ETRURIA CAPTA. 185 



Basque.^" Seven is in Basqne zazjoi, a boiTOwed word. The Etruscan 

 nonechi (7) agrees with the Japanese nanatsu.^^ Nine is nonera 

 in Basque bederetci. The neai-est to the Etruscan is the Iroquois 

 niruh, nirenhf'" The following inscription justifies the assignment of 

 nonecki to seven or it may be to nine. 



37. YIYI • FELimNIAM • AFDIL • MEC^s 



kiiukuu aginsa ume kau rano ragi tu uso nonechi 

 Koikoi aginza hiime Cai rano iragadu ofcso 7 

 Koikoi's offering child Caia towards she passes age 7 



There is little to notice here, as most of the words have occurred 

 already. The term for child is unchanged. The only new word is 

 irago or iragi. It means to pass time as in eta sei urte irngo ziran, 

 " and six years having passed," demhora iragana " time passed," 

 iragan ganean "the past night." This inscription leads me to doubt 



was composed, bortz seems to have suffered phonetic decay, becoming host. This same process 

 of decay is visible in most of the Khitan languages. Thus the Sonora group, which has mariki, 

 etc., also denotes 5 by a/HOTtoi; the Pujuni, which has markum,\\as, also mustik and mauk, 

 and in addition to its masculine form mahar, the related Shoshonese has rnakai and maha. 

 Thus r was replaced by an aspirate or sibilant, or dropped altogether as in the case of host 

 from bortz. The same was the case in Iroquois, which now has wis, wisk, wiks, 'umh, to 

 denote 5 ; in Peruvian, which has ppiska and pissika ; in the European Georgian woclncsi and 

 the Mizjejian^cfti. The Ugric or Finnic group of languages, which is most closely related to 

 the Khitan, exhibits the same process of plionetic decay, five being wit, wis, wiji, wisit, weze, 

 etc., pronounced tiif, vis, etc. The comparatively unrelated Turkish agrees in hesh, bes, hish, 

 etc. 



60 It is strange that while preserving so complete a form for 5 as mirar/o, the Etruscan should 

 have reduced the original word for 6 to sei, siu, chiu, zio, or whatever may have been the pro- 

 nunciation of CI. The original must, I think, have been the Caucasian ziba, Georgian iisgwa, 

 Dacotah shappe, sakpa, shakkopi, the Sonora acevi. But as Basque gaba, night, and abo, mouth, 

 became grnt and ao, so seba became seo and at last sei. The Circassian also has chi and shoo for 

 6, the Miz.jejian itch, the Corean yoset and osso, the Iroquois iaiak, ashiak, jaiak, the Dacotah 

 shaque, the Aztec chiquace, tlie Peruvian socta, suecuta. The Yeniseians, who inhabit the 

 mound country of their great Khitan ancestors in Siberia, call 6 ages, egga, ugam. 



61 I confess that nonechi, 7, stands on a poor philological foundation. Besides the Japanese 

 nanatsu, the only Khitan numerals that agree are the Yeniseian, doubtfully, in onyang, vennya, 

 onse, the Koriak gnyttinkashit, nitagasit, and the Kamtchadale ngtotiok. The Basque zazpi, on 

 the other hand, is well authenticated as a Khitan word, being the Georgian shqwiti, ishgwid, the 

 Dacolah shawcopee, the Aztec chicome, the Shoshonese quachakabia, etc. 



62 In regard to 9, nonerPy, with which I have compared the Iroquois niruh, nireuh, it is worthy 

 of note that some Iroquois dialects use watiro and wadehlo, inviting comparison with the 

 Basque bederatzi. 



The Basque ainar, 10, probably mara or mala in Etruscan, must go to the ends of the earth 

 to find its like in the Chileno mari. The Iroquois, having no m, makes it oieri, and the Aztec, 

 without r, renders it matlactli. 



•2 Fabretti reads the last group but one ACDIL instead of AFDIL. I am disposed to doubt 

 the correctness of this alteration, as AFDIL is a common formula, and ACDIL, eritsi du atso, 

 he esteems age, is absurd. Fabretti has probably mistaken a square cut F for C. 



