Alain wrote
I have a question : my English is not good enough to conclude .
Did Jess Karlin discover : "tare=deduction" - it seems to be an old etymology.
But maybe am I wrong...
Tare=deduction is old, to be sure; it is given in my
Webster's New World Dictionary, published 1967.
tare 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.
Another question is (and perhaps this is what you were asking): How old is the proposed etymology tarot=tare/tarah? I don't know, but it is in the 2nd edition of
Le Robert Dictionnaire historique de la langue française , 1985, one of Karlin's sources, in her footnote 11. After citing her, I posted a scan of the relevant entries in
Robert, both for "tarot" and "tare," at
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=499&start=20#p6784. I don't know if the same derivation was in the earlier edition of
Le Robert.
But the most important part of the "discard" argument (but without relating it to etymology) is in Dummett 1980,
The Game of Tarot, pp. 426-427. Karlin cites him, but without a page reference and also leaving out an essential part of his discussion. In fact, Dummett himself leaves out part of the argument; he is only concerned with the "discard" rule and doesn't comment upon how it might relate to the introduction of the word "tarocchi" or "tarot." At
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=502&start=20#p7182, I posted all of what I thought was the relevant passage in Dummett, highlighting the most important sentences.
I think that the passage in Dummett mostly answers mmfilesi's question. Dummett's argument is rather complex, and he writes in complex sentences. So I will summarize, including the bit that Dummett leaves out (which Karlin supplies) a the end. At that particular time, a little before 1505, there was need for a distinctive, unusual word to identify a particular type of deck used for a particular type of game involving discards (for which other decks could be used, but making for a less interesting game, the cardmakers would have hoped). The name of the original game with the discard feature was "Scartino" (from "scartare," Italian for "discard"), first documented in 1492 and quite popular for a time (last reference 1517). Games played with the 78 card Triumph decks at some point took over the discard feature from Scartino, Dummett hypothesizes. The makers (or players?) of the 78 card decks then needed a new name both (a) to distinguish their game from ones that used a regular suit for trumps, and (b) to emphasize the discard feature, in competition with Scartino. So they took the Arabic-derived synonym for "scartino"--"tara," a word in use but probably not as common--and changed it to the catchier "tarocchi"; or else they went back to the Arabic "tarakh," as Karlin says it was pronounced--and applied that word to the game that already existed with the 78 card decks but now had the "discard" feature. Scartino then died out and tarocchi remained.
Unfortunately Karlin, in her account, does not mention the game Scartino, an essential part of the story. To my knowledge I am the only one, after Dummett, who has included that part of the puzzle, and I really want to emphasize it. Also, Dummett himself does not mention the connection between "scartare/Scartino" and "tara" or "tarakh," its Arab-derived near-synonym. Dummett is only concerned with the discard rule, and not the name-change. That part is supplied by Karlin--who in the process omits part of what Dummett says.
The argument actually has four parts: (1) the development of triumph games with no special trump suit, necessitating a new name of some kind; (2) the adoption of the discards rule; (3) the need to differentiate the game from Scartino, but also contrast the two; and (4) the synonony of tara/tarah/tarakh and scartare/Scartino. Dummett has all the parts except (4), Karlin and Vitali have all except (3). But the argument is stronger with the additon of (3), connected to (4) by synonymy and the need to differentiate the game from two other games rather than just one.
Dummett's main problem with his idea, that discards entered the game called tarocchi through the influence of Scartino, is that it would have required a coordinated effort in all four Italian centers of the game. Well, by then the game probably was fairly standardized, and people were used to playing very similar games in different cities. So a rule change could spread easily. If a name change came with the interesting rule change (a welcome name change, because the same name, Triumphs, was being used for different games), there would have been even more impetus to make both rule and name conform in the various cities. There was in fact much interaction among cities.
Not only that, there was much interaction between Italy and France, so that a name-and-rule change in Italy (or even just one of these at first) could be adopted quickly in France. One mechanism that fits c. 1505 in particular is suggested by Huck (for the name) at
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=502&start=10#p6841: it might have been via Alfonso d'Este, developing an alliance with France around the time of his father's 1505 death. Huck does not say which way it would have gone, from Italy to France or vice versa, but if the origin of both changes (rule and name) was by way of Scartino, it would have been from Italy to France, the Avignon cardmakers adopting a new fashion learned from Alfonso and his entourage, or from a French entourage returning from Ferrara. And there were other connections between the two countries. Cardmakers in France, already making good money off an Italian invention, would have continued to pay attention to ludic developments there.
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