Pelasgian/was Etruscans

[Douglas G Kilday]

Renato Piva (20 May 2001) wrote:

>The fact is that
>'kypeiron is a word found in ancient Greek, and Greek is an IE language.

According to A.M. Davies, no more than 40% of the Greek lexicon is
transparently IE. 8% is known to be non-IE, and the remaining 52% has no
recognized etymology. Even if half of this remainder turned out to be IE
(unattested in other branches), a third of Greek vocabulary would be non-IE
in origin. Of course, the bulk of commonly used Greek words is IE, as are
most of the inflections.

>Or, you can assume Etruscan intermediation for li:lium (with [as]similation
>l_r > l_l) and citrus.

If this assimilation (l_r > l_l) is typical of Etruscan, why do we find the
praenomina Larce, Larza, Larth, Laris, Laru, etc., the gentilicia Larce,
Larcna, Larthu, Larna, Larste, Lartle, etc., the noun <larca> 'type of
vessel', the words <larezul> and <lursth>, and the inscription <lur-anus>?
Etruscan clearly prefers /a/ between initial /l/ and /r/, but there is no
tendency to assimilate the /r/.

Furthermore, many of the West Romance reflexes of this word have l_r: Sp. &
Port. <lirio>, Catal. <lliri>, Sard. <gliri>, Prov., Piem., & Lomb. <liri>,
Pign. <lirru>. Italian has retained the second /l/ but fortited the first in
<giglio>. The simplest explanation is that Romance-speakers have a strong
tendency to _dissimilate_ l_l into l_r which continues the phenomenon seen
in Lat. <a:la:ris>, <mi:lita:ris>, etc. It would be very odd if speakers
adopted an assimilated form only to have their descendents reverse the
process. Therefore, I think we see in <li:lium> the more conservative
sequence of consonants. The Greek form <leirion> is in my view not
systematically dissimilated, but the Attican dialect of Pelasgian converted
*-eil- to *-eir-, while the Italian dialect retained *-eil- > Lat. -i:l-.
The other examples are Gk. *peirins ~ Lat. <pi:lentum> and Gk. <seirios>
'blazing' (epithet of dog-star; cf. gloss "seir = ho he:lios" (Suidas,
Hsch.)) ~ Lat. Si:lius (gent.).

Etruscan intermediation does an equally poor job of getting Lat. <citrus>
out of Gk. <kedros>. Generally, short /e/ in an initial Greek syllable
remains /e/ in the Etruscan borrowing: Cerun < Geruone:s, Ecapa < Hekabe:,
Ec(h)tur < Hekto:r, Thet(h)is < Thetis, etc.

>IMHO, in lack of further material the best and most honest solution would be a
><non liquet>.  For pi:lentum, one should be even more prudent. The meaning is
>not the same as in Greek: *peirins, -inthos (the Nom. is not attested!) is a
>"wicker basket tied upon the cart", while Lat. pi:lentum means more
>specifically "voiture de gala ` quatre roues, qui servait au transport des
>matrones dans les cirimonies publiques" according to Ernout-Meillet. Besides
>that, the word is not attested before classical time (Verg., Hor.), and
>Porphyrius says it is a Gaul word (cf. carpentum).

One can be prudent without throwing up the hands and grumbling "nihil
liquet". The transfer of sense between *peirins and <pi:lentum> is no more
difficult than some of the etymologies accepted by most IE scholars. I don't
claim that Pelasgian derivation is established, but the pattern of
peir-/pi:l- vs. leir-/li:l- is suggestive. When enough patterns have been
observed which fit neither the accepted scheme for derivation from PIE nor
any correspondence expected for direct or indirect borrowing, a good case
can be made for derivation from substrate. As for the other specific
objections, _most_ Latin and Greek words are not attested before classical
time, and the claim that a word is Gaulish doesn't mean that the base must
be _native_ Gaulish.

>What you call "one assumption" is in fact also a set of assumptions, some of
>which are implicit:

By "one assumption" I was referring only to the group of words represented
in Greek and Latin which constitute the "core" of the reconstructed
Pelasgian vocabulary, according to hypothesis. Extending the matter to West
Semitic, Armenian, or what-not indeed requires further assumptions.

