User talk:69.120.66.131

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Etruscan 𐌂𐌀𐌅𐌄𐌈‎

Hello, have you got sources for the Etruscan entry?--BandiniRaffaele2 (talk) 18:26, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Why are you asking me? You're the one who added the etymology in the first place! Latin cavus is from Proto-Indo-European *ḱewh₁-. So either:

• The Latin and Etruscan terms are not related at all and the similarity is coincidental—this is clearly not what you believe, as you kept the comparison to Latin;
• You have an alternative etymology for Latin cavus which doesn't derive it from PIE (e.g., from Etruscan, which seems unlikely);
• The Etruscan term is ultimately from PIE *ḱewh₁- and thus properly belongs in that category.

— 69.120.66.131 18:37, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Ditto for 𐌂𐌀𐌅𐌄 (cave). Latin cavō already has an established internal etymology, so it cannot be from Etruscan or some third, non-IE source shared with Etruscan. It's okay to use a tiny amount of your own intuition for cases like this to fill in the gaps. The source might not explicitly state "borrowed from Latin", but the alternatives don't make any sense. In these cases, if it's evidently related to the Latin terms, then it's also evidently borrowed from them. The evidence for each hypothesis is exactly the same: just a surface similarity and the fact that the languages were spoken in the same region. Etruscan is already known to have had heavy contact with Latin, and many of its items of vocabulary are clear borrowings therefrom. If an Etruscan term is related to but not borrowed from Latin, that supposes its source was a non-Latin Indo-European language. Since there are no exact matches to the Latin terms in question outside of Latin but within IE, either the Etruscan terms were borrowed from Latin, or they were borrowed from some hypothetical, closely related Italic source—which is less likely than the simplest hypothesis of Latin origin—in which case we'd have to pointlessly posit some extremely hypothetical Italic cognates in addition to the Latin. So actually, the least speculative way for Wiktionary to explain these etymologies is to just take the connection to Latin at face value as a typical borrowing. To clear up that we're not being certain, we can simply add cautionary qualifiers like "probably" or "most likely". This is nothing new or nonstandard on Wiktionary. A source is not necessarily needed to make these small jumps of very obvious logic, so long as we the editors fully understand the situation.

More importantly, it's actually harmful to remove these Etruscan words from categories like Category:Etruscan terms derived from Latin (which, by the way, has shockingly few entries currently), because without them, it is impossible for users to find a list of Etruscan words words that are "related to" Latin. — 69.120.66.131 18:59, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. In the future I will use your hints. BandiniRaffaele2 (talk) 19:15, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you

For this: [1]. Very useful. 70.175.192.217 07:47, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm glad you appreciate it :) — 69.120.66.131 03:49, 20 January 2022 (UTC)