'Tarot' meaning 'hole-maker'?

kwaw

I have summarised here some posts from another thread:

From French-English dictionary:

Taraire. as Tariere.
Tarault. as Tariere; also as Tarots.
Tariere:f. An augur.
Related words are:
Tarelle: f. An augur.
Tarelet:. m. A little augur.
Tarots:m. A kind of great cards, whereon many several things are
figured, which make them much more intricate than ordinary ones.

From:
A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues
Compiled by Randle Cotgrave
London
Printed by Adam Islip
Anno 1611

Available online here:

http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cotgrave/

Note however, 'tariere' a'boiste' means a 'wimble', which is
an 'auger', that is a hand tool for boring holes. So we are looking at a word meaning auger [hole borer] not at 'augur' as in divination. Tariere/tarots would thus seem to be related to the modern French:

Taraud: n.m - screw tap
Taraudage: n.m - tapping a hole for a screw; threaded hole
Tarauder (v) tap (a hole for a screw); (Literature) torment.

To propose this as a serious suggestion for the origin of the word 'Tarot' we need to show some plausible connection between the old French word and card games.

Following up on a suggestion by Diane O'Donovan that there maybe relevance of the 'hole-borer' and to Cribbage games, I learnt cribbage is related to the older game 'noddy':

http://www.tradgames.org.uk/games/Cribbage.htm

and 'noddy' in English was of course a sysnonym for 'fool', related to the Italian 'noddo':

Noddo - a noddy, a gull, a sot, a foole.
As defined in John Florio's Italian - English dictionary Queen Anna's New World of Words (1611)

In a roundabout way one of the titles of the fool card [le fou] takes
us back to the word 'tarot' as auger, a 'hole borer'.

'Fou' in Cotgrave's French-English dictionary is given as a
corruption of 'Fors', out of doors, abroad, [as in 'buvet fou', drink
out, 'venez fou', come out].

The Italian for the French word 'Fors/Fou' is 'Fora'.

In Florio's Italian-English dictionary 'Fora' means not only outside,
abroad; but an auger [a borer, a piercer, a wimble]. Which as we have
shown was also called in French, Tarault, Tariere, Tarot.

Italian Fora also related to the French:

Foré: m. ée: f. Bored, pierced; wherein holes are made.
Forer: To bore, pierce, make holes in.
[Definitions from: Randle Cotgrave 'A Dictionary of the French and
English Tongues' (1611)]

To make a hole is to create an empty space - like zero, or 'nulla' as
steele describes the function of the fool?

The cribbage board itself can perhaps be traced back the much older mancala board:

http://www.tradgames.org.uk/games/Mancala.htm

So the relationship maybe to a game in which one 'pegs holes', ie, a point scoring game.

Kwaw
 

kwaw

'To play the Fool'.

I still feel generally that John Florio's Italian – English dictionary 1598 probably gives the most straightforward and correct definition.

Quote:

Tarócco. see Datarócco.

Datarócco - foolish, gullish, wayward, forward, peeuish

Taroccáre - to play at Tarócchi. Also to play the forward gull or peevish ninnie.


Gull and ninny are synonyms of 'fool'. Taroccare thuse means 'to play the fool. Tarocchi must simply mean something like 'fool' or perhaps 'folly'.

Kwaw
 

Ross G Caldwell

kwaw said:
I still feel generally that John Florio's Italian – English dictionary 1598 probably gives the most straightforward and correct definition.

Quote:

Tarócco. see Datarócco.

Datarócco - foolish, gullish, wayward, forward, peeuish

Taroccáre - to play at Tarócchi. Also to play the forward gull or peevish ninnie.


Gull and ninny are synonyms of 'fool'. Taroccare thuse means 'to play the fool. Tarocchi must simply mean something like 'fool' or perhaps 'folly'.

Kwaw


This agrees with speculations I have made, based on texts by Berni (1526) and Folengo (c. 1520); see TarotL post on proposed etymologies for the word "tarot" at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TarotL/message/44270

Specifically, numbers 1 and 7:

"1. Francesco Berni "Capitolo del Giocco della Primiera", 1526. "Let
him look to it, who is pleased with the game of Tarocco, that the
only signification of this word Tarocco, is stupid, foolish, simple,
fit only to be used by bakers, cobblers, and the vulgar;..." See Kaplan, Enc. of Tarot vol. I, pp. 28 and illustration of Berni's text on page 29.

"7. Tarocus. Teofile Folengo uses the word "tarocus" to mean "stupid"
or "imbecile" in one of his poems (c. 1520)("Glossario" sub "Tarocus"
of Carlo Cordié, ed. "Opere di Teofilo Folengo" vol. I (Milano,
Ricciano Ricciardi) p. 1029)."

An expanded version of this list is at
http://www.geocities.com/anytarot/etymology.html

Although it seems plausible, I'm not so sure about this definition anymore. The original word may have been French, and got "translated" into Italian. It is hard to explain the lack of the final hard "k" sound if it came from Italian into French (although in Savoy they spelled it "tarocs" up to the 20th century - how was it locally pronounced?).

The earliest known "French" reference (actually in a Latin document) spells it "taraux", which is strange for a Latin spelling if the author of the document was transcribing something he only *heard*. It seems then that he had actually seen the word spelled this way - so it could already have been a "brand name" for the cards, printed on the wrapper or on a card itself.

But, both languages could have had a term, derived from some common low-latin word, that meant the same thing. The place to look for it then is the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries.

Ross
 

kwaw

Thanks for the Berni and Folengo quotes Ross, and the links. The Berni and Folengo quotes takes us closer to the period in which the first recorded mention of tarocchi appears. I still think this is the strongest possibility but little tidbits and speculations keep taking me back to a consideration of the French tarault / tariere / tarots [thanks for the arabic root 'tara' information, I didn't know that]. (Re: tarault, how would that be pronounced, I ask because I recently saw a rendition in an old source of 'tarot' as 'tarol').

