This is a continuation of my previous post (even though it is weeks later).
In the face of competing etymologies, have been re-reading this thread to see if I missed anything. It seems to me that I have, namely the point of vh0610's flaming tree trunk. First there was this, from
viewtopic.php?p=23907#p23907
H1: All etymologies raised in the past w.r.t. “tarocchi” are –to my best knowledge - simply not simple enough, not striking enough, not direct enough in light of Ockham’s razor (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor) as a principle.
There are a lot of interesting etymologies published, also in this very forum, and they have certainly their own value at their own, but they all do not leave a striking insight in the sense of “Yes, this is clear” (at least for me – and perhaps also for others). The etymology of “tarocchi” is still “strange” (as already Lollio said), and it seems --at least for me--, that the name is so strange as if stemming from another language, since it is clearly neither directly from (renaissance) Italian, nor from French (otherwise someone would have found it out). And I do cherish the very interesting interpretation of Andrea Vitali (
http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=220&lng=ENG) and from Michael S. Howard (
http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=317&lng=ENG) that it stems from old Greek in view of tarocco – taroch - taraché (the “ch”-ending of “taroch” implying a Greek “chi”), see furthermore Andrea Vitali’s article
http://www.associazioneletarot.it/page.aspx?id=264.
However, I am not satisfied with it in the sense of H1: Why should in Northern Italy normal people call a game with an old Greek naming? It is simply too far away. Otherwise said: if the game would have been called: “matto”, following the name for one card, I would directly agree: this is the simplicity I am looking for. But nothing like this in all known etymologies (at least to me humble knowledge). Perhaps now I am at the point at which most of you already arrived, I have no convincing clue.
Even if I cannot quite go with vh0610's association of the flaming tree trunk with the Tower card as the raison d'etre for the name, I think this "why" question might serve to distinguish between competing etymologies. We have:
(1) tarocch, as "dullard" leading to "tarochus" in Mantovano and "taroch" in Alione.
(2) tarachos and tarache leading to tarakh as "discard," then somehow either taraux or tarocco because of the discard rule.
(3) tarochos and tarache leading to to tarakh as "defective", then somehow either taraux or tarocco ,tarocho, as "game of the fool."
2 and 3 obviously need more to be said about them. How can "tarakh" become "taraux"? I offer the following. Both derive from different variants of the same word in Provencale. Here is the entry for "taro" in a late 19th cent. Provencale-French dictionary,
https://archive.org/details/loutrsorduf ... 8/mode/2up:
taro, talo (1.), toro (rouerg.), (rom. cat. esp. port, tala, cat. esp. port. it. tara, ar. talah, défaut, vice), s. f. Tare, déchet, v. dessouto, destaro, embaisso ; dégât causé par des bestiaux, «dommage, perte, malheur, v. auvàri, daumage ; défectuosité, imperfection, vice, v. deco ; chancre des arbres, maladie de l'espèce porcine, v. toro.
Leva, traire la taro, prélever la tare; faire uno taro, causer un dommage avec des bestiaux; douna la taro à, attribuer un délit a quelqu'un ; vigno' en taro, vigne dont l'entrée est interdite au bétail, vigne en sève; la vigno es en taro, la vigne pousse; es taro que, es pla talos (1.), c'est dommage que, c est grand dommage.
( taro, talo (1.), toro (rouerg.), (rom. cat. esp. port, tala , cat. esp. port, tala , cat. esp. port. it. tara , ar. talah, default, vice), s. f. Tare, waste, v. dessouto, destaro, embaisso ; damage caused by cattle, "damage, loss, misfortune, v. auvàri, damage; defectiveness, imperfection, vice, v. deco ; canker of trees, disease of the porcine species, c. toro .
Leva, milk the taro , take the tare; do a taro , cause damage with cattle; douna la taro to, attribute an offense to someone; vigno 'en taro , vine whose entry is forbidden to cattle, vine in sap; the vineyards are in taro , the vine grows; es taro que, es pla talos (1.), it's a shame that, it's a great shame.)
Also relevant is:
Taroun (talon), v. taloun ; tarouna, tarounado, tarounea, tarouniero, v. talouna, talounado, talouneja, talouniero.
tarous, ouso, adj. Qui a des tares, taré, ée, v. endeca.
( Taroun (talon [i.e. heel or end), v. taloun; tarouna, tarounado, tarounea, tarouniero, v. talouna, talounado, talouneja, talouniero.
tarous, ouso, adj. One who has faults, crazy, v. endeca .)
This would seem to be an argument for a derivation of
taraux in French from
taro in Provencale, i.e. a French spelling of the Provencale, as there is no entry for
taroc other than as the name of the game otherwise called (and spelled, in Provencale) Tarot, which seems to be derivative from the Italian
tarocco. The game has the name of a word for "misfortune" or "loss", or perhaps "defect." Or because it has a talon, i.e. a stub at the end, in card games the cards left after the deal, taro as a variant of taloun.
