--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@...> wrote:
>
> supposing Tyrol was from IE, what could we come up with? Would any "through" words work? Keeping in mind it is noted for mountain passes.And it would be nice if we could do the same trick with Etruscan but 2-300 words is not enough
>
Possibly *treh2- (Latin <in-tra:-re>, etc.) but the only way I can get *tir- out of it is through Indo-Iranian and I am not bold enough to put them in the Alps.
Etruscan uses postfixes instead of prefixes. The one apparently corresponding to Latin <per->, English <through->, <thoroughly> is <-l>, which between a consonant and following vowel is sounded as [l.l], Latinized as <-ell>, thus Lat. <satelles> from Etr. <zatlath> 'percussor, hard striker' vel sim. (M.M.A. Watmough), and (in my opinion!) Lat. <Rusellae> from Etr. *Ruzli '(place) near the through-cut, canal-side'. I do not have a way to get <Tirol> from a place-name Latinized with *-ella or *-ellum.
To my knowledge the name is not attested before the 12th century. The citations I found are <comites Tirolenses> 1141 (and later; this appears to be the learned standard), <vicus Tyral.> 1158, <de Tirale> 1182, <de Tiral> 1190. Some say the region was named after the Schloss Tirol near Meran, which is not implausible, and suggests a possible Gaulish etymology. In Kanton Thurgau we have the river <Dura> 886, <Turia> 1210, <Thur> today. The Gaulish name was adopted by Germans and underwent the High German consonant shift. Perhaps there was a Gaulish settlement *Duria'lom 'Clearing on a Stream', stress on /a/, with the place-name adopted by Germans and becoming *Turja'l, the site of the castle. I must then presume /j/-umlaut, *Tu"rja'l, and unrounding with loss of /j/, *Tira'l, in the local dialect, which agrees with some of the 12th-cent. forms. The counts apparently preferred to say *Tiro'l in their dialect, which is essentially the modern standard form. Unfortunately I have no direct evidence for the /j/-umlaut or unrounding in the dialect of Meran; nevertheless I think Germanized Gaulish is a more plausible explanation than Rhaetic or Rhaeto-Etruscan for this name.
DGK