Rhaetic texts have been interpreted only
fragmentarily (the corpus is lamentably small and consists mostly of brief
votive inscriptions), but what has been found out so far about Rhaetic
word-formation and inflections suggests a probable relationship with Etruscan. A
number of words with apparent Etruscan cognates have also been identified
(though some of them may be loans). Lemnian is certainly related to Etruscan,
and so probably to Rhaetic as well.
As for the question (raised by Mark, I
think) whether "Lemnian" was actually used by the natives of Lemnos,
the answer seems to be positive. The Lemnos Stele is not the only local
monument of Lemnian. In 1928 inscribed pottery fragments with Lemnian words on
them were discovered by Italian archaeologists working on the island. The
current majority opinion is therefore that the language recorded on the stele
was indeed the native language of Lemnos before the island was conquered by the
Athenians (in the 6th c. BC).
As for the reason why the Etruscans called
themselves the Rasna, one popular (but highly speculative) theory is that Rasna
is a late developments of *trus-ena-/*turs-ena- (cf. Turseno-, Tyrrheno-) from
*trusia (Latin E:tru:ria, E:truscus < *trus-(i)ko-, with a prothetic vowel,
beside Tu(r)sci:, Thusci:, Tuscia, Tusca:nus [hence Toscany], tusce: 'in the
Etruscan language'). For all I know, Rasna may be an alternative name, not
necessarily related to *turs-ena-, though presumably containing the same
ethnonymic suffix.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2001 3:14 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] etruscan
What's the basis for linking Rhaetic and Lemnian?