Talk:Etruscan language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Languages, an attempt at creating a standardized, informative, and easy-to-use resource about languages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.
language Portal
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale.
Archive
Archives
  1. April 2004 to May 2007


Contents

[edit] No mention of Mayani?

I am curious why there is no mention of Zacharie Mayani's suggestions about an Etruscan-Albanian connection, although there is an entry about him in Wikipedia. In spite of Hoxha's use of his work for political purposes, Mayani's suggestions have always seemed to me to have merit - some more believable than others. Jpaulm 18:35, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Mayani's work is crank. Alexander 007 18:41, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
That's pretty blunt! I would be interested in seeing your proof... Jpaulm 18:53, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Hi, Jpaulm. Proof? Proof is simple. We've gotten lazy in the modernday. We assume that it's up to other people to do our own homework. Nope. Save yourself. Here's how. If, for example, Mayani asserts that θuva means "two" because of a connection to a similar Albanian word, then it's up to you the reader to freely question the author's statements. How? By, for example, finding all instances of θuva in all known Etruscan inscriptions for yourself. Remember to include inflected instances of the word (eg: θuveś). Then ask yourself honestly without emotion: "Does this meaning easily make sense in all contexts in which we find the word I'm investigating?". In this example, the answer is no because the true meaning of the θuva seems to more accurately mean "oneself" and related to θu "one". --Glengordon01 04:29, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
I have to agree with Glengordon01. It's not sufficient to simply wave your hand at surface resemblances and say "aha! related". You have to show that the resemblances is systematic. Go and read the article on the comparative method. Lots of languages that look unrelated to other languages (e.g. Armenian to IE langs) can actually be shown by this method to be related. One has to reach a particular threshold of statistical likelihood, as defined by statistically significant chances. Furthermore, one cannot prove a negative: that's why the null hypothesis is that two given languages are NOT related until they can be shown to be so.Trwier 01:07, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
"Crank" or not, it ought to be mentioned. This Albanian connection theory has spawned at least one large book, and there are mentions in the article of many other obsolete and/or "cranky" theories. While I think the Albanian theory is just plain wrong, it ought to be in the article - with the usual comment as to it not being widely accepted. The theory is out there enough that people will wonder why it isn't mentioned here. Documenting its existence as well as its status as a, uhm... non-mainstream view, seems warranted. Murple 08:12, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
Obviously I agree with Murple. IMHO Mayani's contribution was to try to match drawings on vases and tombs with their captions. Has anyone else tried this? And yes, I do understand the problem with hapax legomena, but Mayani's book could stimulate more methodical research. Jpaulm 15:27, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
If we can mention Isaac Taylor and Albanian in the article, why can we not mention Mayani? I think we should put him back in, with appropriate caveats.Jpaulm 14:24, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vowel length

I have removed the statement implying that vowel length must not have been contrastive in Etruscan because it wasn't indicated in the writing system. Both Latin and Ancient Greek had contrastive vowel length, but neither of them indicated the contrast in their writing system. There is no reason to suppose this couldn't have been the case in Etruscan too. In the absence of any evidence one way or the other, it's best not to mention vowel length at all. —Angr 20:19, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Is it worth mention that this article is hopelessly disorganized?--Poissonperdu 00:53, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Etruscan and Nakh-Daghestanian

Hi everyone! I don't want to provoke any discussion on this, but the article should mention the NEC hypothesis as well (e.g. Starostin & Orel's article - I can't remember the title, I haven't read that). There are a few scholars who still seem to be toying with this idea. Besides the quite promising Indo-Tyrrhenian (or, if you like, Eurasiatic/Nostratic) hypothesis (for which Glen Gordon and others have offered many interesting arguments, such as the typical Eurasiatic-looking /mi/ versus /mini/ in the 1st person pronoun), the NEC one also deserves some attention, I suppose (that Starostin's reconstruction of PNC is questionable is another problem, of course).--Pet'usek [petrdothrubisatgmaildotcom] 13:34, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I've read the paper by Starostin and Orel. Well, there are some untenable claims, but it deserves a mention. Once I've got some time, I'll have a look at it...--Pet'usek [petrdothrubisatgmaildotcom] 11:52, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] History of Etruscan literacy

In this section, we include without references the claim:

Christian authorities collected such works of paganism and burnt them during the 5th century; the single surviving Etruscan book, Liber Linteus, being written on linen, survived only by being used as mummy wrappings.

