Richard:
>This challenges the etymology Latin _fa:num_ 'sanctuary' < *fasnom
>f. *dHe:s, *dH&s 'root used in religious terms' (Pokorny root
>#409). There are Italic cognates Oscan _fi/i/snam_ (I'm not sure
>what the slashes in on-line Pokorny mean here) 'temple' and the
>Umbrian expression _fesnafe_ translated into Latin as 'in fanum'.
Alright, but I have questions. Why *fasnom? Why not *fesnom?
How did we get /a:/ and not /e:/? Why did the *s disappear? I
understand that *ni-sd-os becomes /nidus/, but only because *s
came to be pronounced with its voiced allophone [z]. If we
have Oscan /f��snam/ with [e] AND "s", it seems like a far cry from
Latin /fa:num/ with [a:] and no trace of "s".
Of course, I don't think I can dare deny *dHes- as a valid IE root
for Latin /festus/ and Greek /theos/, but what I'm saying is that
perhaps the etymology of Latin /fa:num/ isn't as straight-forward
as previously thought.
Looking at Tyrrhenian languages, there is of course Minoan *ipinam
(VRY Za 1, KO Za 1), sometimes in the genitive *ipinam-na (PK Za 11)
which I have an itch to translate as something like "holy" with an
accompanying verb *siru-te. There is no attested Etruscan *fanum
afaik per se, but we can suspect that there is because of /fan-u/,
/fan-us'e/, /fan-us'ei/, /fan-eri/, /fan-iri/ all appearing to relate to
"ritual" and showing a productive native root /fan-/. So perhaps
Latin /fa:num/ is in fact based on a common Tyrrhenian root *afen-,
becoming *ipin- in Minoan and *fen- in EtruscoCypriot (because of
strong quasi-initial accent). There is also Rhaetic /paniun/ which I
surmise to be ritual offerings of some kind. Afterall, what else would
the Rhaetic write about? :)
Then there's Eteo-Cypriot. If that language is not Tyrrhenian, I'll
sell my mother to the Russian mafia. Oh, speaking of which I
finally found the blessed Russian site concerning ECyp that I thought
I would never find again:
http://phaistos.narod.ru/Ana.htm
It's hard to eke my way through Russian <:( but I accept what little I
_can_ translate and seems to follow along the same views as my own.
Eery. Now, the Amathusan bilingual is a synch to translate thanks to
Attic, but the rest... well, I admit it's anyone's guess. However, as
food for thought, there is also /panamo/ under "No 3" of the title
"Droogeeye Nadpeesee", whatever the hell that means :P As I said,
the EtruscoCypriot root would be *fen- with loss of unaccented *a-
so at least in terms of sound correspondances it fits the bill.
= gLeN
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