Tarot History Forum

The first word about the game is not Tarocco. The first word we have wrote is Tarocho (Brescia, 1502). Then we dont have -cco. We have -cho. You say that -cho would drift in -que in French? But we have the word Taroch as stupid in italian. You say that probably italians added the termination -cho to a shorter provencal word?

Magic Moon wrote,

The first word about the game is not Tarocco. The first word we have wrote is Tarocho (Brescia, 1502). Then we dont have -cco. We have -cho.

Spelling varied in those days, and even pronunciation. I am taking -occo and -ocho as equivalent. They would have been pronounced the same or similarly.

You say that -cho would drift in -que in French? But we have the word Taroch as stupid in italian.

I do not understand your point. I do not say that every word ending in -ocho or -occo would go into French as -que, just that when French borrowed from Italian, it turned -occo into -que. Depaulis's article is in The Playing-Card, vol. 36, no. 6, 2004.

You say that probably italians added the termination -cho to a shorter provencal word?

No, not at all. My hypothesis is that the name of the game "tarocho/tarocco" was translated into Provencale, the language of Avignon, by a word with the same meaning of "foolish, crazy" in Provencale. Then that word was spelled "taraux" in French, upon hearing the Provencale word, however it was spelled, but with a similar pronunciation.

If you look in a French-Provencale lexicon at http://lexiqueprovencal.com/index.php5?page=lexique we see that if you enter "taré" in French (which means "crazy, defective" (mentally or otherwise) you get, with the meaning of "fou" (i.e. "foolish, crazy"), the word "tarous" in Provencale. I do not know how far back this goes. And if you enter "taro" in Provençal at https://www.freelang.com/enligne/proven ... .php?lg=fr:
you get "tare". Most detailed is the entry at https://archive.org/details/loutrsorduf ... 8/mode/2up (Mistral, Frédéric, Lou trésor dóu Felibrige; ou, Dictionnaire provençal-français, embrassant les
divers dialectes de la langue d’oc moderne, vol. 2 (Aix-en-Provence: J. Remondet-Aubin, 1879), p.
959:

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.

(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 .)

Also relevant (next column) is:

tarous, ouso, adj. Qui a des tares, taré, ée, v. endeca.

(tarous, ouso, adj. One who has faults, crazy, v. endeca .)

Thank you Mikeh. Very interesting. In my last publication I had trouble expressing myself correctly. Taroch refers to a silly person. I didn't mean that the word is silly.

I realized that your comment was referring to Tarocco but I had not said tarocco or tarocho in my phrase that you commented. I had said Taroch. Not tarocho. Not tarocco. That is, I did not say that the Italian Tarocco derives in the French Tarau. And I did not say that the Italian Tarocho derived in the french Tarau. I said that perhaps the Italian Taroch derived in the french Tarau.

I explain that. The word tarocco or tarocho is pronounced Tarok in French. The word Taroch pronounced Taró in French, what Tarau is written. Similarly, the word Moulinaux is pronounced mulin (without final consonant) while Pique is pronounced (the final consonant is pronounced because it is followed by vowel). Mikeh knows this when he suggests that Taraux pronounces Taro, if I remember correctly.

But probably it is not true. I think it is possible. But I dont know if it was like that.

PS: It would be good to know if Taro river was already called Taro in the fifteenth century. It was possibly written as now. We assume that river was called Taro before the battle. It is, the battle was not the reason of the river name, similar to Taro (defect). It is normal but I dont know. The name Taro river is the same that the provencal word Taro (defect, vice, etc). The name of the river has provencal origin?

PS2: I thought that Latin tarus meant wood or bacon but now I am looking for that and it seems that Tarus did not exist in Latin. No problem because Tarakh looks like the origin. Ok. We continue...

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With the last Mikeh explanation, I try to take basic ideas, in my point of view:

The arabic Tarakh (rest, leftover) is prior to lombardy Taroch (Tocon, silly) and provencal Taro (defect, damage, bagabund, vice).

The name of the game in Italian was Tarocho/Tarocchi (Brescia, Ferrara) and in french or provencal was Tarau/Taraux (Avignon).

It seems that the Tarocho (or Tarocco) game has a name from lombardy Taroch (silly). And it seems that the Tarau game has a name from provencal Taro (vice, bagabund, defect).

Are we agree with that?

The fool concept existed before the name of the game. I propose to differentiate the two stages, as I have did.

