Re: Etruscan numerals

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "thrsnmrtn" <thrsnmrtn@...> wrote:

>
> Etruscan numerals
>
> The Etruscan Liber Linteus site
>
> http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Thebes/5181/etrusk/default.html
>
>
> says the following about Etruscan numerals:
>
> Etruscan numerals are known from funerary inscriptions recording

the

> age of the deceased and from the 'Tuscania dice', on which the

first

> six numbers are written out in words rather than shown by dots, as
> usual. We therefore know the first six numbers:
> thu, zal, ci, ša, mach, huth
>
> Their order was recognized because in antiquity the sum of each of
> the two opposite sides of the die added up to seven:

mach+zal=seven;

> thu+huth=seven; ci+ša=seven. Other clues led to the identification

of

> each particular number, so that the order given above is generally
> accepted today.
> What these numerals show, beyond any shadow of a doubt, is the non-
> Indo-European nature of the Etruscan language. Basic words like
> numbers and names of relationships are often similar in the Indo-
> European languages, for they derive from the same root.
>
> Another peculiarity of the Etruscan is the formation of numbers by
> subtraction, a system found also in Latin. Given the cultural
> influence of the Etruscan in Rome, Latin may have derived it from
> Etruscan. In Etruscan, 17=20-3, 18=20-2, 19=20-1. In Latin we have
> duodeviginti, undeviginti. Multiples of 10 are formed with the
>
> ------------
>
> Is there any possibility that quattro and ša are related?
>
> Regards
>
> Morten

It's far more probable that /huth/ =4 and /s'a/ = 6. The rule of sum
of each of the two opposite sides of the die added up to seven WAS BY
NO MEANS OF GENERAL USE IN ANCIENT WORLD. More probably Etruscan
followed another rule: difference between numbers of the two opposite
sides of the die was three.
We have a picture portraying FOUR Charons, and one of them is called
HUTHS, apparently 'the Fourth One'.
If you assume /s'a/ to be 'four', you find no matchup at all in the
whole planet, if you assume /s'a/ is 'six', you are immediately able
to see that Etruscan was not from Mars, but had the same borrowing
from Afro-Asiatic found also in IE, in Kartvelian, in Basque.

Marco