Saturday, August 7, 2010

ROME SIGHTING: DO WE KNOW WHERE THE ENGLISH WORD MISTER COMES FROM?

Every language in the world has a number of such popular words that they are used several time a day. One of this word is the word "Mister".This word before belonging to the latin it was an Etruscan expression and is connected with Servius Tullius.Outside of Rome there is the tomb Francois of Vulci that belonged to an Etruscan aristocratic family:its frescoes, however, are preserved in Rome in the residence of the cardinal Albani, who detached the frescoes from the tomb in the 1700s and wanted to have them inside his mansion. The frescoes show the epic war between some Etruscan aristocrats. The panels show Caele and Aule Vibenna who murder a man called Tarchna (maybe identified as Tarquinius Priscus) and help Macstarna march to conquer Rome.The fresco episodes are confimed by Livy who in the first book describes the assassination of Lucumo, that is to say the first Etruscan king of Rome, Tarquinius Priscus. Scholars have identified as Macstarna the figure of Servius Tullius, sixth king of Rome. The name Macstarna is a very interesting one because it gave birth to the word Magister (whose root is the word Magis) and developed into the English word Master and Mister,and it means a "person who has authority". Another source that can confirm that Mastarna can be identified as Servius Tullius was the famous speech of the emperor Claudius who in the year 51 AD spoke in the Senate on the importance of the Etruscan traditions that Macstarna was a nickname of Servius. His speech is still preserved in the bronzed tablets of Lyon (Tabulae Lionensis).

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