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

From:Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>
Date:Tuesday, November 18, 2003, 6:08
>
On Monday, November 17, 2003, at 07:49 AM, Andreas Johansson wrote:
> Quoting Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>:
[snip]
> In 1925 Paul Kretschmer put forward a theory linking Etruscan to IE or, as >> he called then, 'Indogermanisch'. According to him, the IE were >> descended >> from 'Urindogermanisch' (i.e. what we now call PIE), which had a sister >> language, 'Urrätotyrrhenisch' (Proto-Raet-Tyrrhenic) from which were >> derived >> Raetian, > > I tought it was spelt "Rhaetian"? But apart from that, how much is known > about > this language?
The Romans normally wrote _Raeti_, _Raeticus_ etc. The occasional spellings with rh- are doubtless prompted by the conventional latinizing of Greek words - but these ain't Greek words. Kretschmer used the spelling without the intrusive 'h', and I see no reason to do otherwise. Both spellings - Raetia & Rhaetia are found in English. But for some reason the 'h' AFAIK is always included in the term 'Rh(a)eto-Romance. As for their language, practically nothing is known for certain. It's only from the testimony of the Roman historians that we assume the Raeti and Etruscans were related. In an area between the Trento-South Tyrol region and pre-Alpine mountains between Lake Garda and Padua, some 70 inscriptions have been found. These are conventionally termed R(h)(a)etian; but I understand they bear no obvious resemblance to Etruscan, though their alphabet is of Etruscan origin. The inscriptions were published by Conway-Whatmaugh "The Prae-italic Dialects II (Cambridge, MA, 1933), inscriptions 188 to 254, and more recently by V. Pisani (Editor) "Le lingue dell'Italia antica oltre latino" (2nd. ed. Turin 1964), pages 317 sqq. Go, seek :)
>> Etruscan, and Pelasgic (the pre-Greek language of Greece) inter >> alia. >> Both Urindogermanisch & Urrätotyrrhenisch were, he said, descended from >> a >> common >> ancestor 'Protindogermanisch' - _not_ our PIE, but one generation back, >> i.e. the Nostratic that some now theorize about. > > Distinguishing between "Urindogermanisch" and "Protindogermanisch" does > strike > me as unhelpful terminology ...
Blame Paul Kretschmer :) [snip]
> Someone ought to make the definite list of languages no-one has suggester > are > related to Basque ...
'twould not be very long! Indeed, I suspect it would be an empty list. Ray =============================================== http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown ray.brown@freeuk.com (home) raymond.brown@kingston-college.ac.uk (work) ===============================================

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Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>