Re: Ligurian

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@...> wrote:

>
> --- 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 :
> > iṣ́ọs : kalite : palaṃ
>
> I find this restoration highly plausible apart from the final letter, which I believe can only be <i>,

There are 2 ways to write m in the Lugano script; one is very similar to i with all the strokes except the last small and at the top, where they could easily be obscured. The poetry, and grammar necessitated by any rational reconstruction, require palam.

>

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.

They are obviously verbs, and which verbs they are is easily seen by basic knowledge of IE. They have been interpreted by Hamp.

>

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.'
>

Plenty of grave stones say only "pala" and the dative of the deceased; it's pala = stone, pruia = grave (even though both came from words for stone (w cairn > grave/etc.) in PIE, their meaning at the time is what matters).

> 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.

Hamp referred to Eska and Mercado (2005), who extensively analyzed the poetic forms, and mentioned some of what you said and more.

>

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
>

Your reading is not even close to approximately correct. If you think you can do better in a few days than many scholars have done over the past years, the last ten especially, I haven't seen any indication of such ability from you.