Etruscus

Latin Etymology From or related to la Etruria (compare Tuscus). Probably related to xum Turskum,Giuliano Bonfante, Larissa Bonfante, The Etruscan Language: An Introduction, Revised Edition (2002, 0719055407), page 51: In other languages, the Etruscans' name might come from a stem turs- (Latin Tuscus, from *Turs-cos, archaic Umbrian turskum (numen), later Umbrian tuscom (nome), Latin Etruria from *E-trus-ia (?), Greek Tyrs-enoi (from Greek tyrsis, Latin turris, 'tower')). and Ancient Greek grc Τυρρηνός, grc Τυρσηνός, from grc τύρρις tower, grc τύρσις, itself of pre-Indo-European origin, in which case grc Τυρσηνός might be a native Etruscan word simply meaning "tower people" (as opposed to the Rasennae, see below). See Τυρσηνία. Helmut Rix, based on the distinction made by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, assumed that la tuscus tusci, xum Turskum (nomen), grc Τυρσηνοί, derived from the original la ett - name, while Rasna (from Etruscan ett 𐌓𐌀𐌔𐌍𐌀, and whence la Rasennae), like populus, originally designated the part of the population of Etruria which had political responsibility.Helmut Rix, "Etr. meχ rasnal = lat. res publica", in M. G. Marzi Costagli, L. Tamagno Perna (a cura di), Studi di antichità in onore di Guglielmo Maetzke, Roma, Giorgio Bretschneider, 1984, pp. 455-468.en M. T. Watmough Margaret 1997 Studies in the Etruscan Loanwords in Latin Volume 33 of Biblioteca di "Studi etruschi" 33 Florence L.S. Olschki 1997 90 Rix accounts for the distinction made by Dionysius of Halicarnassus by assuming that Gr. Tvpexnvo'i, Umb. Turskum (nomen) and Lat. Tusci are transformations of the original Etruscan name, while Rasna, like populus, originally designated that part of the population of Etruria which had political responsibility, i.e. that part which also furnished the military. In Rix's opinion, in the third to second century, when the right of citizenship was conceded even to the neveaxai, rasna serves to designate "tutta la popolazione libera dell'Etruriae". The original meaning of both res publica and mex- rasnal will have been, according to Rrx 1984b:467, "patrimonio delle milizie"; the semantic progression from "patrimonio delle milizie" to "stato" presupposes "un cambio politico". A theory by Vladimir GeorgievVladimir I. Georgiev, Introduction to the History of the Indo-European Languages (Sofia: Publishing House of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 1981). suggested that the word had the same root as grc Τρῶες Trojans and en Troy. Philip Baldi criticized this specific proposal as not standing "up to linguistic scrutiny," citing problems like the "spurious metathesis of r and the following vowel in Gk. Τυρσηνοί".Philip Baldi, The Foundations of Latin (Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1999), p. 111. On the other hand, Beekes, in support of an origin of the Etruscan language from Northwest Anatolia, suggested that the metathesis may have been motivated by the unexplained prefixed e- in the form *e-trus-cus.Beekes, R.S.P. (2003). The Origin of the Etruscans. Amsterdam: Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen. Beekes's proposal has been critically assessed by specialists. Wallace (2005) noted that the alleged Etruscan-Lydian loanwords on which Beekes relies are "difficult to evaluate" since "for many vocabulary items the correspondences are not convincing in terms of phonology or semantics," that there is "no evidence in late Bronze Age materials from Etruria that points to a migration of peoples," and that any hypothesis must account for Raetic, linguistically related to Etruscan, which Beekes largely ignores.Rex E. Wallace, review of R.S.P. Beekes, The Origin of the Etruscans, International Journal of the Classical Tradition 12.1 (2005), pp. 141–143. Smith (2005) found the argument "unpersuasive in essence," noting that the etymological arguments "do not prove an Etruscan connection" and that the eastern attributes of Etruscan culture "are often the product of acculturation or the synthesizing minds of later historians."Christopher Smith, review of R.S.P. Beekes, The Origin of the Etruscans, Classical Review 55.1 (2005). In the past, other scholars have proposed that the term might be la cel -.John Fraser, The Etruscans: Were They Celts? (1879). Adrian Room compares other language isolate ethnonyms, such as Basque, hinted by the -sc- element found in la Etruscus, la Vascones, and older Latin forms la ligusc* of grc Λίγυς; see Liguria.Room, Adrian, Place Names of the World, 2nd ed., McFarland & Co., 2006. Pronunciation Etrūscus Adjective Etrūscus of or pertaining to Etruria, Etruscan Declension Etrūscus Noun Etrūscus<2.both> Etrūsca la usually in the plural one of the people of Etruria, an Etruscan Declension Etrūscus 1 Related terms la Etrūria la tuscus References la Nationalities