>You assume 1. that kyparissos is the same as Hebr. go:pher (which is an
>unknown tree translated in numerous ways in the Septuagint; o.k., one of them
>is kyparissos, but that may be due to phonetical association; the name of the
>cypress in Hebrew is bro:s' or bro:t);

There are several misunderstandings here. I know of only one occurrence of
<go:pher> in the OT (Gen. 6:14), where it modifies the construct for 'wood'
in the expression <te:bhath !'ac,ey-gho:pher> 'ark of gopher-wood'.
Comparison with expressions like <!e:c, s^emen> 'oleaster' lit. 'oil-tree'
indicates that <go:pher> is not the name of a tree as such, but the name of
something it produces. The derivative <gophriyth> 'sulfur, brimstone'
suggests that <go:pher> means 'resin' vel sim. Eduard Selleslagh has
proposed 'glue, sticky stuff' as the original meaning.

It is not necessary for the Hebrew name for 'cypress' to be cognate with the
Greek. By hypothesis, Hebrew acquired <go:pher> 'glue, resin' vel sim. from
Pelasgian. The wood denoted by the Hebrew phrase doesn't even have to be
cypress-wood. There are plenty of cases of IE dendronyms referring to
different trees in different branches of IE. For that matter, Heb.
<b'ro:s^/b'ro:th> can mean 'cypress' or 'pine', and the Aramaic cognate
means 'juniper'.

>2. that there is no borrowing in either way, because both words come from a
>common "Pelasgian" source;

That was my "one assumption" concerning the group of words.

>3. that -issos is not Greek;

There are certainly Greek words of IE origin like <dissos> 'double' and
<melissa> 'honeybee'. I never claimed or assumed that all words having
particular endings were necessarily derived from substrate. The fact that
numerous toponyms and phytonyms end in -ssos and -nthos is highly suggestive
of substratal derivation, but it doesn't make these endings etymological
markers. If I appeared to imply that, I'm sorry.

>4.  that the suffixation had no function (otherwise, it could have remained
>*kyper, *kypar, *go:pher or the like).

I have _never_ claimed that -issos or any identifiable morpheme has no
function. If you recall the Etruscan discussion with MCV, I was the one
arguing vehemently against the interpretation of Beekes and van der Meer,
who consider Etr. -thi to be an optional (i.e. functionless) suffix. You'll
see Berlusconi taking a vow of poverty before you see me supporting
linguistic forms without functions.

In the Greek words of presumed Pelasgian origin, I regard -issos or more
generally -ssos as a denominative suffix: it produces nouns from other
nouns. I'm sure I've posted this opinion before. If *kupar- means 'glue,
resin, fragrance' vel sim., <kuparissos> denotes an object (such as a tree)
associated with it.

>In R. Lanszweert's reconstruction there is nothing weard about regular
>sound-correspondences, and the semantic analogy involved is not just <funny
>stuff>.  Assumptions such as the ones suggested have to be discussed
>seriously.
>Whether you agree or not. It is very easy to hide behind a wall of <subtrate>,
>but it may lead only to deviating attempts such as those one can read in the
>works of such omnicomparatists as Trombetti, van Windekens, Furnie, etc..

In my opinion the problem with Trombetti and his successors isn't "hiding
behind substrate" but failing to recognize that comparative work requires
the identification of _patterns_, not merely _resemblances_. Larry Trask had
a rather eloquent posting on this topic recently. Anyone can find
resemblances between any languages, and there has never been a shortage of
impressionistic "decipherments" of Etruscan having all the value of spilled
alphabet soup.

>IE languages were able to form compounds, so in my view there was only a
>limited need of loans. Just look at what German or Modern Greek are doing. But
>beware:  I'm not saying there were no loans at all. We only need to be careful
>with what we call <substrate>: <substrate> risks to become a waste-basket for
>anything difficult to analyse. Many of the words for which we do invoke
>subtrate may only be obscured compounds waiting to be rediscovered. Such Greek
>words do not occur in other IE languages, as they were specific of the Greek
>contest.  But the same may apply to any single IE language, of course.

