ETRURIA CAPTA. 179 



with. The final, kane represents the verb egin, to do, make.*"* 

 Zuntzegin may be an old name for a weaver or tailor. The other 

 proper name, translated Niger, is Maira, a Moor or person of dark 

 complexion. Maira, Mahira, is the Basque word for a negro, and is 

 the term employed by Axular, a Basque writer in 1642, to represent 

 the Ethiopian of Jeremiah xiii. -3. The Etruscan adds Baitu, the 

 spotted, from hai; spot, as the mother of Maira. In Latin her name 

 would probably be read as Varia. The original of the following is 

 also in the Florentine Museum. 



7. AELIE8VLNIAELIES • CIAPOIALISA 

 [Latin — Q. Folnius A. F. Pom. Fuscus. ) 



TraiLslit. — ar ne sa unela pisaka ura ensa uneno " chi ii ra tu ma uri za au an re 

 Basque — Arnesa onela Pisca aurra antsa hunen • che orde mai eritza hau andre 

 Translat. — Arnius thus Pisca child cares of him ; same place tablet esteems 



that wife 

 Freely — Thus Arnius is honoured by his child Fuscus, and the same monument 

 honours his wife.^" 



There does not appear to be any translation of proper names in 

 this inscription. The Romans turned Arnius into Farnius, or 

 Folnius, as they turned the Basque and Etruscan lora vaio flora, and 

 Loramendi, the flowery hill, into Floientia. In the Eugubine 

 Tables, Loramendi is the name given to Floi'entia, near Placentia, in 

 Cisalpine Gaul. Pisca is evidently the same word as Fuscus. But 

 for the masculine form of the Latin, I should have made it the name 

 of the wife of Arnius, and the mother of the author of the inscription. 

 Pisca and aurra are thus in apposition. The word onela, hunela 

 means de cette fagon, ainsi. Basque antsi means care, regard, and 

 should be accompanied by an auxiliary, but is here conjugated 

 regularly ; infinitive EC, 3 sing. pres. ind. EL. The words I have 



49a The Etruscans seem to have had two verbs "to make" eorreSponding to the Iroquois 

 konnis and ilcsas, namely kane and egin or egi, the former of which the Basques have lost. In 

 Etruscan egin, generally in the form egi, is used somewhat as an auxiliarj% being united witli 

 another word, as in hatz egin. When the verb " to make" stands alone, it is kane. This verb 

 takes the causative prefix er, era, and as erakane answers to the modern eragin. The Etruscan 

 AFE does not, so far as I know, represent eragin, but iragan, pass. This kane answers to the 

 Iroquois konnis, which means " make" in the sense of fabrication, construction ; while iksas, 

 like the Etruscan egi, egin, possesses the general meaning of the French faire. Examples of 

 the use of ka7ie will be found on page 199 Nevertheless it seems very probable that kat, kazii, 

 ka or kit, kizu, kio, terminations of the three persons of the present indicative of verbs con- 

 jugated regularly should have been derived from kane employed as an auxiliary. 



50 Fabretti reads the first and the last T m the first part of this inscription as X, ko, go. If 

 his reading be the correct one, it will obscure the sense by turning onela and hunen into the 

 verbal forms gunela and gunion. 



