Re: [tied] Re: Etymology of Rome

From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
Message: 47789
Date: 2007-03-10

On Sat, 10 Mar 2007 21:05:42 -0000, "Francesco Brighenti"
<frabrig@...> wrote:

>Dear listmembers,
>
>As a layman in IE linguistics, I am observing with great interest
>your efforts to provide an IE etymology to the ancient Latin city-
>name Roma; yet, as an Italian national, I must alert you that some
>Italian scholars who have been studying this question thoroughly
>have, based on the work of earlier scholars as well as on their
>fresh reinterpretation of the available linguistic and
>archaeological data, recently come to the conclusion that the name
>Roma is a loan from Etruscan and that its original meaning, as I
>have already pointed out in my post archived at
>
>http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/47724 ,
>
>was `dug, teat'.
>
>Let me briefly summarize the argumentations produced by these
>Italian scholars.
>
>According to Prof. Carlo de Simone, a comparative linguist, the
>names Roma and Romulus would be connected, both having been derived
>from the archaic Lat. term ruma, -ae (variant form: rumis, -
>is), `dug, pap, teat'. The latter term would be of Etruscan origin
>because it has no IE etymology, and the only non-IE language spoken
>in Latium in the archaic period of the history of Rome was Etruscan.
>The Etr. term *ruma would have been borrowed into archaic Latin both
>as a toponym, *Ruma (the likely name of Rome already in Etruscan,
>which was later on changed to the attested Lat. form Roma) and as a
>first name, *Rume (later on changed to the unattested Lat. form
>*Romus). From *Rume, through the addition of the Etr. diminutive
>suffix /-le/, the first name *Rumele was derived. The corresponding
>Lat. first name must have been *Romelos, which is, however, only
>attested as... Romulus! From the Etr. first name *Rumele, the Etr.
>gentilic name *Rumelena (attested as RUMELNA in 6th century BCE
>inscriptions) was derived. The corresponding Lat. gentilic name was
>Romilius (or also Romulius). The interchangeability between the two
>languages was due to "multiple onomastic competence". The first name
>Romulus is, therefore, a perfectly regular form in the Etruscan-
>Italic linguistic context, for which reason it is not necessary to
>presuppose its *direct* derivation from the toponym *Ruma. For this
>discussion, see C. de Simone. "Considerazioni sul nome di Romolo",
>in _Bollettino di Archeologia_, Nos. 31-33 (1995).
>
>Prof. Andrea Carandini, an Italian archaeologist, further expands
>this hypothesis in his book _La nascita di Roma_ (Torino, Einaudi,
>2003). He bases his analysis of the city-name Roma on the idea of a
>semantic identity, as posited by linguist Massimo Pittau in the
>article I have summarized in my post linked to above, of the words
>for `dug' and `sinuosity (in a river's course)' in both Etruscan (as
>would be the case with the unattested word *ruma) and archaic Latin
>(as would be the case with the attested word ruma). Also, there
>seems to be a strong linguistic connection between the toponym Roma
>and the hydronym Rumon -- according to Servius, as an archaic name
>of the river Tiber, but more probably, a name indicating the sinuous
>tract of the course of that river in the area of Rome. If the Etr.
>word *ruma perhaps meant `a (dug-shaped) sinuosity (in the course of
>a river)', its accretive form *rumon -- /-on/ is a known Etr.
>accretive suffix -- probably meant `a great sinuosity' (as per
>Pittau) or also `(river) forming meanders'.
>
>Carandini also hypothesizes that another semantic meaning of Etr.
>*ruma and Lat. ruma, namely, that of `animal's teat', may have been
>involved in the choice of the name *Ruma for the early site of the
>future city of Rome. The inlet (*ruma?) on the Tiber closest to the
>Palatine Hill was the seat of a goddess called Rumina (`she-of-
>teats', or `she-that-offers-her-breasts', from archaic Lat.
>ruma `teat, breast'), who was the patroness of nursing mothers and
>suckling infants (both human and animal). There also stood the so-
>called Ficus Ruminalis (`Rumina's fig', or also `suckling's fig'),
>the sacred fig-tree near the Lupercal Cave at the foot of the
>Cermalus (one of the two summits of the Palatine Hill), where
>Romulus and Remus, according to the legend, had been suckled by the
>she-wolf before they were found by a shepherd. This tree (which
>produced fruits having a *milk*-like sap) was sacred to Rumina,
>described by Carandini as a she-wolf/she-goat/female-fig-tree
>goddess, and the association of the site with this deity may have
>been at the origin of the suckling incident being related to in the
>legend. The resemblance between the name Romulus and the term
>ruminalis led to the fig tree and the founder of the city of Rome
>being subsequently connected by the Roman antiquarians.
>
>According to this interpretation, Romulus had, therefore, been saved
>from drowning by the *ruma (`sinuosity') of the Tiber, and had been
>nurtured by the rumae (`teats') of the she-wolf -- actually, a
>theriomorphic form of the goddess Rumina. The fact that the toponym
>*Ruma originally designated the bend of the Tiber closest to the
>Palatine Hill is probably also indicated by the fact that the
>northwestern gate of the `Roma Quadrata' (the city founded by
>Romulus), leading to the said bend of the river, was called Porta
>Romana, viz., `the gate of Roma': it is a well-known fact, indeed,
>that city gates were invariably named, in all places an in all
>times, after the principal external locality they led to -- in this
>case, as it seems, after the *ruma (`sinuosity') of the Tiber
>closest to `Roma Quadrata'.
>
>Any comments, now that I've said it all? :^)