The variants should put to rest the idea that
tara cannot change to
taro: you just have to go via Provencale. As far as I can tell, the diphthong "ou" was pronounced as in the English "low" (Wikipedia, Occitan Phonology, Old Occitan). The problem is that of adding the "-cco" in going from French to Italian. But in French, there is just as much of a problem going the other way: the normal way in which an "-cco" word in Italian goes into French is by making it "-que", e.g. Barocco to Baroque (Depaulis in part 2 of his original article). It might be argued that it is by analogy to "scirocco" as the name of the crazy-making wind. Alternatively, one might postulate that the derivation is from the Arabic "tarakh", by way of the Provencale word "taro" or "tarous" (with the s silent), meaning "unfortunate" or "defective, vicious, crazy", rendered into French as "taraux."
About derivation paths from tarakh to taroch, the problem is that in becoming Italian the "kh" of the word dropped out: the Italian is "tara". How from "tara" can you possibly get "taroch", etc.? It still could have come from Arabic or Turkish (taraka) directly. But these poets weren't in contact with Genoese merchants. Nor were they likely familiar with ancient Greek, which might be possible in Pavia or Ferrara, since the word occurs in Plato and Thucydides, but much less so in far-flung Piedmont, unless they had been educated elsewhere.
And it seems to me that there are also other reasons for favoring derivation (1), from "tarocch" as "cut tree trunk or stump," extended to "fool."
First, the words "tarocco" etc., continued to have the meaning of "fool" in Italian in contexts unrelated to games. Andrea has many essays illustrating this point. On the other hand, It never was taken to mean "discard" "deduction" or "Taro" as in Taro River. I know there can be cultural amnesia, but as evidence cultural memory works like the normal kind: e.g. it might be that I paid the rent and then forgot I paid it, but it's more likely that I paid the rent if I remember paying it, than if I don't remember paying it.
In French it is different there is nothing besides the game corresponding to "taraux"; the closest is
taré, again from "tarakh", deficient in the sense of crazy or vicious, as early as Rabelais in
Gargantua (
https://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/tar%C3%A9)
Rabelais, Gargantua, chap. L, éd. R. Calder, p. 282: femmes [...] borgnes, boyteuses [...] insensées, maleficiées et tarées)
Here "Insensées" means "foolish".The same can't be said for Provencale, however: the words "taro" and "tarous", similar to "tarot", continued to exist. But the word for the game was spelled "taroc", "tarot", or "tarots" (see the same page in the dictionary); the different spellings and variations suggest that they weren't connected in people's minds to the game.
Second, it was in Italy that the game was primarily played and so most needed to be distinguished from the game called "triumphs" using the regular deck. Other places simply didn't have a large enough linguistic community interested in distinguishing the two games to be decisive.
And third, there seems to be a relationship of mimicry to a previous game and its name, minchiate, documented in 1466 in Pulci's letter to Lorenzo. It rather clearly had a sense of "fool" or "quarreling" before and after that time. So if you need a new name, do something similar.
Besides the words
minchia and
minchione, both meaning "fool," as well as a word for the male pudendum (compare "prick" and "dick" in English and similar expressions in Italian, e.g.
cazzone, coglione), there is Burchiello, c. 1440, first printed ed. c. 1472. My translation is the best I can offer, but I haven't run it by Andrea (he's on vacation); I used Florio for words unknown in modern Italian:
Se tu volessi fare un buon minuto, / togli Aretini et Orvietani e Bessi, / e sarti mulattieri bugiardi e messi, / e fa’ che ciaschedun sia ben battuto; / poi gli condisci con uno scrignuto / e per sale vi trita entro votacessi, / e per agresto Minchiatar fra essi / accioché sia di tutto ben compiuto.
(If you wanted to make a good minced meat
take the Arezzans and Orvietans et Bessians
and tailors, mule-drivers, and assumed liars,
and make each one well beaten;
then season it with one hunchback
and for salt mince in a privy-emptier,
and for sourness minchiatar among them
to the end that everything is done well …
Here "sourness" would suggest "quarreling" as a translation for "minchiatar". I get this suggestion from Andrea, before he went on vacation.
Then there is Pulci, in his sonnets (
http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=338&lng=ENG)
Milan può far di molti ravïuoli,
tal ch'io perdono a que' mie’ minchiatarri
s'e' non facessin chiù come assïuoli.:
(Milan can make a lot of ravioli,
and for this I could forgive these minchiattarri [Philologist’s comment: players of the game of tarot, but also in a malicious sense]
if they didn’t say "chiù" like horned owls [reference to the cadence of Milanese speech]
And
Que’ huogli dicer di Napoli jentile?
L a gentilezza sta ne’ cantarelli,
Rispondo presto, e parmi un bel porcile.
