Re: Etruscana (was: some Proto-Quendic grammar)

[Need monotype font to read the dice below!]

On Tuesday, November 18, 2003, at 10:00 PM, Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:

> Hallo!
>
> On Tue, 18 Nov 2003 19:57:11 +0000,
> Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:
> snip][
> What we know of Etruscan vocabulary does not IMO opinion suggest IE
>> connexion.
>> The first six numerals are:
>> thu, zal, ci /ki/, sa, mach /mak_h/, huth
>
> Yes, these show no relevant similarity to *oinos, *dwou, *treies, ...
No, I can't any relevance, either.  And the one thing that seems to come
through all the IE langs are the numbers 1..10 (even tho some, like
Armenian, do their best to disguise it  :)

> And even here, the experts don't agree.  Some say that _huth_ was `4',
> and _sa_ `6'.
Yes, I know; but IMO the reason for this is weak.  I guess you are familiar
enough with the numerals, but maybe some list members may be interested in
more
info.

The first six numbers were found written on a set of ivory dice (now in
Paris).  If we 'unwrap' the sides we get:
               ________
               |      |
               |  sa  |
______________|______|______
|      |      |      |      |
| zal  | huth | mach | thu  |      (The best I can do with ASCII)
|______|______|______|______|
               |      |
               |  ci  |
               |______|

Many dice have been found from Roman sites and the practice was already
well
established in antiquity of having opposite faces of a die adding up to 7;
therefore we may reasonably assume:
sa + ci = 7;
mach + zal = 7;
thu + huth = 7;

We know from the Phoenician-Etruscan gold plaques found at Pyrgi, near
Rome,
that 'ci' = 3:
Etruscan: 'ci avil' = Phoenician 'snt sls III' = three years (III)

Therefore, sa = 4.

By examining context of other numbers in inscriptions, it is found that
all,
except, 'thu' are used with what appear to be plural forms; therefore it's
a
fairly safe bet that 'thu' = 1.  In which case 'huth' = 6.

That just leaves 'zal' & 'mach' for 2 and 5 (=7).  The ending -alch clearly
mean 'x10' and we find, cealch/ cialch, sealch, muvalch which appear to be
related to 'ci', 'sa' snd 'mach' respectively.
We also have 'zathrum' which appears to be 20.  Thus it is assumed:
zal = 2;  zathrum = 20;
mach = 5; muvalch = 50.

There is also evidence from ages given on funerary inscriptions, but I
forget
the details.

>> Some other number words are know, but their meaning is not certain;
>> 'cezp'
>>   is
>> thought to be 7 or 8,
>
> Those who believe in an IE-Etruscan relationship of course prefer `7',
> but only because _cezp_ looks more like *septm than *okto.
Um - but the initial is /k/.  Not really very close to *septm=
Actually it looks more like Basque 'zazpi' = 7!!

>>      'nurph' may possibly = 9 and 'sar' = 10.
>
> Some people see a similarity between _nurph_ and the IE word for `9',
> but actually, only the initial /n/ matches.
Yep - nothing else matches.

>  And _sar_ has little
> in common with *dekm.
On the other hand, if Basque 'hamar' is from older *samar.........    ;)

[snip]
> One can safely conclude form all this that the evidence we have so far
> is utterly insufficient to establish a relationship of Etruscan with
> Indo-European.
..or anything else AFAIK. But that doesn't stop people doing so.  I've
found a list of claimed connexions:
- with Armenian (Bugge)
- with Basque & the Caucasian langs (Thomsen)
- with Finno-Ugrian (Martha)
- with Dravidian (Konow)
- with Greek (Coli)
- with Hittite (Geogiev)

Ray
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