Pelasgian Place-names

[Douglas G Kilday]

Rick Mc Callister (7 May 2001) wrote:

>	Would the source of Latin tarquin- /tarkwin, tar_qu_in/ & Etruscan
>tarchun /tarkhun?, tarxun?/ be something like /tarhwin, tarxwin/ ?

I would guess something like [tarkhun.-] where [n.] had the quantity of a
short syllable and sounded like /in/ to Latin-speakers. Etruscan gentilicia
based on this stem never have <i> written before <n>, nor <v> in place of
<u>. The reduction of [u] to [w] must have occurred in the Latin form,
[tarkwin-] from *[tarkuin-].

Similarly Etr. Armne must have been something like [arm.n.e] (cf. Lat.
Ariminum). Rasna must have had a "long" nasal, [rasn:a] (Gk. Rasenna).
Length of nasals was evidently allophonic in Etruscan, whose orthography
does not distinguish [n:] and [n.] from initial/final [n].

>	Early Latin had an /h/, and borrowed Greek /kh/ was usually
>transcribed as <ch>, so I'm guessing the <qu-> had to come from something
>else

Early Latin /h/ was probably closer to [x] or (unvoiced) [W] than to the
simple aspiration [h]. Archaic texts don't show aspirated stops (triumpe,
Bacanal, etc.); the aspiration was generally dropped in pre-classical
borrowings. The names Tarchunie and Thanchvil entered Latin in the 6th cent.
BCE, so the forms Tarquinius and Tanaquil lack any written indication of
aspiration. OTOH the classical poets heard and represented aspiration, so
Etr. Tarchu became Lat. Tarcho(n).

>	Or is it possible that Etrucan <chu-> was a conventional spelling
>for /khw-/?

Not likely, since Etruscan orthography _usually_ distinguishes the semivowel
(written F, transcribed <w>) from the vowel (written V, transcribed <u>).
Some inscriptions (mostly from marginal areas) use the vowel-sign for both,
as Latin does. Hence Lat. Quintus usually becomes Etr. Cvinte, but sometimes
is written Cuinte. Anyhow, there are plenty of examples of <-chv-> for
/-khw-/ in epitaphs of women named Thanchvil.

DGK