maru

Steinbauer 1999a:379 with n. 4. suggested that Etruscan maru ‘a type of official’, presumably an agent noun in -u, is a loanword from Anatolian referring to Lycian, where the same verbal stem (mar- ‘anordnen, befehlen’) is attested in mara- ‘law’ (the similarity of the Etruscan word with Lyc. maraza- ‘judge’ was observed already by Carruba 1977b:146 [not quoted by Steinbauer], who, however, deliberately left open the direction of a potential borrowing, as well as by Lebrun 2006c:372 [not quoting either Steinbauer or Carruba], who also adds the Luwian verbal stem *mar- ‘to order’). Oettinger 2010a:242 claims that this hypothesis is “sehr fraglich”, but without arguments.

Although, formally speaking, the analysis of maru as a participle in -u (either in active or in passive sense, cf. Wallace 2008a:72f.) is possible and a verbal root (*)mar- is attested in the Luwic languages, the existence of Anatolian loanwords in Etruscan is a highly problematic and unsolved issue (note that there is no evidence for the Anatolian origin of the Etruscans, see most recently the discussion in Simon 2015a:4–6, 9 n. 42 with refs. contra Beekes 2002a and Kloekhorst 2012c:49f.) and it is quite easy to match CVC-roots among non-related languages (cf. e.g. Ringe 1992a, Ringe 1999a), thus the assumption of the borrowing cannot be demonstrated.

[Zs.S.]