After that, we could to find more details.

The meaning of the Word Provencal Taro (Bagabundo, Vicio, etc.) seems close to the silly character of the Tarot. The word Lombarda Taroch (wood, fool) is also close to the fool of Tarot. Taroch or Tarocch was referring to an tocon. The word Lombarda Taroch was used in poems with the meaning of silly or something similar, according to discussion. Those poems are not prior to 1494. It is possible that the lombardy word Taroch emerged in that time by influence of the Provencal Taro? That year the French interacted with the Italians in the attempts to conquer. Then, this influence seems possible.

The provencal Taro word does not include the meaning of a fool (stupid) but the lombardy word Tarous refers to a person who has a defect, which approaches fool and crazy. In french, this person is said Taré. In Spanish, it is said Tarado. The provencal Taruso word has the same meaning as provencal Tarous but it finish in the same vowel (o) that is added in Taroch (silly) when it becomes Tarocho (game).

Then the Provencal origin seems likely to me. At the same time we have the Lombardo Taroch with the meaning of wood or silly, that is, an intelligent person like a wood. Taroch is originated in the Arab Tarakh or Provencal?

Maybe we can agree on general lines. In any case, I am interested in the details. The ronto existed before the game. And it is not the same Taroch than Tarocho. Or is there a TarochO (old word wrote in some poem) with the meaning of a fool or some person adjetive?

I have a hard time understanding you precisely, as you seem to say different things at different times.

Let me focus on this:

The word tarocco or tarocho is pronounced Tarok in French. The word Taroch pronounced Taró in French, what Tarau is written. Similarly, the word Moulinaux is pronounced mulin (without final consonant) while Pique is pronounced (the final consonant is pronounced because it is followed by vowel).

The word "tarocco" or "tarocho" does not exist in French. It exists in Italian. If there were a word in French pronounced "tarok" it would be spelled "taroc", as French typically does pronounce "c" at the end of words (e.g, "avec"); the 1879 dictionary does have that word with that spelling, "taroc," as a Provençal word for "tarot", the game.

Then you speak of a word "Taroch" pronounced "Taró" in French, written "Tarau". Again, it is not at all clear that a word "Taroch" would be pronounced "Taró" in French. You give as an example "Moulinaux", pronounced without the final consonant "x". Yes, that is correct for "x" in that case and most others (exception: dix): Moulinaux" is pronounced "Moulino". But that is not true for final "ch".

There are different ways in which final "ch" is pronounced in French: as "k", as "sh" and, if "tch", then either like "tsh" or "tch" in English. In general, final "ch" in French occurs in words taken from other languages, and its pronunciation varies according to the original. But it is not dropped. For example, there is the French word "trach", which comes from German: the "ch" is pronounced as "k" (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/krach). There is also the word "bortsch", from Russian or Ukrainian: here it is pronounced as "sh" (https://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/borsch/ .

Anyway, we are dealing with not only "ch" but also "-cco", and in general the "k" sound, either at the end or with an "o" added. In Italian, there is the word "Morocco", a country in north Africa; in French it is "Moroc". The "c" is pronounced as "k": https://en.bab.la/pronunciation/french/maroc. There is also the Italian word "marocchino", meaning goat-skin leather; it goes into French as "maroquin". Again the "k" sound remains, although the "o" ending is dropped.

It is true that sometimes "c" is silent at the end of a word in French. "Tabac" in French has silent "c". But this does not seem to be a word derived from Italian (where it is spelled "tobacco"), but rather from the Spanish, "tabaco", or else directly from New World, perhaps Haiti, in either case with the "o" present, "tabago". Nor is it a word ending in -occo.

Then there is "tarochus". In general, Latin words ending in "-us" end in "o" in Italian, and vice versa. I suspect that "tarochus" is a made up word from "tarocho". In that case, "tarocho" would precede "tarochus" in time. I see no reason to insist that the word did not exist before 1495. It can take time before a word gets used in writing that is preserved today.

Magic Moon wrote,

The provencal Taro word does not include the meaning of a fool (stupid) but the lombardy word Tarous refers to a person who has a defect, which approaches fool and crazy

.
The Provencal "taro" means "defect" etc.; so when applied to a person, it would easily become "mentally defective," as confirmed by the French "tare" (accent acute on e). "Tarous" is also Provencale, merely an alternate for "taro"; according to one source "tarous" meant "fou," i.e. crazy, foolish, and in my third source "mentally defective."

