Re: [tied] Backward Etruscan

In a message dated 01/03/01 09:03:50 GMT Standard Time,
MCLSSAA2@... writes:

> > [Thesan] may have a Caucasian connection. The usual translation is
> > Aurora, dawn, morning. If we accept the analogy aurum/aurora, there
> > is a remarkable similarity to the Nakh word for gold, deshi.
>
> Where is Nakh spoken, and what sort of language is it?

Nakh is a group of 3 quite closely related languages: Chechen, Ingush
and Batsbi, spoken in Chechnya, Ingushetia and adjacent areas of
Georgia in the Caucasus. To all intents and purposes, it is part of
the NE Caucasian (or Nakh-Daghestanian) language family, but it is its
most divergent member.

> Has any connection been found between Etruscan and the modern Caucasus
> languages? The Egyptian inscription describing the Sea Peoples seems
> to say that peoples including the Tursha invaded from Anatolia. Perhas
> they were driven by a drought famine.

The most extensive published list of 'isoglosses' is from Vladimir
Orel and Sergei Starostin: "Etruscan as an East Caucasian language" in
Vitaly Shevoroshkin's "Proto-Languages and Proto-Cultures", Bochum
1990. But the idea has a long pedigree.

This is a list of 60 resemblances between Etruscan words, or Latin
words believed to be of Etruscan origin, and their reconstruction of
Proto-East Caucasian. It is not generally accepted, and I too find
about half of them rather implausible. I have found 40-50 resemblances
specifically with Nakh which are not mentioned in Orel and Starostin.
Mine also include morphological patterns. Interestingly, the
historical ancestors of the Nakh were called the Tushba.

> > Funnily enough, Theseus, or These in Etruscan, was searching for the
> >*golden* fleece.
>
> I thought that it was Iason and the Argonauts who were looking for the
> Golden Freece.

Yes, Theseus was an Argonaut.


Ed. Robertson