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

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).

] 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.

] 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.

IMHO there's too much doubt and one must beware of assuming connexion
because of odd apparent similarities.  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.

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

Some other number words are know, but their meaning is not certain; 'cezp'
  is
thought to be 7 or 8,  'nurph' may possibly = 9 and 'sar' = 10.

Some other words:
usil = sun
tivr /tiwr/ = moon
sech = daughter
clan = son
puia = wife.

"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]

Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
ray.brown@freeuk.com    (home)
raymond.brown@kingston-college.ac.uk   (work)
===============================================