In the rest of the post, I think in general you understand what I am saying, and we agree, at least in principle. Even if "tarus" does not mean "wood" in Latin, there is still "tarocch" meaning trunk of a tree or block of wood in Lombard, with a different derivation. See viewtopic.php?p=23910#p23910 and following. (You acknowledge that, I think.) However, for that derivation, there is no explanation for how it became "tarau". For that reason, I prefer the "tarakh" derivation for "taroch" and "tarocco", which became "taro" in Provençal.

And I do not rule out a derivation of "tarau" from the Taro River, which surely did have that spelling then. If so, it would be derivative from "tarocco/tarocho," which would be prior and not explained by the river. However, even that role for the river and battle (accounting for "tarau") seems to me less likely than that through Provencal that I have proposed.

Hello

Mikeh, I found the source I used years ago when I noted in my notebook that the Latin word "tarus" exists and could be the origin of the Milanese word "taroch." Here's the link:

http://ducange.enc.sorbonne.fr/TARUS

The last paragraph of your post talks about the Taro River, but the linguistic difficulties make it difficult for me to understand what you're proposing. Perhaps you could say the same thing with several basic phrases like the following. This led to that. This also led to other word. That led to the other that. Etc. It is not literary but it is easy to understand. I try to translate your text to basic frases and you could look if it is ok:

Probably... Taro river was wrote Taro (the same that actually). Taro (river name) derived to tarau (game name). I am lost. Not possible to continue. I dont know the subjet of the next frase.

Thanks for the explanations about letters and pronunciation in different languages. It seems that languages ​​were transmitted orally through pronunciation, and written spelling was secondary and unimportant in the evolution of a word across several languages.

I was just agreeing with your proposal about the possible role of the Taro River: that it didn't give rise to the word "tarocco", but might have played a role in going from "tarocco" to "tarau". That is, the French, wanting to ridicule the Italian performance at the battle of the Taro River, could have altered the Italian "tarocco", meaning the card game as well as "foolish", to sound like "Taro", so that the "game of the fool" becomes "the game of the Taro", an equally foolish endeavor (on the part of the Italians). I don't know if that's any clearer than what I said before. However, I want to make it clear that I think such a hypothesis is still less likely than the linguistic one through Provencal (taro=defect, subtraction) that I also proposed.

Thanks for the link about "tarus". If it means "clava," i.e. "club" or "thick, heavy stick," that does not have any connotation of "stupid" but rather of a weapon. How it could be a linguistic source for "taroch" as "block of wood" or "trunk of a tree" I don't know. The "ch" still needs to be accounted for. I suppose it could be a source, in Italian, for "taro", since " -us" in Latin becomes "-o" in Italian. But the word didn't exist in Italian, and that shift to "-o" doesn't happen in French. More is needed.

You speak about tarakh? I dont find this word in arab neither starting words like that. Tarikh is something diferent about time. Arab word that I knew about our investigation is taraka (leave) verb and tarkho (leave it) variation. I think that it is connect with substract concept (and also with the act to put cards on the table playing card trick games) and words as tarato, taré, tarado (fool, dement, crazy).

Tarus as wood is interesting. The latin "clava" word is an stick (as you say) and also it is a small wood to fix the dor, for example. The comcept is something that is narrow or wedge-shaped (and sometimes can be nailed into). That narrowing is on a nail that is driven in. The sustantive nail is "clavo" in spanish and the verb nail is "clavar" in spanis. Latin "clava" is the origin of this spanish words.

Taroch is a wooden stump and is related to "clava" because it is wood. The mace or club is found in Visconti Pierpont's "Mace of the Fool" and was previously found in Giotto's allegorical paintings. A fool is someone as clumsy and clumsy as a wooden stick. It can be a club or a stump. They are woods with the same intelligence as a fool. The relationship between tarus (club) and taroch (wood) is conceptually evident. Both concepts are near. Right? And both words are similar. They have the same origin. I dont know what was the exact evolution.

Thanks for the explication about Taro river.

*******

I'm reviewing the documents on the sale of Trionfi playing cards in Florence.

To find out the meaning of "doppi" (double), it would be good to see how Tommaso Puri's notes were written in 1447. Pratesi provides the data, but I don't see what the expression was in the original notes. Perhaps it was like this: "3 dozzine pari doppi." Or was it like this: "3 dozzine naibi doppi." This is just to understand the production of playing cards and the origin of the word "pari" (deck).

