Dennis:
>The compound TO-ROS is complete speculation on my part, with no >supporting
>evidence, other than a possible way to connect RASENNA to >TYRSENOI, so I
>wouldn't hazard a guess as to what ROS, if it existed >at all, could
>possibly refer to.
I think it's reasonable to suspect that the *ras- was some kind of
meaningful root at one time, whether within Etruscan or lost in
Pre-Etruscan, since the termination -na, or phonetic variations thereof,
seems to be in common use to create names for groups of people in the
Etruscan language.
I would relate the ending to the common one in IE, *-er-/-en-, of similar
function (a relation obscured by penultimate accent, loss of final vowel and
*-n > *-r).
As for *ras-, I'd like to come up with a good theory for it, but I can't. So
instead, I would like to come up with a god-awful one to spur others to find
something better. Here goes:
rasna
< *nes-na
< nes- "dead"
Hence, "dead people". I mean, the Etruscans are dead, aren't they? I think
this idea works perfectly. (There, that should make people cringe into
action, hehehe...)
- gLeN
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