8 Jan 2012

Ghost words and anti-dictionaries

I've mused before that what we need is an Etruscan "anti-dictionary" to reference all the words that have been made up over the decades out of thin air due to misanalyses by various scholars. Lazy authors spread these infectious memes the most, of course, but even careful scholars can overlook things. These words end up being taken as 100% fact by more naive readers and it's difficult sometimes to talk them out of their factless stupor. The more everyone shares information however, the more we can crush these little fibs and understand our history just a little better.

Michael Weiss at OHCGL Addenda and Corrigenda likewise has noticed some phantom words in the Hittite lexicon and calls attention to *itar/*itnaš, explaining some details behind that inaccuracy.

1 comment:

  1. This would be interesting, but it could well be even more challenging than a normal dictionary, due to the numerous ways such misanalyses can come about. Moreover, there's no corpus of publications about Etruscan (then again, that's not a serious problem - updating is easy).

    Funny thing: I'm trying to make an electronic version of the Corpus Inscriptionum Etruscarum Wisconsinense, and in the Piacenza liver, what shood greet me but "Tlusc Mar." When I get there, I'll have to make a footnote...

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