cel

Steinbauer 1999a:371f. cautiously (“nicht zuverlässig”) proposed a borrowing of Etruscan cel ‘earth’ from Lydian kλida- ‘dto’. Oettinger 2010a:242 labelled this proposal as “sehr fraglich”, without arguments. Steinbauer segmented a suffix -da- in the Lydian word and explained the stem “kλi-” from *kil- or *kili-, which, according to him, would be identical to the unattested Old Etruscan form *cil. However, the Etruscan sound change i > e did not happen in monosyllabic words (Wallace 2008a:34) and thus it is not an Anatolian loanword in Etruscan (the etymology of the Lydian word cannot currently have a decisive role due to its uncertainty: if the plausible derivation from PIE *gliyeh₂- [cf. Greek γλία ‘glue’, Eng. clay] by Melchert 1994b:184 is correct [but see the reservations of D. Sasseville s.v. kλida-], then it also excludes the Etruscan connection on formal grounds [the alternative of Gérard 2004a:128 n. 17, a cognate of Hitt. kulēi ‘fallow land’, requires an irregular loss of the labial element of the initial labiovelar consonant; Oreshko 2018b:193 leaves the question open]).

[Zs.S.]

Last updated: 22 May 2020