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The Messapic Klaohizis Formula

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Ruth Moore Bechtel
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Extract

The words klaohizis (or klaohi) veinas (or venas) denθavan occur in two inscriptions, namely 371 and 436 b, in what seems to be an opening formula; while 474 opens with a partial version of the same, the reading of which is doubtful and will be considered later in some detail. Unfortunately, all three inscriptions in which this formula occurs have been lost or destroyed, so that it is attested only in transcription. But since these transcriptions are the work of different copyists, and since the three words of the formula have been preserved in several independent sources, it seems to me, as to others, that they may be regarded as trustworthy authorities. The authenticity of these inscriptions has often been impugned, but at the date at which the transcriptions were made, knowledge of Messapic was hardly sufficiently advanced for them to have been forged—they are far too convincing as Messapic.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 13 , Issue 3: July-September , September 1937 , pp. 177 - 185

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References

1 The references for the Messapic words and forms are, unless otherwise specified, to the edition of the Messapic inscriptions by Whatmough, in Prae-Italic Dialects of Italy, 2.268 ff.

2 La lingua degli antichi Messapii 85.

3 Ibid. 86.

4 Ibid. 101.

5 IF 5.197.

6 See PID 2.601 ff.

7 Hirt, Indogermanische Grammatik 4.249.

8 IF 54.87.

9 RhM 40.142.

10 Lang. 11.129–139.

11 Ling. d. ant. Mess. 75.

12 IF 5.200.

13 See Whatmough in HSCP 42.153.

14 G. Meyer, BB 8.192; Alb. Wb. 468.

15 See Bechtel, Die Griechischen Dialekte 1.299; also von Blumenthal, Glotta 18.151–3.

16 Op. cit. 2.7, see also Buck, Greek Dialects 94.

17 Lang. 12.23–34.

18 The Vocalism of Messapic 10 (Harvard, 1934).

19 Mention should be made of Krahe's recent suggestion (IF 54.88 f.) that venas like zis is a divinity = Lat. Venus. But Krahe stops short with this word and takes no account of denθavan which follows it in both 371 and 436 b.

20 Whitney, Sanskrit Grammar 344; Brugmann, Gdr.2 1.381.

21 Gdr.2 2.1.463.

22 Dict. Etym. 264, s.v. do.

23 Lang. 7.169 f.

24 Brugmann, Gdr.2 3.2.633.

25 Sommer, Lateinische Laut- und Formenlehre, Kritische Erlauterungen 132.

26 For other related names see Krahe, PN-Lex. 66, 67.

27 Ling. d. ant. Mess. 85.

28 Sturtevant, HG 96, 103.

29 Ling. d. ant. Mess. 103.

30 Lang. 11.129–39.

31 In a paper read before the Linguistic Society, December, 1936.

32 Laidehiabas in the same inscription has also been taken as a dative plural (by Kretschmer, Glotta 12.276 ff.), but von Blumenthal's recent suggestion that the inscription be divided as follows: Laidehi Abas logetibas ‘Laidii Abae manibus’ seems more satisfactory to me.

33 Whatmough, PID 3.3.

34 PID 3.10.

35 This new word division was suggested by Fishman 150.

36 IF 5.200.

37 Ling. d. ant. Mess. 86.

38 PID 2.574.

39 PID 2.358.