The programming muse has got me inspired and I whipped up a Flash program the other day to make my Etruscan database more searchable and user-friendly for people. I hate to brag but I think it might be the very first one ever online! (That's actually sort of sad considering that the web browser's been around for sixteen years now.) My dictionary is placed on the Extras page along with my Sinat and Game of Ur games. I've designed it to search one or multiple words at once.I've briefly tested it out and seems to work fine for me so far. However, Actionscript, the computer language behind Flash, is an unpredictable bastard and likes to play games with my head all the time... so I can never be sure. There might also be a Unicode issue that could be a problem for some browsers. Anyways, hopefully it works for you all and there's always room for improvements. Tell me your experiences. Live long and prosper, friends.
Looks like it works if you enter an exact search term, but not if you use a partial term. Also it doesn't look like it searches English meanings.
ReplyDeleteAwesome. So very, very awesome. I've been playing on it for several hours now, and it just keeps getting better.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I noticed: I got most of the letter names, but there are a few I can't for the life of me figure out! Those would be the equivalents of gamma, delta, iota, xi, rho, and the "f" sign (as well as the one between epsilon & zeta, if that's not "f").
I really like how one can enter several words and it translates each one separately. So many online dictionaries don't translate more than one word at a time. And of course, including the declinations is very, very useful!
Hey that's great!
ReplyDeleteI have a suggestion though. It might be a good idea to make a fuzzy search option. If one would find a word in a transcription that wouldn't be the exact spelling/form you have it would probably be easy that it could still find a partial word.
For example I tried searching for 'cap' instead of 'capi' which yielded nothing.
Thanks!
ReplyDeleteMordrigar,
ReplyDeleteI decided to start with the basics and with just Etruscan word searching first. I can definitely code in an English search too with the data already loaded into the applet. That's what I've intended to do once I know that people aren't having too many problems with the basic interface I made.
Casey,
Thanks! I wasn't expecting that level of enthusiasm! As for the letter names, it's a hypothesis of my own, hence the asterisks. I figure that if both the Greek and Etruscan alphabets were adopted at the same time with the same Semitic source, they should have similar names. I get the impression that people just assume the names were identical to those in Latin (ie. ā, bē, cē, dē, etc.) which were based purely on the phonetics of what they represented. Yet I'm unaware of any concrete proof that Etruscan had the same names as Latin.
So I've tentatively extrapolated that gamma, delta, iota, chi, and rho are *cemla (cf. gimel), *talta (cf. daleth), *eiata (cf. yod), *χei and *rusa (cf. resh). Since the "f" sign was an Etruscan innovation, it could have been identical in name to Latin ef, or another possibility is *fau (a rhyme with the digamma *vau, cf. waw).
Phoenix,
The 'fuzzy search' is another thing I definitely intend to add. It could be easily accomplished by allowing asterisks as wild cards.
As I say to Mordrigar above, I'm testing out basics and I'm glad this is working for you all.
Zu,
No problem. I'm a geek so I figured I may as well! ;o)
This is indeed a very useful resource. Maybe it is just because I am no expert of Etruscan linguistics, that I would love to see some options to get all the known declination or conjugation forms of the word sought after.
ReplyDeleteActually, I have a somewhat unrelated question as well: Etruscan has a considerable number of words beginning with 'e', but the same is not true to other Aegean-family languages. So, where do you think the e- initials evolved from? Were they always 'e-' or rather 'i-' or 'a-' ?
Bayndor: "Etruscan has a considerable number of words beginning with 'e', but the same is not true to other Aegean-family languages."
ReplyDeleteYou're reifying unproven assumptions.
Okey, you might be right. I only asked this because in Linear A inscriptions, E is extremely rare as word-initial (JE is no way more common). This is a fact, not an assumption - the assumption part is that this undeciphered Cretan language and Etruscan are related.
ReplyDeleteSorry for derailing the discussion from the online dictionary. I still maintain that it is useful, and I just used it myself to check a few things.
Bayndor: "I only asked this because in Linear A inscriptions, E is extremely rare as word-initial (JE is no way more common)."
ReplyDelete"Extremely rare" is a purely subjective description. Words beginning with e- nonetheless exist in the few texts of Minoan we have. Three come up in my database: e-na-si [KH 7.a.2-3], e-ta₂-qe [PH Wg 45] and ye-di [HT 122.b.1].
What a great dictionary! I have a question. I am fascinated by Aegean substratum language(s) and there is a toponym: Lachish is the Southern Levant that is pre-Semitic. I noticed that Lach, in the dictionary translates as to be counted. Could Lachish be remotely related to Lach with the pan-Aegean suffix -ss-/-sh-? It would fit with the patterns in Y chromosomes in the region from Tuscany to the Southern Levant.
ReplyDeleteRoyjking2: "I am fascinated by Aegean substratum language(s) and there is a toponym: Lachish is the Southern Levant that is pre-Semitic."
ReplyDeleteOn what basis do you judge Lachish 'Pre-Semitic'? There's also a danger in reading too much into genetic data since genes quite obviously tell us nothing about what languages people spoke.
I did not judge Lachish as pre-Semitic--I recall it from perhaps the Anchor Bible Dictionary. I would suppose the presumptive triconsonant root L-CH-SH has no known Semitic etymology. I am quite aware of the limitations of genetics; that said, I was curious about the possible Aegean etymology of Lachish.
ReplyDelete"I would suppose the presumptive triconsonant root L-CH-SH has no known Semitic etymology."
ReplyDeleteJudging only by the spelling of the Hebrew name (לכיש), I'd expect instead a Proto-Semitic triliteral *l-k-[š/θ]. The latter letter has two possibilities unless, for example, we know whether the Ugaritic name ended in an esh or a theta. Both sounds have merged in Hebrew and are written with the letter shin.
You should be aware that sibilant cityname suffixes (or the semblance of them) aren't in themselves identifiably Aegean (eg. Hattusa and Wilusa).
I think I can narrow some possibilities down for myself concerning Lachish's etymology...
ReplyDeleteIt looks like in Hellenosemitica (1965), Astour mentioned a Hittite rendering, Lakisi, together with a later Phoenician colony called Lixus (Λίξος) which, if valid, would suggest a predominantly Semitic use of the name as well as diminish my offhand triliteral alternative with theta. This search is getting interesting even though I have doubts it has much to do with the Aegean languages.