  But does
"Tarhun" really occur with a "d" or "t" attached?  That might (or might not)
make it the same thing as the famous /-nthos/, in which case we would have
double-suffixing.

> Rather than this, Is there not sufficient evidence here and elsewhere,
> that the -assa suffix is Anatolian as well as Pelasgian?

        I do not know, but it would not be surprising.  Depending on their
nature, it is not terribly unusual for suffixes to be borrowed.  (Sorry to
be repeating myself to some extent here.)

> Given the location of Tarhuntassa and its obvious Anatolian-ness, can't a
> strong case be made for a bond between Anatolian and the substrate
> everybody's talking about here?

        See Palmer's "The Greek Language" for an over-confident and not very
strong (in my opinion) version of that argument.  And note that in between
"The Latin Language" and "The Greek Language" he seems to have changed his
mind about the Pelasgians, for in the former they are a pre-IE susbtrate,
while in the latter they are Anatolians.  I think he had it right the first
time.   Though attempts have been made to connect "Pelasgian" /-nth/ (or
whatever it was) with a somewhat marginal IE suffix having a meaning of
'animate plural' (as I recall), which might (or might not) make sense for a
place-name suffix, this does not seem to work very well with /huakinth/
'hyacinth', /asaminth-/ 'bath-tub', /merinth-/ 'thread', /erebinth-/ 'pea',
and /olunth-/ 'unripe fig'.

> I suspect Dr. White has given my "right-fork" theory of Anatolian-Pelasgian
> connectedness a death-blow, but alas I am too elementary in my thinking
> processes to understand what he meant by:

>> As for the Pelasgians being a "right fork" of the IE-Anatolians who passed
>> into Greece, if their language had phonetically aspirated /t/s (and
>> presumably /p, k/), which is necessary to explain how Anatolian /t/ could
>> appear as Greek /th/, would we not find "Chorinthos", "Pharnassos", and even
>> (farther afield) "Tharthessos"? To invoke aspiration merely to explain the
>> Greek /th/ for Anatolian /t/ (or even /d/), conveniently ignoring unwanted
>> side effects, is not acceptable. What language in the world aspirates /t/
>> only after /n/?  None that I ever heard of.

> Apparently it is my burden to explain the Greek /th/ for Anatolian /t/ or
> /d/, but I don't know why.  (And certainly I don't know how!)

        Sorry to have been unclear (and over-confident).  What I meant was
that as Anatolian had only /t/ and /d/, no /th/, we would not expect /t/ to
be borrowed as /th/ unless all voiceless plosives were aspirated in
Anatolian, in which case we would expect to find no (or at least few)
examples of "Pelasgian" borrowings with Greek /p-t-k/.   It has since been
brought to my attention that some languages do indeed aspirate voiceless
plosives only after nasals, but the Anatolian words in question show /nt/
varying with later /nd/, which would indicate that Anatolian did not do this
(which is not surprising), but rather was more like English in tendning to
de-aspirate or even voice originally voiceless plosives after nasals.

> Dr. White also explains the wide dispersion of -assos names (like Tartessos)
> as possibly due to later Greek mediation.

        I am not sure I did that, or if I did, whether it was a good idea.
I think there were just enough city-names in /-ssos/ kicking around that
people began to think of /-ssos/ as an appropriate ending for city-names,
just as we have reached the point where we are well-pleased with
country-names that end in "-ia".  As far as I know, there is no evidence of
an "Old Tartessos", somewhere back in the eastern Mediterranean, that a "
New Tartessos" in Spain, with the "New" part conveniently forgotten) would
have been named after.

Dr. David L. White