At [1] it is noted that this claim is oft-repeated but there seems to be no primary source for it. As the available evidence seems to indicate that Etruscan books were written on linen, that alone may be a sufficient explanation for none (or rather, very few) being extant several centuries after the death of the last person able to write them.

I wonder if this originated as a reference to Stilicho's alleged burning of the last Sibylline Books. If so, it should be pointed out that by Stilicho's time, the Sybilline Books kept in the temple of Apollo were not originals, and were written in Greek, not Etruscan.

So, in short, does anyone know of any supporting evidence for this claim? -- Securiger 12:36, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] From the writing system section

Etruscan words have been successfully explained from the resources of the Armenian, the Albanian, and the Rhaeto-Romansch languages.

How cryptic and strange! What on Earth is this supposed to mean? FilipeS (talk) 21:12, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Apparent nonsense, I suppose... ;-) --Pet'usek [petrdothrubisatgmaildotcom] 11:53, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Consonants

Based on standard spellings by Etruscan scribes that appear otherwise to lack vowels or that have strings of clusters that as they occur seem phonetically impossible to pronounce, as seen in words like cl "of this (gen.)" and lautn "freeman", it is likely that "m", "n", "l" and "r" were sometimes written for syllabic resonants. Thus cl /kl̩/ and lautn /'lɑwtn̩/.

I don't understand. What is supposed to be significant about these words? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.101.76.122 (talk) 01:16, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps that the /l/ and /n/ in those words function as nuclei of the syllables... ;-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Petusek (talk • contribs) 11:55, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sources?

I was reading along looking at the vocabulary list, thinking that there were remarkable parallels, in many cases, to other languages, sometimes of disparate groupings. Then I got to "taliθa" for "girl", and suddenly I lost all confidence in this article. Either somebody inserted "taliθa" to be funny, or there's an uncanny similarity between a three-syllable word (one which approaches "fundamental vocabulary") in Etruscan, and in Aramaic. If this isn't somebody's idea of a joke, please cite the source. Any Bible scholar knows Jesus' uttrance "Talitha, kumi" (Maid, arise!)...and I have to believe serious linguists are aware of this... which is why I am dumbfound to see no mention of a possible link to Aramaic made here. Mi/Mini, yeah, that reeks of a potential Indo-European or "Nostratic" link...but a three-syllable happenstance, not even cognate, same freaking word? That's not happenstance...if it's not a hoax, it's either borrowing [oh, how?] or a definitive link. What's shocking [and to me, therefore, unbelievable] is that nobody seems to have bothered to research it. Granted, the article contains a "Semitic hypothesis" section, which dismisses the idea out of hand (even using the editorializing word "fantastical" (in violation of both WP:NOR and WP:NPOV), and without bothering to cite more than a single solitary source less than 150 years old in support of that dismissal, I might add)... To be clear, I'm not trying to advocate an Etruscan-Semitic link here...my primary thrust is to make sure that the article isn't including pranksterism in its otherwise authoritative (if excessively vague, bar the lexicon portion) text. Gedächte? 71.87.23.22 (talk) 06:00, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Speculative relationships: fringe and serious mix

Speculative relationships should be lower down in the article. The following are elaborate fringe, bogus and mindlessnesses:

  • Semitic - because of the sole proponents obvious bias,
  • Hungarian - because of the preposterous rewritings of history it requires, and the anachronism (+ maybe some dubious Hungarian nationalist stuff in the background)

The following is serious, but maybe obsolete:

  • Indo-European - because the science didn't know better at that time, and it is revived in another way,
  • not mentioned: a proposed Indo-Etruscan macro-family,

The following can be either, more citations needed:

  • Luwian - because the Antique sources support the notion,

The Tyrsenian family theory is about a slightly different topic (a narrower time frame and narrower set of languages), the Pelasgian theory (Tyrsenian langs + Pelasgian/Eteokretan/+???) also regards a family grouping.

I think the heading Speculative relationships now is too fringy; it should be split into serious and fringe/obsolete (the fringe/obsolete part can retain the name "Speculative relationships"), and the serious to something like "Relationships" or "Related languages", to contain at least the other Tyrsenian languages, down to carefully words about a possible far relationship to Indo-Yooropajjan (note my innovative spelling, isn't it cyoot?). Said: Rursus ☻ 10:22, 1 May 2008 (UTC)