For anyone who may be interested, public domain versions of a few of these dictionaries are available online.

Randle Cotgrave's 1611 French-English dictionary is on-line here:
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cotgrave/

John Florio's 1611 Italian-English dictionary is available on-line here:
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/florio/

John Florio's 1598 Italian-English dictionary is available on-line here:
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/florio1598/

Kwaw
 

kwaw

Heaven is like a metal plate:

Job 37:18 begins T RQIA [Tau {space}Resh Qoph Yud Ayin]

For RQIA strong numbers are:

7549 raqiya` raw-kee'-ah from 7554; properly, an expanse, i.e. the
firmament or (apparently) visible arch of the sky:--firmament.

7554 raqa` raw-kah' a primitive root; to pound the earth (as a sign
of passion); by analogy to expand (by hammering); by implication, to
overlay (with thin sheets of metal):--beat, make broad, spread abroad
(forth, over, out, into plates), stamp, stretch.

7555 riqqua` rik-koo'-ah from 7554; beaten out, i.e. a (metallic)
plate:--broad.

In Jastrow we have:
TRQIA - beaten metal, foil. (ref. To Job 37.18) the heavens look like
a metal plate. Same in Aramaic [pron. Tarkia].

In Job it is two words T RQIA [ta raw-kee'ah] (tau has a dagesh)

Interesting in terms of TRQIA meaning 'metal plate', 'foil' in
similar fashion to words related to cards, such as 'lame'
and 'waraq'. But also here a connection with the firmanent [and thus
the constellations].

There is possibly too an etymological connection between the Hebrew/Aramaic 'raqa' [raw-kah strong number 7554] and the arabic persian name for cards 'waraq' [through the 'raq' ending] which also means 'metal plate, foil, blade'.

For discussion on the term 'waraq' see thread here:

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=14201

Kwaw
 

euripides

interesting, but I'd like to just sound a tiny word of caution about drawing parallels between words just because they have similar spellings or sounds. You've really got to look closely at the use of a word through each period. I mean, sure there might be interesting and relevant overtones... but is that the actual etymology....

I did come across an interesting snippet about the arabic origins of the root 'tara' of tarocchi, menaning to throw away excess - ie discarding unwanted cards.

"The French game of Triomphe eventually became the celebrated Écarté—Discard12—after the prominent game feature it shares with its cousin, or parent, Tarot.

In conclusion, we see that at some point around the turn of the 16th century, the Italian card game of Trionfi underwent a name change to Tarocchi. The etymology suggested here, and which is mirrored by a nearly identical name change of a related game, indicates that the name Tarot is the French form of an Italian name, derived from an Arabic root, meaning the game of Discards."
 

euripides

just adding - the 'auger' possibly derives from the same 'tare' root, because the process of drilling a hole creates waste or excess.

one could also draw analogies from the tare, a kind of fodder plant, a noxious weed among corn. 'something useless sown among something good' (etymonline.com)

the modern word 'tare' (somewhat obsolete, I think? or just not one that I hear?) means 'difference between gross and net weight' and does come from the 'thing discarded' tara/tarah root also. from middle french "wastage in goods, deficiency, imperfection'.
 

kwaw

euripides said:
interesting, but I'd like to just sound a tiny word of caution about drawing parallels between words just because they have similar spellings or sounds.

True, but there is more than just spelling and sound, through the root 'raq' of TRQIA and arabic/persian/urdu waraq [cards] there is a whole range of semantic meanings related to other names for cards such as French 'Lame' -

Waraq and its semantic range is discussed in a seperate thread by myself and ross - link given in post above.

[In arabic/urdu waraq means 'paper' [ala waraq = on paper]; 'card' [fal-e waraq = divination by playing cards; waraq al-la'ib = playing cards]; 'leaf' [Waraq al-Khayal = fancy's leaf (Cannabis); mahshi waraq'inab" = stuffed vine leaf]; other meanings include Flake, Foil, Folio, Page, Sheet. 'Waraq' also means "Silver that has been flattened into very thin leaves by hammering it between two leather sheets." The waraq or 'silver leaf' is then used to decorate food [e.g. commonly used on Indian sweets]. Silver coins [the money suit of the mamluk deck is called dirhams, dirhams were coins of silver].

The French 'Lame' also means metal plate/foil. So it is not just spelling/sound, but the fact that it shares in some of the semantic range as found in words used for cards [waraq, lame].

Kwaw
 

euripides

sure, fair point... but I still feel the original premise of 'Tarot meaning hole-maker' is just a bit much of a stretch. Sure its from the same root, but it doesn't mean the same thing.

But still, the word-play is fun.... I meant to add, it was probably a bit of a cheek on my part sounding 'words of caution' given that I'm the queen of leaps-of-logic where image interpretation is concerned.
 

kwaw

euripides said:
interesting, but I'd like to just sound a tiny word of caution about drawing parallels between words just because they have similar spellings or sounds.

While I agree, we also have to remember that people of the period and prior created very fanciful etymologies based on little else than spelling and sound; it is to an extent irrelevant that they were in many cases completely wrong, in a historical context we need to see such things according to their contemporary setting, whether they were erroneous or not. Much of Hebrew letter symbolism for example is rooted in treating homonyms as if they were synonymous, and to understand and follow their interpretive methods we need to an extent enter into their mindset [well, not necessarily, but being intuitive rather than a scholar it is my preferred method. Not that scholars can't be intuitive too of course, but as intuitive and occasionally perceptive as I can or may be I will never be a scholar].

Kwaw