12.571, Disc: New: Initial "R"s in Hittite?

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LINGUIST List:  Vol-12-571. Wed Feb 28 2001. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 12.571, Disc: New: Initial "R"s in Hittite?

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1)
Date:  Mon, 26 Feb 2001 11:43:18 -0600
From:  "Jennings, Phillip C." <Phillip.Jennings at gpmlaw.com>
Subject:  No initial "R"s in Hittite?

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Mon, 26 Feb 2001 11:43:18 -0600
From:  "Jennings, Phillip C." <Phillip.Jennings at gpmlaw.com>
Subject:  No initial "R"s in Hittite?

My Hittite glossary lists no words beginning in the letter R.  This could be
because

I have a bad glossary.
Hittite has no words beginning in R.
Hittite scribes used the AR-cuneiform syllable in an ad-hoc way, sometimes
to signify AR and sometimes RA.
Hittites used initial R as a vowel.  Their ears did not distinguish AR from
RA.

Why this matters is, that the nation/confederation of Arzawa, defeated by
the Hittites a few generations before the fall of Troy, might be Razawa,
parsed as Raza-wa, homeland of Raza.

The Etruscan name for themselves was Rasna or earlier Rasenna, parsed
Rase-na or Rasen-na.

The simple step of identifying Raza with Rase gives the Etruscans a "Lydian"
homeland.

Note that the Hittite defeat of Razawa/Arzawa could have set refugees in
motion well before the fall of Troy.

The Razawa hypothesis becomes less edifying if the Etruscans entered
pre-history with an initial-T version of their name, which was later
truncated.  For this reason, I hope this isn't the case.  I propose that
knowledge of the Etruscans was vectored to the greater world through a
non-Etruscan language or group of languages that used a Ta, Ter, or Ty
prefix to indicate "those who speak."  The Indo-Anatolian languages have
"ta" as "talk" or "speech."  Early Anatolians may have habitually referred
to those who spoke strange dialects as "Ta-Rasenna-", "Ter-Mil-",
"Tar-Usa-", and so forth.

Comments?


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