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

Hallo!

On Tue, 18 Nov 2003 19:57:11 +0000,
Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:

> On Monday, November 17, 2003, at 08:52 PM, Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
> [snip]
>
> > IF these suffixes are interpreted correctly, THEN an IE-Etruscan
> > relationship looks VERY likely.  Unfortunately, this interpretation
> > of the suffixes is highly controversial,
>
> Yes, it is.
>
> And some could equally well be nonIE, e.g.
> pronoun:
> ] 1sg. mi, acc. mini
> -m- for 1st person is widespread, cf. Finnish -mme (we);
> Turkish -m (my; I), -m-z (our).
Yes, they could be used as evidence for an Etruscan-Uralic or
Etruscan-Altaic connection as well as for an Etruscan-IE one.

This similarity of IE, Uralic and Altaic pronominal forms
is taken by some to be one of the strongest pieces of evidence
for Nostratic.  The similarity is certainly remarkable, but yet
we cannot rule out coincidence or areal influence.

> ] 3sg. (anaphoric) an, in
> ] relative/interrogative: ipa < *in-pa ?
> ] demonstratives: ika ~ (e)ca; ita ~ (e)ta
>
> Demonstratives with -t- are not confined to IE, e.g.
> Malay/Indonesian 'itu'; Tamil 'itu' [iDu] and 'atu' [aDu];
> Finnish 'tuo', 'tämä' etc.
A supporter of the Nostratic hypothesis would count the Finnish
and Dravidian forms as evidence for relationship, but hardly
any Nostraticist is as bold as to include Austronesian;
the occurence of /t/ in the Malay form is certainly mere coincidence.

> ] These are declined as nouns, except they have an accusative in -n
> ] [cf. PIE acc. *-m, 1sg. *me, demonstr. *ko-, *to-]
>
> The Etruscan -ce /ke/ seems to a preterite suffix; this is quite
> different from the ancient Greek Perfect in -ke.  The latter does
> _not_ have a  past meaning; it denoted a _present state_ resulting
> from a past event.
Yes, a preterite is not a perfect, and a perfect is not a preterite.
And the Greek -ke perfect is not of PIE age, but a later innovation;
hence, it is at least extremely unlikely that the forms are cognate.

> IMHO there's too much doubt and one must beware of assuming connexion
> because of odd apparent similarities.
I wholeheartedly agree with you.

>      I have elsewhere pointed out that
> there is a language where:
> - the demonstrative 'that/ those' is expressed by a concord prefix plus
> +le,
> yule, wale, ule, ile, zile, kile, vile etc.
> - the demonstrative 'this/ these' by h+ concord, e.g.
> huyu, hawa, huu, hii, hizi, hiki, hivi etc.
>
> One could easily posit a connexion with Latin _ille_ and _hi(c)_
> respectively;
> some descendant of a common Italic.  Fortunately, we know enough about the
> second language - Swahili - to know that the apparent _ille ~ -le, and
> _hi(c)_ ~ h- is pure coincidence.
That's a good example, and neatly illustrates the pitfalls of
comparing tiny bits of morphology.

> 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, ...
And even here, the experts don't agree.  Some say that _huth_ was `4',
and _sa_ `6'.

> 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.

>      '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.  And _sar_ has little
in common with *dekm.

> Some other words:
> usil = sun
> tivr /tiwr/ = moon
> sech = daughter
> clan = son
> puia = wife.
These don't look similar to IE words at all.

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.

> "You know the sort of thing that you can find in any dictionary of a
> strange
> language, and which so excites the amateur philologists, itching to derive
> one
> tongue from another that they know better: a word that is nearly the same
> in
> form and meaning as the corresponding word in English, or Latin, or Hebrew,
> or what not."
> [J.R.R. Tolkien]
A wonderful quote!

Greetings,

Jörg.

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