Years later, if we assume that the trump deck went from having 14 trumps to approximately 20 trumps around the year 1465, perhaps that should be reflected in the deck sales documents. There's no change in the name of the trump deck during those years. I don't know if there was an increase in the price of each trump deck. This data is difficult to consult. There are many notes, and they come from various places. It's complicated. I've delved quite deeply, but I think there are some details that are difficult to find. So perhaps the trump deck that continued to be sold was the usual one, which perhaps had 14 trumps, for those of us who accept that this could have been the case. That is, the Minchiate deck, which had more than 14 trumps (and less than 22), is possibly not documented in the notes by Esch and Pratesi. Perhaps it was a little-known deck. The increase in decks produced around 1463-1464 was possibly conventional trump decks like those of the previous years. They weren't going to send the 1466 Minchiate (perhaps 20 trumps in total) to Rome for sale. I supose that Minchiate-I deck (1466) was for some Florentine intellectuals close to Lorenzo and his poet friends.

Later, that sequence (more than 14 wins) was consolidated and allowed for up to 22 cards, including the Fool, when the game was called Tarot or something similar. That is what I supose. It is logic to me.

Incidentally, I don't know when or why the last letter T was added: Taro-t. Is "tarot" documentated late?

I don't know if Boiardo's poem (1487?) was written when there were already 22 allegorical Tarot-type cards or if such an extensive sequence didn't yet exist. I don't see the connection between Pico della Mirandola and the number 22 as an obvious one. I've studied the theories about love poems, and they're very good, but it's something you have to search for. I would prefer to find a text where Pico says he loves the number 22. I mean, I'd like to see clearer evidence. Okay, Boiardo was 22 years older than Pico. That's fine. Years earlier, Parisina died at 22 (?) years of age. That seems more distant and less important.

By the way, the last triumph-stanza of the Boiardo poem doesn't have three lines, but four, I think I remember. I don't know if that means something like 22 years and something. But they are not triumphs as we know them. Nor are the ones Viti conceived, inspired by Boiardo's poem shortly before 1500, similar.

So I think perhaps the complete 22-card Tarot structure didn't become established until after Sola Busca, the BAR sheets, Viti's commentary, and perhaps even after the Viti deck itself. I don't know. However, Nathaniel says that the sermon called Steel existed before 1470. In that case, perhaps the Tarot structure first became established in Ferrara, but it wasn't yet exported to Rome but became popular later, around 1500.

The question is that im some moment the number 22 or the number 20 + 2 was accepted. This could have happened approximately between the year 1487 (estimated date for Boiardo's poem) and the year 1502. I think that perhaps the devil was added shortly after 1481 when the "Divine Comedy" was published with illustrations engraved by the same artist who had done the clownish magician in the illustration "Children of the Moon." But was the falcon inserted before or after the equivalent devil?

Magic Moon wrote: 19 Jun 2025, 01:28 I don't know if Boiardo's poem (1487?) was written when there were already 22 allegorical Tarot-type cards or if such an extensive sequence didn't yet exist. I don't see the connection between Pico della Mirandola and the number 22 as an obvious one. I've studied the theories about love poems, and they're very good, but it's something you have to search for. I would prefer to find a text where Pico says he loves the number 22. I mean, I'd like to see clearer evidence. Okay, Boiardo was 22 years older than Pico. That's fine. Years earlier, Parisina died at 22 (?) years of age. That seems more distant and less important.

viewtopic.php?p=17590#p17590
Pico made a poem about Trionfi decks.

Pico made Hebrew studies. The elder Boiardo made Hebrew studies before. In Scandiano, Boiardo's home town, were Jews. In Ferrara, where Boiardo was active was a larger community of Jews. Pico had Jewish teachers.
Hebrew uses 22 letters. There was a historic development since 1170 especially in Spain and Provence: Kabbala. Pico became a great Christian Kabbalist. It is very unlikely (near to impossible), that he hadn't a very specific relation to the number 22.

We have no idea when Boiardo wrote his trionfi poem. It could have been before 1470.

If the evidence for 22 comes first from Ferrara, that does not mean that it became 22 there. There are other considerations as well. Likewise, that the Hebrew alphabet had 22 letters was in several of the Church fathers, well known in 15th century Italy, attaching great importance to them as the sounds of the language of God, communicating through 22 books of the Old Testament. Jewish scholars, some of whom had settled in Florence, Ferrara, and elsewhere and were consulted by humanists, would have said the same. Pico says nothing about the 22 letters that I have found in his writings.

