Odp: Etruscan Divine names

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 1699
Date: 2000-02-27

 
----- Original Message -----
From: Christopher Gwinn
To: cybalist@egroups.com
Sent: Friday, February 25, 2000 5:53 PM
Subject: [cybalist] Etruscan Divine names

I was wondering if any of the list members might be able to comment on some of the Etruscan divine names (ex. Tinia - Zeus, Tinas clerar-Dioskouroi, Thevrumines-Minotaur, Turms - Hermes, Uni - Hera, Nethuns - Poseidon, Maris - Ares, Menrva - Athena, Sethlans - Hephaistos, Thesan-Eos, Turan-Aphrodite, Fufluns - Dionysos, Apulu - Apollo).
Obviously a couple are borrowed from Greek, albeit much modified, and Nethuns,Uni and Maris seem clear enough as having come from Latin and Fufluns from an Italic dialect, but I have read that Saturn, Mercury and Menerva are adopted from an Etruscan source - can anybody comment?
A couple seem to have Anatolian (or other IE) connections, especially Tin- (Etruscan tin- means 'day') : Hieroglyphic Luwian tina- 'god' (cf. Slavic *dInI 'day') : Hittite sius, Gen. siunas, all supposedly related to *dieu-/*diwo- 'daylight, Sky God'. Another such word is tiu/tiv-/tivr 'moon' (also as the name of a deity), if from (hypothetical) *djeu-/*dju-/*diw- 'shine' (same root as above). Of course a shared theonym doesn't prove much about linguistic relationships.
 
Piotr