Francesco Perono Cacciafoco

Minoan linguistic resources: The Linear A Digital Corpus

This paper describes the Linear A/Minoan digital corpus and the approaches we applied to develop it. We aim to set up a suitable study resource for Linear A and Minoan. Firstly we start by introducing Linear A and Minoan in order to make it clear why we should develop a digital marked up corpus of the existing Linear A transcriptions. Secondly we list and describe some of the existing resources about Linear A: Linear A documents (seals, statuettes, vessels etc.), the traditional encoding systems (standard code numbers referring to distinct symbols), a Linear A font, and the newest (released on June 16th 2014) Unicode Standard Characters set for Linear A. Thirdly we explain our choice concerning the data format: why we decided to digitize the Linear A resources; why we decided to convert all the transcriptions in standard Unicode characters; why we decided to use an XML format; why we decided to implement the TEI-EpiDoc DTD. Lastly we describe: the developing process (from the data collection to the issues we faced and the solving strategies); a new font we developed (synchronized with the Unicode Characters Set) in order to make the data readable even on systems that are not updated. Finally, we discuss the corpus we developed in a Cultural Heritage preservation perspective and suggest some future works.

Linguistic Contact in Prehistoric Italy: At The Origins of the Placename Imola

Abstract This paper explores possible connections between the Indo-European roots *yem-/*jem- and *am- (*me-) and the Etruscan stem am- through the analysis and reconstruction of the pre-Latin etymology of the Italian placename Imola (Bologna, Emilia-Romagna). The evaluation of plausible links between Indo-European (Italic and, especially, Celtic) and Etruscan in this area, in the specific field of historical toponomastics, could allow relevant considerations inherently in the notions of reuse and refunctionalization of roots pertaining to different languages and linguistic families in the (mainly Prehistoric or Proto-historic) toponymy of border areas. The placename Imola is, therefore, reconstructed through a “convergent” methodology that takes into account the possibility of different and heterogeneous influences in the naming process. The work starts from the analysis of the Indo-European root *yem-/*jem- inferring the possibility of contacts between Indo-Europeans and Etruscans in the area of the inhabited center. The proposal of possible linguistic interexchange envisages the hypothesis of a semantic alignment between the Indo-European root *yem-/*jem- and the Etruscan stem am- or an analogy between the two bases and the Indo-European theme *am- (*me-). The conclusions (a plausible contact and alignment between Indo-European and Etruscan in a border area) of this paper could be relevant also in the field of historical semantics and in the re-interpretation of Etruscan stem am-. The study, therefore, highlights the possibility of contacts and interexchange, in border areas, between different languages and linguistic families.