I think I agree most with Emilio Peruzzi («è inutile
speculare sulla etimologia di Roma, e a tanto maggior
ragione per la brevità e semplicità della forma...»)...

The linguistic arguments offered by Pittau are limited to
the supposition that Ruma is an Etruscan word ("A mio
giudizio questa difficoltà si può superare se si accetta la
ipotesi - già prospettata da parecchi studiosi - che tanto
ruma «mammella» quanto il toponimo Roma siano vocaboli di
origine etrusca <21>."), and that Etruscan /u/ (Etruscan had
no /o/) gives /u/ or /o:/ in Latin ("vocaboli etruschi
entrati nel latino hanno visto la loro originaria u (scritta
Y oppure V) conservarsi tale e quale oppure trasformarsi in
o lunga e cioè stretta."). It is true that /u/ and /o:/
merge as closed /o/ in Vulgar Latin (while /o/ gives open
/O/), but it seems rather doubtful to me whether one can
trace this back to the very origins of the city of Rome. I'm
in no position to judge the (onomastic) evidence presented
[especially in view of the Vulgar Latin merger of /u/ and
/o:/]: "etr. Amuni, lat. Amunius e Amonius; etr. Clute, lat.
Clutius, Cludius (aggett. cludus) e Clotius, Clodius
(aggett. clodus); etr. Crus'ni, lat. Crusius e Crosius; etr.
Cursni, lat. Cursenus e Corsinius; glossa etr. garouleou
«crisanteno», lat. Carullius e Carollius; etr. Fului, lat.
Fulvius e Folvius; etr. Funei, lat. Funius e Fonius; etr.
Murias', lat. Murrius e Morrius <22>; etr. Plute, lat.
Plutius e Plotius; etr. Prute, lat. Brutus e Protius; etr.
Puntna, appellattivi lat. funtana, funtes e fontes; etr.
Purce, lat. Purcius e Porcius; etr. Rusci, lat. Ruscius e
Roscius <23>." Length is not marked in the above examples,
and neither is the period of attestation (e.g. a late
"Folvius" means nothing, an early one might be relevant).

After reading Pittau's article, I'm still left with the
question: If we have <Rumina> and the <ficus ruminalis>,
perché si è avuto Ro:ma e non *Ruma?


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
miguelc@...