I wrote
If Italians didn't know the derivation 50 years later, maybe it's because the word is Arabic, and describes a paraticular innovation in the rules that occurred around 1505 or so, distinguishing the game from Triumphs, and with an Arabic basis. This is what the Grand Robert Dictionaire de la Langue Francaise says, roughly. I'll get the details.
mmfelisi replied:
yes. Its a posibility. I read somewhere (Andrea Pullet?), Which could come from an Arabic word referring to the decoration with holes, like the skin of an orange, which in Arabic is said like tarot (or similar).
However, this is rare. Between 1442 and 1505, never speak of "tarot" or "taraux" or "taroccho" ... It the game of triumphs. That is, a new word, the late fifteenth century, early sixteenth century. Long ago the Arab origin of the cards (mid, late fourteenth century) has passed.
I'm not talking about what you read about the skin of the orange, the little dents put in the metal. I am talking about a rule change, associated with particular decks around 1505, so that the producers introduced a new word to describe the decks sold to be played with these new rules, a word that described the rule. Unfortunately I do not have access to a copy of
Game of Tarot to see if Dummett mentions such a rule. By your time line, the rule change would have been around the same time in Avignon and Ferrara, so we don't know where it started. The cardmakers, on this theory, took a word from Arabic--it seems to have been in use in Italy and France for some time, "tara," meaning "deduction"--and gave it an "o" on the end instead of the "a."
This theory, as I said, comes from the
Grand Robert--2nd edition, 1985, volume IX, to be precise; It is a huge work, 10 thick volumes of small print and large pages, no casual job. I get this reference from J. Karlin,
http://jktarot.com/faq2.html. To make sure I get it right, here is a copy of the entry in the book. All you actually need is the first paragrph:
This book is saying it comes from the Arabic word "tahr," meaning the same as "deduction" in French. What rule would it correspond to in tarot? Karlin suggests that it is the rule that the dealer has the option of discarding a certain number of cards, removing them from participation in the trick-taking game that follows. The dealer "deducts" these cards from his or her hand. I don't know if that is the only rule that could possibly correspond to the word. When the score is added up, are there deductions, say, for losing the Bateleur or playing an illegal card during the hand? Karlin's suggestion makes the most sense to me.
The Arab word, according to
Robert--although now spelling it "tarhah"--also gives us the word "tare," meaning "part removed." Here are the entries for "tare" and also "tare" with an accent acute on the last e. I apologize for the quality of the copy; again, only the first paragraph is important for our purpose:
I include so much because maybe something will click with you from Spanish. Notice the year it gives for a recorded appearance of the French "tare"--1318. Then in 1460 it gets a new application, so there's some activity with the word. That's in France; I don't know about Italy or Spain.
"Tare" even exists in English. Here is what my
Webster's New World Dictionary, 1967, says:
n. Fr.; It. & Sp. tara; Ar. tarhah < taraha, to reject. 1. The weight of a container, wrapper, box, truck, etc. deducted from the total weight to determine the weight of the contents or load. 2. the deduction of this.
There is a little dot under the first h of both Arab Words, and the t of the second one. Perhaps it is to distinguish it from another sound written with an h or t.