The Rhaetian language
Rhaetian is the language attested by a small corpus of inscriptions coming from Eastern Alps.
It is hard to associate this epigraphic documentation to the Rhaeti, whose name is handed down by ancient historiographical sources (Pliny, Strabo and others), and settled in the Alpine region between Verona and Trento and up to the sources of the Rhine and Lake Constance. This association is based, in fact, on the coincidence of the epigraphic findings with the geographical regions described by the sources.
The corpus consists of 3-400 inscriptions. The difficulty of defining the corpus is linked to the high degree of fragmentation of the inscriptions, and to their shortness; in most cases the texts only present a few letters.
The inscriptions are written in an epichoric Etruscan-based alphabet occurring in two varieties (Sanzeno and Magré) distinguished by the graphic rendering of some letters.
The many texts on bronze objects, bone or rock are mostly votive, and bear the name of the offerer. The texts on stelae are generally funerary and presumably bear the name of the deceased to nominative case, as in the Venetic and the Cisalpine Celtic traditions. Most of the texts, however, still remain uncomprehended.
The onomastic data are the only certain ones. A good part of the names has comparisons with the Venetic and Celtic onomastics of Indo-European origin (ex. vinuθali ° (CE-1.5) ~ Celtic *winnotalos ‘which has a white forehead’); the correspondences with the Etruscan onomastics are unusual and uncertain.
The typically Rhaetian onomastic formula consists of an individual name followed by the patronymic, characterized by the suffix -nu for the masculine and -na for the feminine; for -na the relation with the Etruscan gentilicia suffix -na is to be established. An example of a Rhaetian formula is: kastrie ° eθunnu ° (ST-1) ‘Kastrie Eθunnu (= son of Eθune)’.
The genetic proximity between Rhaetian and Etruscan has recently been demonstrated. On a phonetic level, Rhaetian does not show a sign for /o/ like the Etruscan; on the contrary, Venetic and Lepontic, also adopting Etruscan-based alphabets, soon introduced a sign for this sound. On the morphological level Rhaetian shares with the Etruscan the genitive case ending -s, and the allomorphs of the pertinentive case -si and -le, typical of the gift-formulae with the verb (explicit or not) in the passive voice: kastriesi eθunnuale (ST- 1) “by Kastrie Eθunnu”. The comparison Rheat. þinaχe ~ Etr. zinace ‘did’ shows the sharing of the morpheme -ke for the preterite.
Although Rhaetian is still a little-known language, the effort of scholars that in recent years has led to the sharing of its epigraphic material on the web is relevant. It is hoped that further epigraphic discoveries and possible comparisons with Etruscan can enrich our knowledge of the Rhaetian lexicon by making this language less obscure.
Bibliography
- Schumacher, St., Salomon, C. & Kluge, S. Thesaurus Inscriptionum Raeticarum [online].
- Rix, H., 1998. Rätisch und Etruskisch. Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft 68. Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck.
- Marinetti, A. 2008. «Venetico, retico e camuno». AION(Ling) 30/III: 109–144.
- Mancini, A. 2009-2010. Le Iscrizioni Retiche, Padova: Unipress.
- Marchesini, S. (ed.) 2015. Monumenta Linguae Raeticae, Roma.
- Salomon, C. 2018. «Thesaurus Inscriptionum Raeticarum - New readings and inscriptions», Die Sprache 52/1: 32–101.
- Salomon, C. 2020. «Raetic». Palaeohispanica, n. 20: 263–298.
Last update
10.04.2021