I would just like to point out to everybody that EteoCypriot is
a Tyrrhenian language related to Etruscan, Lemnian, Rhaetic,
Camunic and now even Minoan (Linear A). Everybody keeps on
saying that EteoCypriot and Minoan are undeciphered and
unclassified. I'm tired of it so here's my arguement for
genetic relationship...
Check out this Amathusan bilingual text and tell me that this
ain't Etruscan-looking:
Ana mator-i Mukla-i Lasana um-esi
Their city-LOC Amathus-LOC Tyrrhenian honour-AOR
Ariston-ose Artowanakso-ko-ose kera keretul-ose.
Ariston-GEN Aristonax-PART-GEN precious birth-GEN.
"In their city, the Tyrrhenians of Amathous honour
Ariston of Aristonax, of precious birth."
We know this translation is correct because of the
accompanying Greek text that says virtually the same
thing "The city of Amathous [honours] Ariston of
Aristonax, of honourable birth". One says "eupatriden"
and the other says "kera keretulose". (That's
interesting too because it suggests that /kera/ is
identical with Etruscan /cara/ and that Latin /carus/
is in fact an Etruscan loanword, not IE!)
Now, the kicker is when you translate the supposedly
undeciphered EteoCypriot into closely related Etruscan.
Ana spur-e MucHla-i Rasna um-uce Aristun-ase
Artuvanaksa-cH-ase cara celutul-ase.
Eery hunh? So I want everybody to stop saying that
Eteo-Cypriot is undeciphered. It's related to Etruscan
and Lemnian. I might even start referring to a special
"Eteo-Cypriot" branch of Tyrrhenian if I can amass
good reason to seperate it from Minoan.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And as for the Minoan language, has everybody overlooked
the constant repetitive glosses of U-NA-KA-NA-SI???
It says "una kanasi" meaning "pouring libations". These
texts keep referring to "pouring libations to Assaram"
(Assaram-e una kana-si). Assaram is identical with the
West Semitic goddess known as Asherah or AshtorethYam
("Lady of the Sea").
A similar word "un" is found in Etruscan and means the
same. The ending /-si/ is related to verb endings in Etruscan
and apparently there are glosses of /cen/ and /cena/
which, although lacking the knowledge of their context,
I suspect to mean "to pour".
Granted, I can't blame people's numbness to the obvious.
Who would guess Minoan is Tyrrhenian. It doesn't quite
fit the mould like EteoCypriot does. For one thing, the
characteristic s-genitive is missing. It seems to be
replaced with an ending in /-na/ or /-ne/ (which is in
fact the adjectival ending). This is funny because using
adjectival endings for genitives is common to Anatolian
and BaltoSlavic languages. Can we say "cross-linguistic areal
influence", everyone?
If all this is doubted, check out the Linear A texts for
yourselves:
http://www.people.ku.edu/~jyounger/LinearA/
Now I'm no Cyrus Gordon (no relation) but c'mon folks!
Let's get together and push Tyrrhenian studies into the
21st century. I'm tired of people still denying that
Tyrrhenian and IndoEuropean are related!
- gLeN
_________________________________________________________________
Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963