|
HOME | GREEK LANGUAGE | LIBRARIES | BLOG | HELP | SEARCH | FREEWARE | BOOKSTORE |
|
|
Please note that Mommsen uses the AUC chronology (Ab Urbe Condita), i.e. from the founding of the City of Rome. You can use this reference table to have the B.C. dates
From: The History of Rome, by Theodor Mommsen
Translated with the sanction of the author by William Purdie Dickson
|
Page 4
The frequent gentile termination -enas or -ena(4) recurs in the termination -enus which is likewise of frequent occurrence in Italian, especially in Sabellian clan-names; thus the Etruscan names -Maecenas- and -Spurinna- correspond closely to the Roman -Maecius-and -Spurius-.
4. Such as Maecenas, Porsena, Vivenna, Caecina, Spurinna. The vowel in the penult is originally long, but in consequence of the throwing back of the accent upon the initial syllable is frequently shortened and even rejected. Thus we find Porse(n)na as well as Porsena, and Ceicne as well as Caecina.
A number of names of divinities, which occur as Etruscan on Etruscan monuments or in authors, have in their roots, and to some extent even in their terminations, a form so thoroughly Latin, that, if these names were really originally Etruscan, the two languages must have been closely related; such as -Usil- (sun and dawn, connected with -ausum-, -aurum-, -aurora-, -sol-), -Minerva-(-menervare-) -Lasa- (-lascivus-), -Neptunus-, -Voltumna-.
As these analogies, however, may have had their origin only in the subsequent political and religious relations between the Etruscans and Latins, and in the accommodations and borrowings to which these relations gave rise, they do not invalidate the conclusion to which we are led by the other observed phenomena, that the Tuscan language differed at least as widely from all the Graeco-Italian dialects as did the language of the Celts or of the Slavonians. So at least it sounded to the Roman ear; "Tuscan and Gallic" were the languages of barbarians, "Oscan and Volscian" were but rustic dialects.
Do you see any typos or other mistakes? Please let us know and correct them
|
|
Reference address : https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/rome/1-09-etruscans.asp?pg=4
