Re: [tied] Lemnos stele

Miguel and Glen,

I have thought it prudent to keep out of this exchange so far, but may I suggest something to both of you?

avis shialchveis maras-m avis (sh = "sigma", s = "zeta")

Etruscan "avils" is a genitive meaning "in the [Nth] year (of his life)". The identification of shialchveis with shealch is secure, and comparison with Etruscan tombstone formulas virtually guarantees that avis = avils, but I think Glen is right in insisting that maras can't be a numeral. First, such a reading doesn't match Etruscan formulas syntactically; secondly, the poor wretch would have had to die twice if the expression "he died in the 40th year and in the X-th year" were to make sense.

But what about the following?

"He died in his fortieth year, (that is,) in the year of X"

where "of X" = maras ('of his investiture as a magistrate' -- or rather an office for which 40-year-olds became eligible)

So much speculation from me.

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: Glen Gordon

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2001 9:53 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] Lemnos stele

Miguel: >I forgot to send this. If anyone still cares, here it is... I'm starting not to... I had stated some hard problems that Miguel still refuses to face rationally because he cannot accept the crisp knock of Logic's gavel: >> - opposite of expected Etruscan number order >> (We find Etruscan /ci zathrum/ "23" not */zathrum ci/) >> - impossible sound correspondances >> ([kH] => [r]??? mach == mara-????) >> - impossible semantics when translated in context >> (/aviz/ repeated twice in same phrase!!?) Miguel, I'm not interested in your insanity. I'm interested in logic and credible viewpoints. The comparative phonetics, word order, semantics AND strange, repeated usage of /avis/ in your translation are all so clearly contradictive to your analysis despite your blindness that I must terminate this fruitless discussion. Your million-and-one patchwork assumptions and what-if's, from a preEtruscan **mava to the unlikely IE dissection of *penkWe that no IEist worth his weight in gold could swallow, are truely an awe-inspiring masterpiece for those who wish to follow in your antiestablishment footsteps but these theories remain unremediable dislogic.