This etymological puzzle is starting to consume my daily thoughts. The Etruscan name for Arretium, as I mentioned earlier, appears to be Aritim, at least according to Steinbauer[1]. I now think he's correct. However, if this is so, any distinctly Etruscan connection that Pallottino had claimed existed between the Roman urbonym Arretium and the modern German word for 'ore', Erz, is smashed. Yet there are more nagging details about these etymologies that I just don't find convincing.
For example, the claim that the Germanic words for 'ore' derive from Arretium seems like the reverse of what I personally would deduce from the evidence. It's the Germanic terms that are shorter than the name from which they purportedly derive, afterall, and this is mightily suspect to me. One would almost reckon instead that the name of Arretium derived from the Germanic words for 'ore'. And why not? It seems to me that Etruscologists are obsessed with the thought that Arretium must have been founded by Etruscans. Yet beyond the fact that the city was Etruscan from the most ancient historical times, what evidence exists that the Etruscans also established it in prehistory as opposed to taking it over from indigenous peoples like the Italic or Germanic population? All I see so far is a city positioned remotely in the interior of Italy in the northernmost region of Etruria that by all accounts has been shaped from the earliest times by not only Etruscans, but Italic-speaking and Germanic-speaking populations as well.
So I was thinking the other day, “What if 'Arretium' was originally a Germanic name?” It's a delicious thought that I can't pass up. I'm tempted to posit a form like *Arutjōn signifying 'Ore Town' (< *arutja- 'ore' plus derivational suffix *-ōn as in *bijōn- 'bee'). The city was known for its bronze and so such a name would be apt. From there, Latin-speaking people could have assimilated the name as Arretium very easily. The Etruscans would in turn have borrowed it directly from the Latin speakers, as indicated by the word-final -m. Aritim is not an analysable name in Etruscan terms, so I'm entirely convinced that it's a foreign name one way or another and that regardless of the Etruscan political history of this town, the whole thing is making me believe that the cultural mix of Arretium in prehistoric times was much more complex than currently appreciated.
NOTES
[1] Steinbauer, "Zur Grabinschrif der Larthi Cilnei aus Aritim/Arretium/Arezzo", Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 121 (1998), p.263–281 (see pdf).
2 Jun 2008
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Hello,
ReplyDeleteYou prbably already know this, but German etymological dictionaries mention an ultimately Sumerian origin (urud(u)) of Gm. Erz (OHG aruz, aruzzi, OS arut), but not Arezzo.I am not sure that either explanation is satisfying.
Best wishes,
Jaime
Yes, that myth seems to be flying around. However, without a credible explanation as to why and how a Sumerian word would ever find its way in the Etrusco-Roman lexicon, it remains idle bunk. For everyone's information, what makes this claim even sillier is that Sumerian is well understood to have been on the wane by 2000 BCE, more than a millenium before the city of Arretium and Etruscan civilization!
ReplyDelete"any distinctly Etruscan connection that Pallottino had claimed existed between the Roman urbonym Arretium and the modern German word for 'ore', Erz, is smashed."
ReplyDeleteOne can simply forget about Germanic in early Italy. There never was a plausible connection to start with. A development from **arutjo:n into Arre:tium is out the question.
1) **arutjo:n would, ultimately, have led to PIt. **Arutio:n- and Latin **Aritio (Aritionem). The geminate, the long e-vocalism, the stem type of Arre:tium are all impossible to plausibly explain from a source **arutjo:n-.
2) Germanic *aruta-, *arutja- is a word from a North Western European substratum language I will call X. Items belonging to X are found in Celtic, Italic and Germanic. One characteristic of X is a prothetic a- (an article?) followed by a reduced root/stem (reduced vocalism). *Arutaz is to be analysed as *a-rud-. This belongs to Lat. raudus from *raud- (the latter does not belong to lat. ru:dus. Another story). For another example from X with this feature one can think of German Amsel from *a-msl- vs. Lat. merula and Welsh mialch from *mis(a)l-.
3) The geminate, from an Italic point of view, suggests a compound consisting of a preposition plus something else, whatever that may have been. One may think of *ad-re:t-io-.
4) "From there, Latin-speaking people could have assimilated the name as Arretium very easily". Ad hoc. And implausible.
5) "It seems to me that Etruscologists are obsessed with the thought that Arretium must have been founded by Etruscans."
Even without any knowledge of Lemnian, the presence of Thyrsenoi in the Aegean etc., etc., just Etruria by itself makes a case for non-indigenous character. Just a few arguments below.
a) Etruscan is remarkably homogenous. Hardly any sign of any serious dialect differences. This suggests they had not been around too long yet. Newcomers?
b) Faliscan clearly is ordinary Latin with some dialect differences. But Latin nevertheless and certainly not a separate language. This Latin simply survived South and East of the Tiber due to a strong Italic presence in Rome and the Ciminian forest, whereas in Etruria it was replaced by Etruscan. And the Faliscan area was under heavy Etruscan influence. Basically, Tarquin Rome was just an Italic settlement in the earliest stage of Etruscanisation and then escaping it because of a powershift towards its Italic fractions occurring just in time.
c) North East Etruria has a far too large body of Umbrian names. This clearly was a bilingual area that was not fully Etruscanised yet, but Etruscan did become "the official language" of cities like Arretium, Clusium.
b) The river Umbro is clearly the Umbrian river. That it is not the Tuscan river suggests there werent enough Tuscans around when it got its name.
Etruscan clearly spread eastwards from the coastal cities.
6) "The Etruscans would in turn have borrowed it directly from the Latin speakers, as indicated by the word-final -m."
They did not borrow it from Latin.
Apart from the fact that it is a priori unlikely that the name of a powerful Etruscan but originally Italic settlement, relatively remote from the Latin speaking area, would have been taken from Latin instead of the local variant of Sabellic, it is also demonstrably incorrect. The Umbrian counterpart of Lat. Arretium must have been *Arrí:tim. This was taken over by Etruscan as Aritim (first i stands for the long closed Umbrian front vowel, here displayed as í). That it was taken over from Umbrian is also clearly revealed by the fact Aritim displays the Umbrian last syllable apocope (here loss of the stem vowel). Aritim is as Umbrian as it can be.