Etruscan numerals (was: Interesting pre-Greek article)

Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
[snip]
>>>He seems to have built it around a single "cognate set", namely
>>>PIE *kWetWor- `4': Etr. _huth_ - but the latter probably meant
>>>`6', not `4',
>>
>>IMO it did mean 6. The argument for _huth_ = 4 is very weak.
>
>
> Yes.  It hinges on a place name, _Yttaria_ for a town that is named
> _Tetrapolis_ in Greek.  There are three unproven assumptions in this:
>
Yes - my sources give the place name as _Hyttenia_ (YTTHNIA in Greek);
but maybe there are textual differences.

> 1. Both names mean the same. (There are plenty of cases of names of
>    the same place in different languages meaning entirely different
>    things.)
Indeed there. For 22 years I lived in south Wales in a place called
'Newport'; its Welsh name is 'Casnewydd' = "new castle".

> 2. _Yttaria_ is from a language related to Etruscan.  (How do we know?)
We don't! The town/city was in Lycia in Asia Minor - not exactly close
to Etruria in Italy. Could the name have been, er, Lycian? AFAIK there
is no obvious relationship or connexion between Lycian & Etruscan.

> 3. _Yttaria_ contains a morpheme *yt(t)- that is cognate to _huth_.
>    (Again, how do we know?)
We don't.

> On the other hand, we have that pair of dice, which together with
> some other facts almost necessitate the conclusion that _huth_
> means `6'.
Yep - the Etruscans, like the Romans, normally put dots (as we still do)
on the sides of dice to show the value of the side. But a pair of ivory
dice have been found with the numbers actually written in the Etruscan
script. We know the Romans & Etruscans used the convention of having
opposite sides add up to 7 (a custom we have retained till the present
day), so we can be certain that:
mach + zal = 7
thu + huth = 7
ci + sa = 7

(It is traditional to Romanize Etruscan in the Roman manner, i.e. |c| = /k/)

We know from other clear evidence that _ci_ means 3. We know that a
suffix -alch was used to mean x10. The Etruscans have left us a wealth
of grave inscriptions (but sadly, not enough other material), and by
weighing up evidence from these and other sources, the list accepted by
most scholars is, from 1 through to 6:
thu, zal, ci, sa, mach, huth.

Indeed, if it wasn't for Hyttenia, I am sure the order would not be
questioned. Also AFAIK the "huth=4" guys merely swap around 'sa' and
'huth', giving: thu, zal, ci, huth, mach, sa.

This means that two sets of opposite sides do not add up to 7, which is
unusual, tho not of course impossible. I would think one needs slightly
stronger evidence than the dubious (to put it mildly) connexion between
'huth' and 'hytt-'.

>
>>>and you can give a set of "sound changes" for *any*
>>>single pair of words.  One cognate is no cognate.
>>
>>You can - and when you remember that Y.R. Chao showed how /ni/ --> /A/
>>is one of the Chinese 'dialects', almost any sound change can be
>>demonstrated for a single word. I agree, one cognate is NO cognate.
Even two cognates is not enough. There is a language which expresses
'this/these' with h- plus affix giving number & gender agreement, and
'that/those' by an agreement prefix plus -le. Um ... h- = 'this/these',
-le = 'that/those' ... that's like Latin 'hic', 'haec' etc and 'ille',
isn't it? Wow - Swahili is closely related with Latin!   :-D

> Exactly.  It's trivially easy to construct "sound laws" that connect
> Greek _theos_ with Latin _deus_.  Of course, thousands of other words
> then just won't play ball.  And if /ni/ can go to /A/ ...
Quite so! I don't know why Glen Gordon felt the need to equate 'huth'
with 4. Anyone worth their salt could easily show "sound laws" that link
'huth' and *sweks!

Whatever order Mr Gordon thinks the numbers take, he must IMO at least
show plausible connexions for all six of them if his ideas are to be
taken seriously.

--
Ray
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