Re: [tied] Etruscan and Nakh

In a message dated 08/03/01 08:54:10 GMT Standard Time,
glengordon01@... writes:

> I believe 3000 BCE is more likely to have been the general date of
> _fracture_ (not arrival) of Kartvelian.

Yes, I agree we cannot push this event much further back than this.
Now why would a language want to fracture into dialects? Expansion, no?

> Or more likely: They aren't usable for a would-be Etruscan-Nakh comparison
> at all. If they are related, it's through IE, which coincidentally has
> managed to travel the farthest, ending up on every language's doorstep.

I don't rule out a remote connection between IE and NEC. You probably
know John Colarusso has put forward the idea that NWC and IE
together form a 'Pontic' macrofamily. You probably have something to
say about this, which I would be interested in. At least we all think
NWC and NEC aren't that closely related. Sorry, Sergei.

> >Come up with some matches for the other verb endings. They don't
> >exactly shout IE at you.
>
> Sigh, alright...
>
> verbal suffixes:
> ----------------
> Etr. IE
> -----------------------------

...

> "-ing" -asa *-es

D'Aversa gives Etr. /-asa/ as 'past participle', and /-as'/ or /-as/
as the present, but no matter. Cf. Chechen /-ash/ progressive
participle (present and past) or simultaneous converb.

> (I forget) -na *-no-s

I think you mean adjective ending? Cf. Chechen /-en/ (relic of the
genitive). Very few independent adjectives in Nakh, just as in
Etruscan. Also Etr. /-an/ verbal noun, cf. Chechen infinitive /-an/,
deverbal abstraction /-am/.

> potential -ne (future) *-n- (pops up in some
> "present" formations
> as with the
> stem *kleu- "to hear")

Cf. Chechen /-(i)na-/, inferential past, stem for desiderative.
Also /-un-/ future attributive participle (oblique stem).

> There is also the perfective modal suffix /-ce/, comparable to the Uralic
> perfective *-ka (just as Etruscan -ne equates with Uralic *-ne of similar
> function). Etruscan /-ce/ represents an IndoTyrrhenian archaicism *-k:e-
> that IE itself doesn't seem to preserve (alas, woe is me), except perhaps

by

> petrifact as *-g-. Note that modal affixes appear infixed between the verb
> stem and the pronominal endings in IE whereas in Etruscan, the verb

appears

> no longer to use pronominal endings, employing seperate pronouns as in
> English instead (cf. /mi caru-ne/), leaving only an exposed modal suffix

at

> the end.

Yes, that's Uralic; /-ce/ doesn't seem to have a correspondence in IE
and neither does the 'passive' related to it, /-xe/. The two endings
everybody is 100% certain of the meaning of. Cf. Chechen past temporal
converb: /-cha/.

Correspondences with no obvious IE parallels:

Etruscan medio-passive participle for transitive verbs /-u/, cf.
Chechen normal present tense for transitive verbs, /-u/.

Etruscan plural (and pluralis tantum as in /tular/) /-ar/, cf.
Chechen verbal noun (also some abstractions) /-ar/.

Etruscan passive participle of necessity /-(e)ri/, cf.
Chechen desiderative /-?ara/.

> nominal suffixes:
> ----------------
>
> Etr. IE
> -----------------------------------------
> nominative [unmarked] [unmarked] (inanimate)
> honorific -s (male deities) *-s (animate nominative)
> accusative -n (pronominal) *-m

See below.

> s-genitive -sa *-és
> l-genitive -al (Anatolian: Hittite/Lydian)

Only Lydian has morphological redetermination, i.e. l + s like
Etruscan. I would suggest therefore that this is an areal feature in
Lydian due to Etruscoid influence. Morphological redetermination is
also present in Nakh to form new nouns from oblique cases e.g. Etr.
/Uni/ 'Juno', /unial/ 'Juno's temple' (lit. 'of Juno'), cf. Batsbi
/cu/ 'oats', /cun/ 'bread' (lit. 'of oats'). In Chechen, /-l/ is
used for the comparative case, while /-alla/ is used for deadjectival
abstractions, e.g. /xazalla/, 'beauty'.

> locative -thi *dhi
> locative -pi *bhi

...

> Further, while Etruscan generally leaves the nomino-accusative of nouns
> unmarked as with IE's inanimate nouns, /-s/ is still optionally attached

to

> male gods. We find /Tin/ as well as /Tins/, for example. The genitive of
> /Tin/ is found as /Tinas/ (/Tinas clenar/ "Jupiter's sons"), not /Tins/
> (nomino-accusative). So put a lid on it, will ya? :P

What about /tinscvil/? That sounds genitive without needing an -a-.

