Me:
>>Dunno about clerar. Are you sure you don't mean /clenar/? The >>latter
>>means "sons".
Chris G:
>I likely just mispelled it, seeing that it is translating the Greek >"Zeus'
>Boys" Dioskouroi.
Well, there ya go then.
Me:
>>Menrva looks like native Etruscan because of the typical -va >>suffix,
>>which might be used for a collective sense, but I'm not sure what it would
>>mean.
Chris G:
>I have seen some try to reconstruct a proto-form, *Menesua, relating >it to
>the moon and to menstruation.
That would be great if Etruscan were an IE language... but it's only related
to IE at best, not part of it. The Etruscan word for "moon" is known to be
/tiur/ and I haven't seen any such "moon" word like *menes- outside of IE.
Plus, *-s- changes to -r- in _Latin_. We're not talking about Latin. We're
talking about Etruscan. So, we would be best to look for something along the
lines of preEtruscan *Mener-va instead. This *mener- looks like the plural
of something and this would go well with the -va suffix... but I still don't
have a clue as to what it might mean. Good try though.
I notice that there are other Etruscan deities starting with /man-/ that
might relate to the etymology of Menrva, like Mania, the goddess of the
underworld, and Mantus, god of the underworld. As well, there are words like
/mani/ "the dead". I see a common theme happenin' here. Is it possible that
*Mener-va originally meant "place of the dead" or "the dead"? Could Minerva
have been originally the embodiment of the underworld just like Canaanite
Mot, before being artificially connected with Athena? Just a thought.
- gLeN
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