"Tarakh" is how I was spelling the Arabic word transliterated as taraha, tara, or tarh, but I think the "h" has more of a gutteral sound than in English, close to the German "ch" in "Bach" (I don't recall where I read that). In my 1967 Webster's New World Dictionary (which I keep for its etymologies, removed from later editions), the Arabic word is tarhah, as a noun, with a dot under the first h, which I think means it is pronounced more gutterally than "h", closer to the German "ch" in "Bach". As a verb it is spelled "tarahah," with a dot under both the t and the first h. (This is for the English "tare"; the word "tarot" isn't even in this dictionary!).

Here is one current source:
https://www.etymonline.com/word/tarot

Another source is the Grand Robert Dictionnaire de la langue francaise. I scanned the relevant pages in a post back in 2010, in a discussion I was having with Marcos (MM Filesi):
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=499&start=20#p6784

There is also:

https://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/tarot/

The latter's explanation for why "deduction" became the name of the game is that a certain number of cards are put aside during the deal. These cards were taken by the dealer, in exchange for the same number of cards of his choice from his hand, set aside and not in play. It is not really a subtraction, but more an exchange. However, it is true that these cards are set aside; they are even "rejected" cards.

I used to advocate that theory myself, taking it from J. Karlin, who had called attention to the dictionary etymology in Robert (see above post from 2010). I later expanded on it - still in 2010 - defending it with a quote from Dummett about games with discards in ca. 1500 Ferrara, at viewtopic.php?p=7182#p7182.

After that, I read it in Depaulis's Tarot Revele of 2013 (pp. 42-43); his sources for the Arabic were two other French dictionaries. He gives "taraq", meaning "to strike", as a variation on "taraha", "to throw" or "to reject" (he gives both meanings).

I suppose that theory should be added to the mix. I would have thought that if that theory were true, the pile of discarded cards would have been called "the tarot" (or tarocco). Instead, it was called, in French, "le talon", i.e. the heel, and also "le chien", the dog.

Incidentally, I read in Depaulis's article of 2004 that there was massive borrowing from French to Italian, 428 entries vs. 80 from Italian to French in the 16th century. He adds that "-cco" is a "classic augmentative" in Italian. He is suggesting that the Italian word would have come from the French! Somehow it does not seem to me likely that the Italians would adopt a French name for a game that they invented.

Mikeh wrote:

"He is suggesting that the Italian word would have come from the French! Somehow it does not seem to me likely that the Italians would adopt a French name for a game that they invented"

You mention a problem that has a theory you find interesting. I have a reflection on the problem you raise.

The Italians invented the game of Trionfi. We don't know when or where the complete structure of 22 allegorical cards was consolidated. I think there's a possibility that this structure called Tarot was consolidated in France. I don't know if before 1495 there were decks with 22 allegorical cards or if the maximum was 20 or 21, as Rosenwald shows. It's likely that the name of this game didn't exist before 1495. In short, perhaps the French invented the name of the new variation and structure, or even the deck that includes the Matto (as a special card).

PS:
The theory about the small group of cards called "Chien" leads me to ask why that small pack of cards is called "Chien." Is there a theory to explain this? I think of the dog that accompanies the Matto. You say that group is also called "Heel." Why? I think about the dog (chien) that is behind the Matto, nipping at his heels and biting his pants. The theory about the Arabic taraka may be related to that pack called "chien" or to the Matto that is abandoned and marginalized outside the Trionfi sequence. I think the name Tarot is related to the Matto, which is the one who is left over or subtracted. The pack "Chien" is perhaps metaphorically also related to the Matto. Or perhaps it refers to the dog or the Matto's heel? In other words, the name of that pack refers to the Matto or to the lowest within the lowest character. But that doesn't mean that the pack called "Chien" is the origin of the game's name. It's one possibility among others. Jodorowsky's girlfriend (I think I remember) wrote a book where she says that the deck called "chien" consists of discarded cards, but not cards discarded by players. That seemed very inaccurate and misleading to me. There are many cards thrown onto the table in all card games. Any of those thrown cards could be the origin of linking that arabic verb to the name of a game. The pack "chien" has been lying abandoned on the table since the beginning of the game. That's true. But they aren't discarded cards. Both options can be useful for that theory.