A 'nominative' ending that only gets used sometimes sounds dangerously
like an ergative. Hmmm. Your -s 'nominative' (male Gods) and -n
'accusative' (a handful of words) are so non-mainstream that they
could either be i) recent innovations, or ii) archaic relics in which
case Etruscan would be a daughter of IE, which it patently isn't, and
in either case Etruscan grammar could have changed enormously in a
short time, a circumstance reminiscent of language contact situations
of creologenesis proportions, in which case all genetics are up in the
air, or iii) an error of interpretation by trying to force Etruscan
into familiar IE categories. One of the endings for the ergative in
Chechen is /-s/, BTW.

> "To be" often describes not only an equivalence or relationship but a
> _location_ as well. It would appear that Etruscan demonstrates this latter
> sense in the Pyrgi text:
>
> ... Vac-al tmia-l avilchva-l amu-ce pulumchva snuia-ph.
> (Notice both the verb /amu-ce/ and the locative /-ph(i)/ at the end.)

Not everybody agrees there is a locative /-ph/ at the end. In fact
there are many interpretations for /snuiaph/, although the sense of
the rest of the sentence is clear. What do you think it means?

> >The fact that the declension paradigm for /vaj/ is much simpler than
> >for other pronouns also supports your theory.
>
> Excellent. Soon you'll be assimilated.

I know, resistance is futile, etc. However, it could be it came into
Nakh from Hurrian *we rather than from IE.

> >Could you elaborate about the place names?
>
> At the very least, there's Greek /Ytte:nia/, known also as Tetrapolis,
> connected to Etruscan /huth/ (cf. Tetra- means "four" in Greek). I would
> reconstruct Tyrrhenian *Xottena "Four Peoples" (*xotta "four" > Etruscan
> /huth/) to account for it.
>
> The next puzzle though is whether the rest of the names and words like
> Korinthos, Tirinthos, Knossos, labyrinthos, asaminthos, narkissos, and
> probably others that lack the tell-tale /-sso-/ and /-ntho-/ markings are
> truely Anatolian as some have suggested or in reality Tyrrhenian (or gasp,
> worse yet: Tyrrhenian with Semitish, Semitic and/or Egyptian substrate!).

At

> any rate, the endings _can_ be explained a la Tyrrhenian (-sso- = *-se
> [genitive]; *-ena-ta < *-ena [ethnic] = -ntho-)... The plot just gets
> thicker and thicker.

Is that it? That's hardly the Tyrrhenians having deep roots in the
Balkans. In any case, while I go along with you on /Ytte:nia/, some
Greek scholars doubt whether the 'tell-tale' /-sso-/ and /-ntho-/
endings are actually pre-Greek at all. However the Etruscans may well
have connections with the Hurrians. Setting aside the architectural
and religious similiarities, there is also the matter of the
Latin/Etruscan bilingual TLE 455/CIE 272 which reads:

C(aius).Licini.C(aius).f(ilius).Nigri
v(el).lecne.v(els)
hapirnal

Here 'NIGRI' relates to 'hapirnal'. In another inscription (TLE 930),
a similar word 'haprni' relates to 'LABERIUS', which has led some
scholars to dismiss the connection between 'NIGRI' and 'hapirnal'.
However, it may be that not only are these two words related, there
may be a connection to Hurrian.

Ramesses II had a problem with the "h_apiru" or "'apiru" (the
cuneiform spelling of Egyptian "'prw"). According to Francois Bottero,
the word 'hapiru' or 'habiru' occurs time and again in various ancient
near eastern languages, and appears to mean 'immigrant' or 'nomad'.
Some scholars have suggested it may be the origin of the words Hebrew
and Arab. According to Nancy Sandars this ethnonym may be of Hurrian
origin. And here we have an Etruscan using it as a family name, just
as we would do 'Black' nowadays.

> >However - the point is, how long does it take to get from the Southern
> >Caucasus to Western Turkey on foot? A year or two, or hundreds of years?
>
> No, the question is: What movement are we speaking about? Demic? Cultural?
> Technological? Mythological? Linguistic? Etc? Movement of who? The Nakh?

The

> Etruscans? The Tyrrhenians? The NEC? The Third Party of Mystery??

We're talking about Etruscan ethnogenesis. In eastern Anatolia. And
about who else might have been around at the time.

> Afaik, these nasal vowels are not taken seriously in Etruscan studies

except

> by a minor cult following. I see nothing mentioned in the sources I've

read.

> Pallottino (curse his geminated name!) mentions nothing, afaik. It smells

of

> wizardry from what you've described. At any rate, there's a deep

difference

> between the credibility of IE laryngeals and that of Etruscan nasal vowels.

I find a relation between Etruscan /acila/ 'handmaiden' and Latin
/ancilla/ 'servant girl' eminently plausible. I can't understand what
problem there could be.


Ed.