--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Tavi" <oalexandre@...> wrote:
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@> wrote:
> >
> > > Etruscan inscc. have plenty of Etruscan lexical items, Lepontic
> > > inscc. unfortunately much less of Lepontic lexical items, but
> > > nevertheless please show me that the majority of Lepontic lexicon
> > > contrasts with Celtic lexicon.
> > > You'll find <pala> and <pruuia>. <pala> can have many
> etymologies,
> > > so it neither proves nor disproves anything; <pruuia> /bruwya:/ :
> > > Gaulish bri:ua: 'bridge' insists on an onomasiologic difference in
> > > Celtic itself (bri:ua: vs. drochet).
> >
> > The Lepontic form is <pruiam> and I can see no principled way of
> getting it out of *bHreh1wo- 'bridge'.
> >
> This is the usual interpretation (see for example
> http://www.univie.ac.at/lexlep/wiki/pruiam).
>
> > pelkui:pruiam:teu:karite:i[--------]ite:palai
> >
> The transcription I'm aware of is pelkui : pruiam : teu : karite :
> iÅÌ£oÌ£s : kalite : palamÌ£
I find this restoration highly plausible apart from the final letter, which I believe can only be <i>, making the final word either dat. sg., or more likely loc. sg., but not acc. sg. In fact Rhy^s read <iuuos:kalite> between <karite:> and <:palai>, while Lattes and Nogara read <inosikalite>.
If my earlier suggestion about the syntax is correct, <is'os> can be understood as the nom. sg. subject, with <karite> and <kalite> as adverbial forms. Now if Lepontic, like Latin, recycled the old inst. sg. ending *-eh1 (Theran Greek <te:de> 'in this manner, thus') as a thematic adverbial ending, then Lep. <kalite> may be equated directly with Lat. <calide:> 'warmly'.
Lat. <calidus> is to <caleo:> 'I am warm', of course, as <lu:cidus> is to <lu:ceo:> and <algidus> is to <algeo:>. That is, the /id/-adjective primarily functions as a deverbative to 2nd-conj. intransitives. Then Lep. <karite> could be the adverb corresponding to Lat. *caridus 'lacking, doing without, bereft' from <careo:> 'I lack, do without, am bereft'. The Lep. phrase <karite kalite(pe)> would thus mean 'bereftly and warmly', in a funerary context something like 'with grief and affection'. This allows a possible reading of the text:
pelkui:pruiam:teu:karite:is'os:kalite:palai
'For Belgus, with grief and affection, Ixus has placed (this) heavy stone on the grave.'
Distraction of an asyndetic alliterative phrase by a subject or object is a poetic device. Rhy^s viewed this text as "composed in metre approaching the form of a Latin hexameter". Since the Lepontines of Ornavasso were familiar with Naxian wine, it is not implausible that some of them knew the rudiments of Greek epic poetry. However, the Vergiate text cannot be fitted into a proper dactylic hexameter, and is thus unlikely to be patterned after a Greek or Latin model. I find it more plausible that its constitutive basis as poetry was alliteration, not metre per se. If my etymologies are correct, the text contains both /karide: ... kalide:/ and /belguj bru:ja:m/ as alliterations, with /balaj/ perhaps serving as a final ring-closing alliteration to the initial words. It may thus be compared in form with this Paelignian prayer:
dida:uus:deti:hanustu:herentas
'May gracious Venus grant you riches.'
> So this unknown person was a kind of Ligurian Obelix planting menhirs on
> the ground. LOL.
>
> http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hT490FA7Db4/T2dMgupbsaI/AAAAAAAABvA/lru6XVEe9F\
> k/s1600/obelix.jpg
If my reading is even approximately correct, Ixus was a close personal friend of Belgus, not a traveling menhir-salesman.
DGK