Linguistics discussion (split from new factions thread)

[Elmetiacos]

For deities, we've got Iccona as a possible horse goddess and following Witczak the Laho as a local spirit and Reue as the Lusitanian Zeus, then there's the two most popular dedications to the god Endovellicus (94 dedications) and the goddess Bandua (28), plus two probable war gods (possibly Celtic introductions) Coronos and Netonos. Can we get anything useful from the other inscriptions?

We might glean some Lusitanian grammar: o-stem accusatives seem to end in -om: taurom, porcom, angom. doenti probably means "they gave" (Witczak says not, but IMHO he's just tying himself in knots trying to say all I-E initial Ds become Rs - no problem if only Dy- becomes R) so you've got 3rd person plural -nt- as you'd expect (not that EB needs to conjugate verbs... even I'm not mad enough to try and do a Lusitanian voicemod) a-stem datives seem to end in -a (Iccona, Trebopala) and if Witczak's correct, dative plurals in -ebo and i-stem accusatives in -e. On the Arroyo de la Luz stone, carlae may be a locative "at Carla". But that's not much good - we need nominatives, genitives and plurals for a naming language. On Lamas de Moledo, doenti is followed by veaminicori which is a good candidate for a plural - if -cori is a cognate with Celtic *korio or just a borrowing it should be an o-stem noun. We've also got those -oi endings in caelobricoi, reaicoi petranoi... are those genitive plurals? In the Latin dedications there are lots of -aico and -aeco names Bandi Oilienaico - Bandua of the Sheep?

It might be possible to attempt more translations... As a piece of baseless speculation, Lamas de Moledo's REAICOI PETRANOI could contain a pre-Basque loan *lercoin and PIE *pet- to mean "of the cranes with spread wings" while ANGOM is probably a lamb. In Arroyo de la Luz I & II the inscription says: AMBATVS SCRIPSI CARLAE PRAISOM SECIAS ERBA MVITIE AS ARIMO PRAESONDO SINGEIETO INI AVA INDI VEA VN INDI VEDAGA ROM TEVCAECOM INDI NVRIM INDI VDEVEC RVRSENCO AMPILVA INDI LOEMINA INDI ENV PETANIM INDI ARIMOM SINTAMOM INDI TEVCOM SINTAMO. The first two words are Latin. The rest has the usual -OM endings, presumably accusatives. PRAISOM and PRAESONDO might be from PIE kwreiH- and be to do with buying and selling, but that spoils Iccona being Epona because it means labialisation of kw (a feature of Ligurian). SECIAS might derive from PIE segh- or seHg- so it might mean "fixed", "held" or "sought out". ARIMO suggests "highest". If SINGEIETO is related to Celtic Singidunon it might be something to do with falcons, so the next part INI AVA might mean "one bird", but this is guesswork and it doesn't provide anything much useful for EB2 except a possibility of a unit name - Arimi for elite cavalry. Maybe. But Arimo could just as easily refer to a deity. So there aren't really any useful words to be got apart from a possible Celtic loan net- for "warrior" that could form a basis for unit names, and a name for an infantry barracks Trebo Netenaicoi. If only the Lusitanians had sacrificed some horses, things would be that much easier...

a Lusitanian o-stem declension:
sing. / plu.
N Tauro Tauri
V *Taure *Tauroe
A Taurom *Tauro
G *Tauri Tauroi
D Tauro Taurebo
L *Tauroe *Tauroi