Rhaetic inscriptions Schum PU 1 and Schum CE 1

After not a peep after five days, I feel guilty for not blogging. So here's a fiesta of more thoughts I have on the Rhaetic language. Enjoy, everyone!

Schum PU 1

This one particular inscription that looks especially Etruscan-like. It seems to read as follows, although Adolfo Zavaroni transcribes it differently on his website under Schum PU 1:

iχ χan φelturies kala hepru śia hil / klanturus

I swear I see a legible sentence in here whose equivalent in Etruscan would be:

*Iχ, can Velturies-cla hepru śia hil.

If we interpret the hapax hepru as a noun referring to the artifact on which the inscription is written, we get the following phrase: "Thus (iχ), this (χan) plaque (hepru) from the Velturie (Φelturies-kala) is set down (śia) to the property (hil)."

The verb here appears to be śi, conjugated in the present tense (-a). The direct object (χan hepru) is then separated by the name of the donors in the genitive case (Φelturies) further augmented by a genitive-declined demontrative postfix (kala). This leaves the unmarked nominative hil which I've already translated as 'property, land' in my Etruscan database. This word curiously follows the verb, however this is not unusual in Etruscan for reasons I'm currently developing. It may have something to do with animacy whereby an inanimate noun (which hil is proven to be in Etruscan due to plural hilχva attested in the Liber Linteus) probably cannot be treated as the subject of a transitive verb and therefore is dethroned to a position after the verb to specify mere agent of the action instead (like a kind of 'afterthought', let's say) while still treated as an unmarked nominative noun. So, I would dare say that in both Etruscan and Rhaetic (and probably also in Lemnian), OVS word order may signal agent-focussed sentences, much like how Mandarin's passive is constructed by marking the agent with preposed bei and placing the agent/object before the verb and after the patient/subject despite the default SVO word order.

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Schum CE 1

I recently came across Philip Baldi, Foundations of Latin (2002), p.154 which provides translation to another one of Rhaetic's inscriptions, Schum CE 1 (see corresponding picture on Zavaroni's website or on p.155 of the aforementioned book). The translation was suggested by Pisani 1964:323 as follows:

laviseśeli velχanu
lup.nu pitiave
kusenkus trinaχe
φelna vinutalina

"(Of the son of Lavis), to Velxanu (someone) gave (this)wine-bearing tankard, for Pitiave of Kusenku."

This is somewhat similar to what I'm interpreting, except that, despite the denialist account of Rhaetic's relationship to Etruscan in Baldi's book, I know of perfect Etruscan parallels available, both of each words individually and of the sentence structure as a whole. First off, I would think it wise to resist reading the above as a single sentence since these different lines are written in various places on the surface of a situla and cannot possibly have been intended to be read as a single sentence as Pisani suggests. It looks like this book needs to be reedited a tad.

There is such a name in Roman records as Lavus (as well as Lavinus), and appears to be present on the Tabula Cortonensis in its list of names. The same name resurfaces in Schum WE 1. It should be self-apparent that Velχanu refers to none other than Velchans, a deity that Etruscans also worshipped. Naturally, the object is being dedicated to him. I suspect that the Rhaetic language changed all instances of word-final -l (as we would find in Etruscan) to -u. Such a change is interestingly reminiscent of a similar development in Old French where word-final /l/ became velarized to a 'dark l' which most English speakers are familiar with. Note Schum PU 5 (inscribed simply: vaku), which corresponds nicely with Etruscan vacil 'votive offering', as testimony to this change.

The reading of lup(i)nu as a part of a compound name of Velchans is ad hoc and unlikely because, as I said earlier, the artifact simply cannot be intended to be read as a single sentence, based on the way the phrases are positioned throughout the artifact. The verb lup is found in Etruscan which I currently give the value of 'to cross over; to die' (n.b. most Etruscanists simply give it the value of 'to die'), commonly used in Etruscan funerary inscriptions, but it appears to be further marked with mediopassive -in- and participle -u (unless of course the latter is the genitive-II ending).

The word trinaχe is immediately recognizable by the Etruscan verb trin (attested several times in the Liber Linteus) and appears to be marked by passive -aχ- and preterite -e, just as we would find in Etruscan. That gives it a semantic value of 'it was poured'.

If I understand correctly Pisani is equating vinutalina with 'wine-bearing' but we also find Etruscan vina and θalna which together give it a similar meaning while also providing thought-provoking cognates. The use of -na as a derivational suffix is characteristically Etruscoid but Baldi dismayingly tries to give us a Latin etymology by what is in effect a whim without carefully explaining the disparity in its phonetics and without expounding on the morphology exhibited in these words that, as I've already shown, is more Etruscan-like in nature than Latin-like.

Certain elements are still a mystery to me. I don't have a clue what kusenkus is supposed to be or whether it really is a name. I have never seen it in Etruscan records and I can't think of a parallel Roman name for the life of me. All I can say for now on that item is that it appears to be marked in genitive -s and may more likely refer to either the situla itself or to the liquids to be poured from it. Likewise, I'm unsure of the value of pitiave either but the claim that it's a name seems to be a slothful ex nihilo. If not a name, it has the look of an inanimate plural noun declined in the locative (-va [plural] + -e [locative]). Perhaps lup(i)nu pitiave "dead with [pitia-things]"?

So, obviously nothing too certain yet but I think there are some interesting connections with Etruscan to be had here. I guess I'll just have to work harder to crack this walnut.

Rhaetic for Dummies

Here's something light-hearted to enjoy for a laugh (because it's not good for much else). Giancarlo Tomezzoli and V. A. Choodeenov take us through a mental safari journey in The "Spada di Verona". It starts off looking somewhat professional enough with an abstract of the article framing the topic that follows:

"The Maniscalchi - Erizzo Museum in Verona (Veneto, IT) hosts an interesting collection of Roman, Venetic and Rhaetic antiquities among which a copy of the so called 'Spada di Verona' i.e. Sword of Verona. The inscription is redacted in the alphabet, closely resembling the Venetic, in which the Magrè inscriptions are written. The use of the Magrè alphabet would indicate a Rhaetic origin of the inscription. The inscription appears to be written from right to left in continuo and no indication is provided in it for indicating a possible separations between the words."

Ignoring the glaring grammatical error (i.e. "a possible separations"), the use of obscure Latin phrases like in continuo might lure the curious neophyte into the pitfall of mistaking it for something academic until the authors' psychoses finally leap off the page...

"A possible method of separating the words is to directly recognize in the inscription similar or corresponding Slavic language elements like name and verbs. However, in applying this method two alternative word separations and consequently two alternative interpretations of the inscription emerged."

To be blunt, this is the reasoning of a gradeschooler. I'm thinking of an IQ number between 0 and 90. I daren't investigate from which university this abstract might have come, if at all. A creative whim should not be mistaken for a "method". Of course, the abstract immediately begs the obvious question: Why Slavic? And the obvious possible answers are: a) half-baked nationalism, b) lack of education, c) cognitive deterioration, d) a poorly executed joke, e) all of the above.

The whole point of a method is to eliminate possibilities through deduction, not to add to them with baseless assumptions. Sufficed to say, no sensible linguist recognizes this "method" as they describe it and it's a case study of how not to crack an undeciphered language. If their method has a name, why not call it the Dumb and Dumber method? Although, come to think of it, this may infringe on Hollywood copyright. Language Log explains a very similar, oft-used scam called mass lexical comparison normally operating on protolanguages in Bill Poser's The Emperor's Clothes (April 18, 2006). Say no to drugs, kiddies. That includes the drug of idées fixes.