--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Abdullah Konushevci"
<akonushevci@...> wrote:
> The etymology of Rome........ from ruma (a dug), in allusion to
> the fable of a wolf suckling the outcast children, is not tenable.
Yet the Italian scholar Massimo Pittau, an expert in Sardinian and
Etruscan, has come up with an etymology of the toponym Roma based on
this very semantics -- see his paper "Etimologia del toponimo Roma"
(first link: text; second link: notes) at
http://web.tiscali.it/pittau/Etrusco/Studi/roma_testo.html
http://web.tiscali.it/pittau/Etrusco/Studi/roma_note.html ,
mirrored (text plus notes) at
http://www.signainferre.it/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=69
Pittau, however, does not accept the 'suckling-she-wolf' story nor
B. Migliorini's old explanation according to which the archaic Latin
word <ruma> 'dug' would have designated the allegedly breast-shaped
Palatine Hill, on which the the "Square Rome" was founded; on the
contrary, he infers that the term <ruma> designated the 'dug-like'
bend of the River Tiber near the Palatine Hill, where it was easy to
ford the river.
As for Rumon as the ancient name of the Tiber (cf. Servius, ad Verg.
Aen. VIII, 63 and 90), Pittau doubts that this name ever designated
the entire course of the river (which was called Albula in the most
archaic period, and subsequently Tiberis after its Etruscan name);
he proposes that the name Rumon indicated only a site on that river,
namely, the greater bend just north of his hypotesized 'ruma' bend
of the 'sinuous' (!) Tiber. The Etruscan suffix /-on/ has an
accretive value, thus, <rumon> = <ruma> + <-on> = 'big dug', i.e., a
larger river-bend. (See the map included in Pittau's article.)
As to phonetics: why the Latin name of the city was Roma and not
*Ruma? Pittau replies with arguing that <ruma> 'dug' was an Etruscan
term borrowed into Latin -- a hypothesis accepted by several
scholars. He thinks that Etruscan /u/ was alternatively perceived by
the Romans either as /u/ or as long /o/.
Ancient Romans also tended to connect <ruma> 'dug' with
<rumen> 'rumen' (although, according to A. Ernout and A. Meillet,
the former term has a short root-vowel while the latter has a long
one). Pittau, overcoming all phonological objections, proposes
<ruma/rumen> = 'dug, breast, bag, rumen'.
Of course, these are just 'interesting conjectures'... aren't they?
Best,
Francesco Brighenti