And the same problem that you see in substrates is lurking in the method of
compound-recovery. Obscured compounds can fill a waste-basket just as
quickly as substratal forms. In fact, if the method involves free-lance
restoration of "lost" consonants, we have dragged ourselves down to the
alphabet-soup shenanigans of the "IE Etruscanists".

>> Then why are there still Greek words in -iskos?

>Because -iskos and -issos differ in expressivity: -issos can be the mycenaean
>expressive variation of -iskos (through *-iskjos). Exactly as there are both
>'polemos and 'ptolemos < *pjolemos, 'polis and 'ptolis < *pjolis, 'skyla and
>'syla < *ssyla < *skjyla, etc. Expressivity is a reality in every language -
>or shall we say that 'ptolemos, 'ptolis ans 'syla are substrate words?

I find this extremely difficult to take seriously. The function of <ptolis>
and <ptolemos> is to make preceding syllables long by position, which is a
mechanical feature of poetry and has nothing to do with expressivity.
Admitting arbitrary "expressive" phonetic mutations is the linguistic
equivalent of inviting Hell's Angels to your daughter's wedding. It should
be crystal-clear to any sane comparativist that no useful results can emerge
from such anarchy.

>I don't see any difficulty in pronouncing *pk'u-perih2. Can you pronounce all
>of the reconstructed words? If you don't believe that such "complicated" words
>may exist, take a look at the Kartvelian languages, or simply try to pronounce
>Georg.  vprtskvnis, a regular verb form meaning "they let us pay for it".  Of
>course, the initial cluster in *pk'u-perih2 was quite instable, thus it was
>simplified very soon to k- in Gk and c- in Lat., while it led to fs'- in Av.
>and ks.- in AI.

If you see no difficulty in pronouncing this, why would _native_ speakers
have any trouble with the initial cluster? Isn't instability just another
waste-basket for etymological difficulty?

>> How common is the typology of ejectives with laryngeals?

>I think this question doesn't apply here, or am I misunderstanding you?

I misunderstood your notation. I thought ['] indicated the preceding stop
was glottalized. Not that it matters ...

>Have you read [R. Lanszweert's paper]?

It's on my reading list, and I'll get to it when I can. In the interest of
good taste, I'll avoid further comments until I've read it.

>Ask the ancient Greeks. Why is resemblance to a beetle a more plausible
>connection than to the typical, hideous hum of the engine in the case of a
>famous car?

Because the car in question is being contrasted with a hundred boxy-looking
others.

>> For that matter, how distinctive is a
>> sheep-spit compared to a goat-spit, hog-spit, or (most aptly) bull-spit?

>Ask the Indoeuropeans, but *pek'u- may also mean cattle. In any case, Lat.
>cuspis comes from *pk'u-spid, see P. Thieme, Radices postnominales, in; Akten
>d. VII.  Fachtagung etc., Wiesbaden 1985.

I'll withhold pkomment until I've read the kpaper. I'm still puzzled by the
notion that Proto-Greeks would retain 'sheep' or 'cattle' or anything as a
prefix for something looking like a spit.

>I think I was wrong in what the name of the Island is concerned, but I guess
>you wouldn't be right, either. I probably mixed it up with Gk. 'obeloi "spits
>used as money" (in Plutarch and elsewhere according to LSJ). I'd like to
>correct myself: It seems that the name of the metal is secundary to the name
>of the Island. In turn, the Island seems to be named after the colour (henna)
>won from the plant called kypros - which by chance is also the colour of the
>metal.  This word is of Semitic origin (Hebr. kopher), as already stated by E.
>Masson and others.

This makes as much sense as anything I've seen. Henna was used for covering
women's nails with a reddish hue, so Heb. <ko:pher> lit. 'covering' (also
'village', 'pitch', 'ransom') was applied. The resemblance between this and
<go:pher> seems fortuitous.

>Gk. 'kypeiron and ky'parissos have probably nothing to do with kypros or
>Cyprus (or copper). If you still wonder, how a spit can be the origin of the
>name of a tree, see Ovidius, Met.  10, 106: metas imitata cupressus "the
>cypress looking like the obelisk" (obelisk is diminutive of obelos "spit").

Fine, but it's not *oiobelos, *bouobelos, or the like, is it?

DGK