Ah questi Fiorentin gran joctoncelli:
Ch’hanno tutti lo tratto sì sottile:
Così si pascon questi minchiattelli....
What would you (want to) say against the nobility of Naples?
I respond quickly that its nobility is in its pots of the night (its nobility is in the containers used for physiological needs, which were emptied at night in the streets)
and it seems quite a pigsty.
Ah, these Florentines (the Neapolitans say), people very refined (also, such boasters)
all of whom are so delicate:
so they spend their lives, these minchiattelli (people of little value)...
Then there are two later examples, first, anonymous of 1510,
Farsa Satira Morale (see Andrea's essay with that title). One character ends a long enumeraton of games by saying:
Mancava anchora el gioco de tarocchi, / Chesser mi par tuo pasto: e un altro anchora / Minchion, sminchiata voise dir da sciocchi. / Hor prende qual tu voi, chel fugge lhora.“
We have yet to mention the game of Tarocchi,
Which seems to be your meal: and yet another,
A foolish one [Minchion], sminchiata, which is to say of fools.
Now choose what you want, because time is fleeing.
And Berni, 1526 (online in Google Books; the translation is Singer's, except that I have given a literal translation of the first 15 words or so):
viso proprio di Tarocco colui a chi piace questo gioco, che altro non vuol dir Tarocco che ignocco, sciocco, Balocco; degno di star fra fornari e calzolari e plebei a giocarsi in tutto dì un Carlino in quarto a tarocchi, o a trionfi, o a Sminchiate che si sia, che ad ogni modo tutto importa minchioneria e dapocaggine, pascendo l’occhio col sole e con la luna e col Dodici, come fanno i puti.
...the proper face of Tarocco, for one pleased with this game, is that Tarocco wants to say nothing other than stupid, foolish, simple, fit only to be used by Bakers, Cobblers, and the vulgar, to play at most the fourth part of a Carlino [a coin], at Tarocchi, or at Triumphs, or any Sminchiate whatever, which in every way signifies only foolery [minchioneria] and idleness, feasting the eye with the Sun, and the Moon, and the twelve [signs], as children do.
It is clear that he means Minchiate the game: not only does it follow the names of two other similar games, but Minchiate had the peculiarity of having not only the Sun and Moon cards, as in Tarocchi, but also the twelve signs of the zodiac. As in the case of the
Farsa Satira Morale, there is an additional connotation, meaning “foolery,” similar to “of fools.” So the same is said of Tarocco -“stupid, foolish, simple” - as of Minchiate. And it seems to me that even in
Farsa, such a meaning is implied, when he says "which seems to be your meal", denigrating both the person he is talking to and the game.
I also think something similar might be implied even in Burchiello, since immediately after the part I quoted, he adds:
Spècchiati ne’ Triomphi, el gran mescuglio
d’arme, d’amor, di Bruti e di Catoni
con femine e poeti in guazabuglio:
questi fanno patire i maccheroni
veghiando il verno, e meriggiando il luglio
dormir pegli scriptoi i mocciconi,
(See yourself in the Triumphs, in that mix
of arms, love, Brutuses and Catos,
a jumble of women and poets:
these Triumphs make fools suffer
and stay awake in wintertime
and make idiots sleep
on their writing desks in summer.)
While it is true that the overt meaning is Petrarch's
Trionfi, it seems to me too coincidental that Brutus is a Traitor, plus lots of female figures in the tarot, love, various forms of arms (weapons), and the fool, as well as the hunchback of Minchiate earlier. Cato might be a reference to the Old Man again. If so, we again have the juxtaposition of the two games.
My point is that when the game-makers needed a new word for the game with 78 cards, they seem to have turned for their model to the same game with more cards (we don't know how many more at that point) and gave it a name with a different etymology - some thought German (the country of the army of Charles V, at any rate
nulla latina ratione) some thought Greek (the anonymous discourse, Alciato, neither making much sense) - but most importantly with the current meaning of "fool" in various senses, as opposed to the word of Latin derivation for the previous game.
This argument cannot be made in France or Provence. They didn't have minchiate. The range of meaning, moreover, for "taroccare" matches that of "minchiattar" earlier, not just nonsense, but getting inappropriately angry, quarreling, e.g. Garzoni, "Of Madmen spiteful and
da tarocco". That is rather more than a stump or tree trunk could muster, although it might stretch that far if ones on fire are included.
As for the etymology of tarocch, cut tree trunk or stump, that is another matter, of less interest to nail down, as Nathaniel says. Since a stump is a rejected part of a tree, it could derive from the Greek root. Or it could be Celtic, as Steve's research showed.
And as for the origin of "taraux," it seems sufficient to me to say that it is the French spelling of the Provencale translation of "tarochus, "tarocho", etc., i.e. "taro" or "tarous". That is to say, although the game was played in a Provencale-speaking area before it reached Lyon, the French spelling quickly became dominant, just because Lyon was dominant in playing card production.