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Linear A

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Linear A
Script type
Undeciphered
(presumed syllabic and ideographic)
Time period
MM IB to LM IIIA
StatusExtinct
DirectionLeft-to-right Edit this on Wikidata
Languages'Minoan' (unknown)
Related scripts
Child systems
Linear B, Cypro-Minoan syllabary[1]
Sister systems
Cretan hieroglyphs
ISO 15924
ISO 15924Lina (400), ​Linear A
Unicode
Unicode alias
Linear A
 This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Linear A is one of two currently undeciphered writing systems used in ancient Crete prior to its Mycenaean descendent Linear B. Cretan hieroglyphic is the other. In Minoan times, Linear A was the primary script used in palace and religious writings. It was discovered by archaeologist Arthur Evans.

In the 1950s, Linear B was largely deciphered. Although the two systems share many symbols, this did not lead to a subsequent decipherment of Linear A. Using the values associated with Linear B in Linear A produces unintelligible words. If it uses the same or similar syllabic values as Linear B, then its underlying language appears unrelated to any known language. This has been dubbed Minoan language.

The script

Linear A has hundreds of signs. They are believed to represent syllabic, ideographic, and semantic values in a manner similar to Linear B. While about fifty signs are similar to those in Linear B, approximately 80% of Linear A's sign inventory is unique.[2][3]

Corpus

Linear A incised on tablets found in Akrotiri, Santorini.
Linear A tablet - Chania Archaeological Museum

A number of sites have yielded the current corpus of Linear A inscriptions.

Chronology

See also: Chronology of Linear B

Linear A was a contemporary and possible child of Cretan hieroglyphs and the ancestor of Linear B. The sequence and the geographical spread of Cretan hieroglyphs, Linear A and Linear B, the three overlapping, but distinct writing systems on Bronze Age Crete and the Greek mainland can be summarized as follows:[4]

Writing system Geographical area Time span[A 1]
Cretan Hieroglyphic Crete ca. 1625s−1500 BC
Linear A Aegean islands (Kea, Kythera, Melos, Thera), and Greek mainland (Laconia) ca. 18th century−1450 BC
Linear B Crete (Knossos), and mainland (Pylos, Mycenae, Thebes, Tiryns) ca. 1375s−1200 BC

Discovery

See also: Discovery of Linear B

Archaeologist Arthur Evans named the script 'Linear' because its characters consisted simply of lines inscribed in clay, in contrast to the more pictographic and three-dimensional characters in Cretan hieroglyphs that were used during the same period.[5]

Theories of decipherment

Linear A incised on a vase, also found in Akrotiri.

It is difficult to evaluate a given analysis of Linear A as there is little point of reference for reading its inscriptions. The simplest approach to decipherment may be to presume that the values of Linear A match more or less the values given to the deciphered Linear B script, used for Mycenean Greek.[6]

Greek

Vladimir I. Georgiev published his Le déchiffrement des inscriptions crétoises en linéaire A ("The decipherment of Cretan inscriptions in Linear A") in 1957 stating that Linear A contains Greek linguistic elements.[7] In 1963, he published an article, "Les deux langues des inscriptions crétoises en linéaire A" ("The two languages of Cretan inscriptions in Linear A"), suggesting that the language of the Hagia Triada tablets was Greek but that the rest of the Linear A corpus was in Hittite-Luwian.[7]

Luwian

Since the 1960s, a theory based on Linear B phonetic values suggests that Linear A language could be an Anatolian language, close to Luwian.[8] In 1997, Gareth Alun Owens published a collection of essays entitled Kritika Daidalika, which support the view that Linear A might represent an archaic relative of Luwian. Owens based this assertion on the perceived Indo-European but non-Greek roots of a small number of words he was able to read by using the known Linear B or Cypriot sound values of certain Linear A signs. He does not claim a systematic decipherment of Linear A, and remarks in the book that he intended his Luwian hypothesis to provoke discussion rather than to settle the issue.

The theory for the Luwian origin of Minoan, however, failed to gain universal support for the following reasons:

  • There is no remarkable resemblance between Minoan and Hitto-Luwian morphology.
  • None of the existing theories of the origin of Hitto-Luwian peoples and their migration to Anatolia (either from the Balkans or from the Caucasus) is related to Crete.
  • There was a lack of direct contacts between Hitto-Luwians and Minoan Crete; the latter was never mentioned in Hitto-Luwian inscriptions. Small states located along the western coast of ancient Asia Minor were natural barriers between Hitto-Luwians and Minoan Crete.
  • Obvious anthropological differences between Hitto-Luwians and the Minoans may be considered as another indirect testimony against this hypothesis.

