T

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Character
Customary name:	tau

Variants and attestation

Transliteration	Sinistroverse		Dextroverse
	Glyph	Number	Glyph	Number
T		7		7
T2		1		1
T3		30		1
T4		8		1

Commentary

/ is the "traditional" graphic variant of Tau, appearing in Etruscan, Venetic and Lepontic. In Raetic, the letter was demonstrably used in Magrè, San Giorgio di Valpolicella, and in the Alpine petrographs of Steinberg, Achenkirch and Unterammergau; apart from these subcorpura, only the isolated inscription WE-4 has Tau in this form.

In TIR, is argued to be a variant of Tau rather than Pi. The traditional reading goes back to the very earliest finds in the 19^th century: was first read /p/ by Conestabile in his publication of BZ-4 (teva'snicheriupikutiutivachvilipiperisnati, p. 41). The character is transcribed as (Indo-European) /d/ in Sulzer's publication of SZ-16 (p. 308), but Fabretti in the CII preferred /p/ in both SZ-16 and BZ-4 (No.s 23 and 60; with reference to Sulzer's dental p. 133). Already in 1874, Corssen explicitly mentioned Pi turned against writing direction as a similarity between the two inscriptions. Alphabet tables which display as Pi are found in AIF I: 55 and Pellegrini 1959; the most important work is Prosdocimi 1971: 33.

Pi with its bar pointing backwards would be the only irregularity in a system which shows the Magrè alphabet to be closer to the Venetic group (, , ), while the Sanzeno alphabet has common ground with Western Transpadania (, , ). The turning of Pi would be redundant, i.e. not enforced by the graphical development of any other character. It might be compared with that of Alpha and Sigma , who, in their typically Raetic, and especially Sanzeno-forms, also have an orientation different from that usual in the related alphabets. However, there are no parallels for such a consistent turning among the characters which, like , consist of a vertical hasta and lateral bar(s) (, , , , , , ) – neither in the Raetic alphabets, nor, to our knowledge, in any of the related alphabets. The Etruscan E cortonensis , for example, was not turned randomly, but writes a differently articulated vowel in direct opposition to .

On being the normal form of Pi in the Sanzeno alphabet, see P. Not a single one of the forms containing in Sanzeno context have a parallel from Magrè context which could demonstrate that the phoneme written with that letter is /p/ or any other labial sound. Only ^†ṣ́up̣riṣ (BZ-12) would offer itself for comparison with the Etruscan PN śupri (ET Vt 4.5). Furthermore, under the assumption that = Pi, Tau would be missing from the Sanzeno alphabet, while Phi and Khi are quite common.

The only two Sanzeno alphabet inscriptions with "traditional" are CE-1.4 (as part of a periphrastic spelling strinaχe for þinaχe) and NO-17. A third candidate is VR-6, if it is judged to be written in the Sanzeno alphabet. In all three cases, the bar rises in writing direction, as it does in . This orientation is intuitively wrong and indeed less frequent in the cases of Tau in Magrè context, and of other letters with hastae and central bars (Heta, Zeta, but we may here compare the typical orientation of Alpha , exclusive in the Sanzeno alphabet. Conceivably, a variant of Tau with rising bar was preferred for being more clearly distinguishable from single-bar Pi, permitting a further development → .

Bibliography

AIF I	Carl Pauli, Altitalische Forschungen. Band 1: Die Inschriften nordetruskischen Alphabets, Leipzig: 1885.
CII	Ariodante Fabretti, Corpus inscriptionum italicarum, Torino: 1867. (2 volumes)
Conestabile 1863	Giancarlo Conestabile, Second spicilegium de quelques monuments écrits ou épigraphes des Étrusques. Musées de Londres, de Berlin, de Manheim, de La Haye, de Paris, de Pérouse (Italie), Paris: Librairie Académique - Didier et Cie 1863.
Corssen 1874	Wilhelm Paul Corssen, Ueber die Sprache der Etrusker. Band 1, Leipzig: 1874.
Eska & Wallace 1999	Joseph F. Eska, Rex T. Wallace, "The linguistic milieu of *Oderzo 7", Historische Sprachforschung 112 (1999), 122–136.
ET	Helmut Rix, Gerhard Meiser (Eds), Etruskische Texte. Editio Minor [= ScriptOralia 23-24; Reihe A, Altertumswissenschaftliche Reihe 6-7], Tübingen: Gunter Narr 1991. (2 volumes)
IR	Alberto Mancini, "Iscrizioni retiche", Studi Etruschi 43 (1975), 249–306.
LIR	Alberto Mancini, Le Iscrizioni Retiche [= Quaderni del dipartimento di linguistica, Università degli studi di Firenze Studi 8–9], Padova: Unipress 2009–10. (2 volumes)
Lunz & Morandi 2003	Reimo Lunz, Alessandro Morandi, "Un frammento di elmo di bronzo con iscrizione retica da Settequerce – Siebeneich", Archeologia Classica LIV (2003), 341–349.
Mancini 1991	Alberto Mancini, "Iscrizioni retiche e iscrizioni camune. Due ambiti a confronto", Quaderni del Dipartimento di Linguistica - Università di Firenze 2 (1991 [1992]), 77–113.
Mancini 1999	Alberto Mancini, "Iscrizioni retiche: aspetti epigrafici", in: Gianni Ciurletti, Franco Marzatico, I Reti / Die Räter [= Archeologia delle Alpi 5], Trento: Artigianelli 1999. (2 volumes), 297–333.
Marinetti 1985	Anna Marinetti, Le iscrizioni sudpicene I: Testi [= Lingue e iscrizioni dell'Italia antica 5], Firenze: 1985.
Marinetti 1987	Anna Marinetti, "L'iscrizione retica (PID 247) da Ca' dei Cavri (Verona)", in: Alessandra Aspes (Ed.), Prima della Storia. Inediti di 10 anni di ricerche a Verona, Verona: Museo Civico di Storia Naturale 1987, 131–140.
Marstrander 1927	Carl Johan Sverdrup Marstrander, "Remarques sur les inscriptions des casques en bronze de Negau et de Watsch", Avhandlinger utgitt av Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi i Oslo. Hist.-filos. klasse 1926/2 (1927), 1–26.