The Raetic language

The Raetic language as documented in inscriptions written in the alphabets of Sanzeno (Bolzano) and Magrè has turned out to be much more homogenous than expected (or hoped) (see Modern research on the Raeti and Raetic). Despite the fact that its uniformity, though long suspected, has been demonstrated only in the 1990ies, linguistic criteria today make for a better basis for the definition of the Raetic corpus than epigraphic parameters.

As is generally the case with fragmentary languages, our knowledge of Raetic is restricted by the limited input not only in quantity, but also in quality. The prevalent Raetic text types are:

• votive inscriptions / dedications, mostly formulaic,
• owner's inscriptions,
• possibly funerary inscriptions.
  

The handful of longer and more complex inscriptions remain mostly obscure due to lack of material for comparison; on the other end of the scale, a great number of inscribed characters do not encode linguistic entities and are of no use for the purpose of researching the Raetic language. As a consequence, we primarily know names. The identification of derivational and inflectional suffixes and of lexical items is usually owed to comparison with Etruscan.

Morphology

• Genitive singular endings -s und -a, comparable with the endings of the Etruscan genitive.
• Pertinentive singular endings -si oder -(a)le, also with Etruscan equivalents.
• Nominative plural ending -er, attested only once, but identical to that of Etruscan.
• Derivational suffix -na / -nu, used in Raetic for deriving patro-/matronyms, comparable with the Etruscan derivational suffix -na.
• Derivational suffix -ku forming nominal derivations from verbal stems in -ke, of equal form in Etruscan.
• 3^rd singular preterite -ke, as in Etruscan; it is questionable whether the spelling with Kappa or Khi (in some cases) reflects a distincion of voice.

Lexicon

• þinaχe (-ke preterite) ~ Etr. zinake 'made'.
• eluku (-ku participle), possibly to Etr. ilucu 'sacrifice' (?).
• aχvil ~ Etr. akvil 'present'.
• sφura ~ Etr. spura 'community'.
• þal ~ Etr. zal 'two'.
• possibly enclitic -ka ~ Etr. -ka 'and'.

• upiku (-ku participle), probably 'given', 'donated' vel. sim.
• pani(u)n, attested several times, but obscure.
• perisna, attested several times; probably formed with the derivational suffix -na, but otherwise obscure.
• φuper, clearly a noun in the plural (see above), but semantically opaque.

Onomastics

Personal names

A full Raetic name consists of two parts: an individual name and a patronym (or possibly also a matronym). The latter is derived from an individual name by suffixation of -nu or -na; on the questions of the relation to Etruscan -na and whether the two variants reflect gender, see the morpheme pages. We have reason to believe that the Raetic patronymic system was productive at the time of it's documentation – a number of names are attested both as individual names and as base of a patronym, but most important is the testimony of ST-1, ST-2 and ST-3 with the names of three apparently related men. The following names are attested as both individual name and patronym:

• vispeχa (vispeχanu)
• kastrie (kaszrinu)
• piθam(n)e (piθamnu)
• remi (remina)

Names attested more than once as individual names:

• a(u)zile (debatable)
• esimne
• esumne
• lavise
• laθur(u)
• laspa
• lipie (possibly)
• piθam(n)e
• φel(i)(p)uriesi (problematic)
• χari (debatable)

Names attested only once, as individual names or bases for patronyms, some dubious to varying degrees:

eθun*	kalaśu*	perku* (?)
enike	kaniś*	perunie
vaiθi*	karapaś*	reituś*
vaþa*	keta*	ruśie
velθie	kuni*	slepi*
vepelie	laśa*	tipruχ*
viθam*	lauspe	φausu
θaθi* (?)	liri	φelvi*
θauχrili* (?)	lumene	φrima
θia*	nuþ*	χaisuru
kaθiave	ossurie	χeli

It can be remarked that most of the names end in a vowel, or, more precisely, in -<i>/-<e>/-<ie>; -<a> and -<u> are also represented. Of the five names in -<u>, one is dubious; of two, the auslaut is uncertain. Of the remaining two, one is attested elsewhere with an auslaut -<o>, the other is probably Celtic. Auslauting -<u> might therefore be suspected to appertain to non-Raetic names and represent /o/. That the (foreign) auslaut of a foreign name could be substituted with a prevalent Raetic one is demonstrated by esimne and esumne, both with Celtic etymologies (the original auslaut might be attested in the case of esimne). Whether -<a> is the auslaut for female names is questionable: φrima may have a suitable parallel in Venetic, but names in -<a> are regularly combined with the partonymic suffix -nu, which would imply matronyms for men (if -nu signifies a male name) – see the morpheme page for a discussion. No name attested on its own (without suffixation) ends in a consonant – while it cannot be excluded that such names do exist, but are not recognised as names by circular reasoning, the statistical preponderance of auslauting vowels suggests that where suffixed names have a consonant before the suffix, some sort of phonetic simplification (syncope/haplology) has taken place.

Even under the assumption that a considerable number of the names attested in the Raetic corpus are foreign, the lack of parallels with Etruscan in the sphere of onomastics is surprising.

Theonyms

Despite the fact that at least three of the find places of Raetic inscriptions were sanctuaries (Magrè, Montesei di Serso, Sanzeno), we do not know the names of the deities. Unlike, for example, in Venetic, where the name of the adressee / recipient of the votive gift is regularly mentioned in the inscriptions, the theonym is not part of the standard Raetic dedication formulae (see below). Nevertheless, there are two candidates for theonyms:

• pianu(s): Of doubtful auslaut, the name appears four times in the Non valley; the interpretation as a theonym (in the benefactive genitive) is based mainly on NO-15. Possibly the deity of the Sanzeno sanctuary?
• θiuθi: Attested only once, in a context which might not be sacral; the interpretation as a theonym is due to its appearing in the (benefactive) genitive and the lack of a patronym, which would be expected in the name of a secular recipient.

The Celtic theonym Taranis might be attested in the problematic FI-1.

Toponyms

So far, only one place name can be identified in the Raetic inscriptions, owing to the combination with the noun sφura 'community'. The community Entu*, arguably the home town of the person who left the respective votive at the Serso sactuary, can of course not be identified.

Text formulae

The most frequent syntagma is a name in the pertinentive case with a -ku-participle, translated as 'X-ed of/by XY'. It occurs on its own, completely and with a two-part name on WE-3, NO-3 and NO-15; the combination of pertinentive ending and -ku is also found on SZ-14, SZ-30, WE-4, BZ-4, HU-7, NO-17 and PA-1.1. The syntagma is known from Etruscan, for example ???, and served as the starting point for the systematic comparison of the two languages as cognates (see Rix 1998: ???).

Relationship to Etruscan and the Tyrsenian language family

So far as the limited documentation of Raetic allows conclusions, it appears to be close to the Etruscan of the oldest inscriptions.

Bibliography

De Simone 1968	Carlo de Simone, Die griechischen Entlehnungen im Etruskischen, Wiesbaden: 1968.

Main Chapter Pages:
Ancient sources I Archaeology in the Raetic area I Bibliography I Concordance I Index I Modern research on Raetic I Non-script notational systems I Raetic epigraphy I Raetica I Script I The Raetic language