Phoenician

In 2001, the journal Ugarit-Forschungen, Band 32 published the article "The First Inscription in Punic — Vowel Differences in Linear A and B" by Jan Best, claiming to demonstrate how and why Linear A notates an archaic form of Phoenician.[9] This was a continuation of attempts by Cyrus Gordon in finding connections between Minoan and West Semitic languages. His methodology drew widespread criticism. While one or two terms may apparently be of Semitic origin (such as KU-RO indicating totals corresponding to Semitic kullu "all"), there is yet not enough evidence to secure a connection between the language of Linear A and Semitic idioms. Contrary to most other scripts used for Semitic languages, Linear A presents many written vowels.[citation needed]

Indo-Iranian

Another recent interpretation, based on the frequencies of the syllabic signs and on complete palaeographic comparative studies, suggests that the Minoan Linear A language belongs to the Indo-Iranian family of Indo-European languages.[10] Studies by Hubert La Marle include a presentation of the morphology of the language, avoid the complete identification of phonetic values between Linear A and B, and also avoid comparing Linear A with Cretan Hieroglyphs.[10] La Marle uses the frequency counts to identify the type of syllables written in Linear A, and takes into account the problem of loanwords in the vocabulary.[10] However, the La Marle interpretation of Linear A has been rejected by John Younger of Kansas University showing that La Marle has invented erroneous and arbitrary new transcriptions based on resemblances with many different script systems at will (as Phoenician, Hieroglyphic Egyptian, Hieroglyphic Hittite, Ethiopian, Cypro-Minoan, etc.), ignoring established evidence and internal analysis, while for some words he proposes religious meanings inventing names of gods and rites.[11][12]

Tyrrhenian

G. M. Facchetti has attempted to link Linear A to the Tyrrhenian language family comprising Etruscan, Rhaetic, and Lemnian. This family is reasoned to be a pre-Indo-European Mediterranean substratum of the 2nd millennium BC, sometimes referred to as Pre-Greek, and this is supported by confirmation from ancient Greek authors like Herodotus in Histories that the Etruscans were from Lydia (SW Turkey).[citation needed] G. M. Facchetti proposed some possible similarities between the Etruscan language and ancient Lemnian, and other Aegean languages like Minoan.[13] Michael Ventris who, along with John Chadwick, successfully deciphered Linear B, also believed in a link between Minoan and Etruscan.[14]

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ Beginning date refers to first attestations, the assumed origins of all scripts lie further back in the past.

Citations

  1. ^ Palaima 1989.
  2. ^ Younger, John. "Linear A Texts in phonetic transcription". University of Kansas. Retrieved 18 October 2012.
  3. ^ Packard, David W. (1974), "Chapter One: Introduction", Minoan Linear A, Berkeley / Los Angeles / London: University of California Press, ISBN 0-520-02580-6
  4. ^ Olivier 1986, pp. 377f.
  5. ^ Andrew Robinson, Writing and Script: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 54
  6. ^ A site maintained by John Younger of Kansas University has a comprehensive list of known texts written in Linear A.
  7. ^ a b Nagy 1963, p. 210 (Footnote #24).
  8. ^ See the works of Sir Leonard Palmer.
  9. ^ Dietrich, Manfried and Loretz, Oswald (ed.) Ugarit-Forschungen, Band 32: Internationales Jahrbuch fur die Altertumskunde Syrien-Palastinas. Verlag Butzon & Bercker, 2001. ISBN 3-934628-00-1.
  10. ^ a b c La Marle, Hubert. Linéaire A, la première écriture syllabique de Crète. Geuthner, Paris, 4 volumes, 1997–1999, 2006; Introduction au linéaire A. Geuthner, Paris, 2002; L'aventure de l'alphabet: les écritures cursives et linéaires du Proche-Orient et de l'Europe du sud-est à l'Âge du Bronze. Geuthner, Paris, 2002; Les racines du crétois ancien et leur morphologie: communication à l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, 2007.
  11. ^ Younger, John G. Linear A Texts. University of Kansas. 15 August 2009 (Retrieved 22 December 2009).
  12. ^ Younger, John. Critique of Decipherments by Hubert La Marle and Kjell Aartun. University of Kansas. 15 August 2009; last update: 5 July 2010 (Retrieved 25 August 2011): [La Marle] "assigns phonetic values to Linear signs based on superficial resemblances to signs in other scripts (the choice of scripts being already prejudiced to include only those from the eastern Mediterranean and northeast Africa), as if "C looks like O so it must be O.".
  13. ^ Facchetti, Giulio M. & Negri, Mario. Creta Minoica. Sulle tracce delle più antiche scritture d'Europa. Leo S. Olschki Editore, 'Biblioteca dell'Archivum Romanicum. Serie II: Linguistica' nº 55, 2003. ISBN 88-222-5291-8.
  14. ^ Chadwick 1990, p. 34. "The basic idea was to find a language which might not be related to Minoan. Ventris' candidate was Etruscan; not a bad guess, because the Etruscans, according to ancient tradition, came from the Aegean to Italy."

Sources

Further reading

  • Best, Jan G. P. (1972). Some Preliminary Remarks on the Decipherment of Linear A. Hakkert. ISBN 90-256-0625-3.
  • Woodard, Roger D. (1997). Greek Writing from Knossos to Homer. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-510520-6. (Review.)
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