Re: Etruscan numerals

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, enlil@... wrote:

> Further since /sempH/ is obviously a Semitic loan, it's likely that
> /xa/ means "six" and is also a loan from a similar source. We also
> have /xar/ "ten" which is Semitic in origin as well.

Was the evolution something like this:

North(-West) Semitic /sab`atum/ (sab`-at-u-m?)

> Tyrrhenian /sept(u)m/
> Proto-Etruscan /sepm/ (reduction of consonant cluster)
> Early Etruscan /semp/ (metathesis)
> Etruscan /semph/ (aspiration of final stops)

?

Also, do you ascribe the phoneme /x/ to |s'|, as your post seems to
suggest? If so, why?

> As sad as I am to say this, there is only a smattering of vocabulary
> that is certain (in the true sense of the word), particularly terms
> denoting family members like /clan/ 'son', /apa/ 'father' and /ati/
> 'mother' and some very common verbs and _some_ of their tensual
> forms like /tur-/ 'to give' and /turce/ 'has given'. The rest is
> rabid theorizing that is often completely divorced of the texts we
> find and shamefully dependent on ad hoc theories by madmen of old
> connecting the language to all sorts of things from Latin to
> Albanian to Ukrainian.

Concerning /ati/, it seems similar to Gothic |aiþi| /eTi/.

Perhaps the -ce perfect(ive) ending is related to that of the Greek k-
perfects?

> No. We reconstruct *kWetwores in IE, the ultimate source for Spanish
> /quatro/ (one 't'). I would link IE *kWetwores with my retranslated
> /hutH/ "four", however I believe the ancestral form of
> Etruscan /hutH/ was Tyrrhenian *hota. The *h relates to *kW (being
> typically delabialized with the rounding transferred to the
> neighbouring vowel *o). I've stated my view that Tyrrhenian and IE
> are sister languages of an older stage I call Indo-Tyrrhenian,
> spoken circa 7000 - 6000 BCE. This is not everyone's view however.
> It's certain that Etruscan is **NOT** an IE language but there may
> be still an indirect relationship with it.

Etruscan /huth/ was earlier /hut/, right? Did */o/ merge
with/become /u/ everywhere?

- Rob