Social:Minoan language
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| Minoan | |
|---|---|
| (undeciphered) | |
 Linear A tablet | |
| Region | Crete |
| Era | About 2100–1450 BC |
| Cretan hieroglyphs, Linear A | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Either:omn – Minoanlab – Linear A |
omn Minoan | |
lab Linear A | |
| Glottolog | mino1236 Minoan[1] |
The Minoan language is the language (or languages) of the ancient Minoan civilization of Crete written in the Cretan hieroglyphs and later in the Linear A syllabary. As the Cretan hieroglyphs are undeciphered and Linear A only partly deciphered, the Minoan language is unknown and unclassified. With the existing evidence, it is even impossible to be certain that the two scripts record the same language.
The Eteocretan language, attested in a few alphabetic inscriptions from Crete 1,000 years later, is possibly a descendant of Minoan, but is also unclassified.
Classification
Minoan is an unclassified language, or perhaps multiple indeterminate languages written in the same script. It has been compared inconclusively to the Indo-European, Semitic and Tyrsenian language families and is a language isolate.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8]
Attestation
Minoan is mainly known from the inscriptions in Linear A, which are fairly legible by comparison with Linear B. The Cretan hieroglyphs are dated from the first half of the 2nd millennium BC. The Linear A texts, mostly written in clay tablets, are spread all over Crete with more than 40 localities on the island.
The Egyptian texts
From the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt come four texts containing names and spells in the language of Keftiu. They are, as usual in non-Egyptian texts, written in Egyptian hieroglyphs, which has allowed the pronunciation of those names and spells to be reconstructed.
- Magic Papyrus Harris (Latin: Papyrus magicus Harris XII, 1–5); Beg. 18th Dynasty: a spell in the Keftiu language [9]
- Writing board (B.M. 5647); early 18th Dynasty: school blackboard with Keftiu names[10]
- London Medical Papyrus (B.M., 10059); end of the 18th Dynasty: Two Spells Against Disease (#32–33)
- Aegean placard list (de): some Cretan place names.
Phonology
On the basis of these texts, the phonetic system of the Keftiu language has been reconstructed as having the following consonants:[11]
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | |||||
| Stop | p b | t d | ts | k | q | ||
| Fricative | f | s | ʃ | h | |||
| Trill | r | ||||||
| Approximant | j | w |
Syntax
Brent Davis, a linguist and archaeologist at the University of Melbourne, has proposed that the basic word order of the language written in Linear A may be verb-subject-object (VSO), based on the properties of a common formulaic sequence found in Linear A.[12] Object–verb–subject (OVS) word order has also been proposed.[11]
Footnotes
- ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds (2017). "Minoan". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/mino1236.
- ↑ Stephanie Lynn Budin; John M. Weeks (2004). The Ancient Greeks: New Perspectives. ABC-CLIO. p. 26. ISBN 9781576078143. OCLC 249196051. https://books.google.com/books?id=u-Py1QbavoQC&q=symi+island%2Bhebrew+greeks&pg=PA26. Retrieved May 25, 2019.
- ↑ Facchetti, Giulio M.; Negri, Mario (2003) (in it). Creta Minoica: Sulle tracce delle più antiche scritture d'Europa. Firenze: L.S. Olschki. ISBN 978-88-222-5291-3. https://books.google.com/books?id=SgpZAAAAMAAJ.
- ↑ Yatsemirsky, Sergei A. (2011) (in ru). Opyt sravnitel'nogo opisaniya minoyskogo, etrusskogo i rodstvennyh im yazykov. Moscow: Yazyki slavyanskoy kul'tury. ISBN 978-5-9551-0479-9. https://books.google.com/books?id=J4e8twAACAAJ.
- ↑ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2014) (in en). Pre-Greek: Phonology, Morphology, Lexicon. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-27944-5. https://books.google.com/books?id=bomIBAAAQBAJ.
- ↑ Raymond A. Brown, Evidence for pre-Greek speech on Crete from Greek alphabetic sources. Adolf M. Hakkert, Amsterdam 1985, p. 289
- ↑ Chadwick, John (1967). The Decipherment of Linear B. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-39830-5. https://books.google.com/books?id=TD8YAlh_XHwC.
- ↑ Kazansky, Nikolai (2012-01-01). "The Evidence for Lycian in the Linear A Syllabary". FS Gregory Nagy Online. Awol - the Ancient World Online. ISSN 2156-2253. https://www.academia.edu/41092710.
- ↑ H. Lange: Der Magische Papyrus Harris; Kopenhagen (1927)
- ↑ T. E. Peet: The Egyptian Writing-Board B.M. 5647 bearing Keftiu Names; Oxford 1927
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Kyriakidis, E. (2004). "Indications on the Nature of the Language of the Keftiw from Egyptian Sources" (in de). Egypt and the Levant 1 (XII): 211–220. doi:10.1553/AEundL12s211. ISSN 1015-5104. http://hw.oeaw.ac.at/?arp=0x0005a44f.
- ↑ Brent Davis, 'Syntax in Linear A: The Word-Order of the ‘Libation Formula’ ' Kadmos 52(1), 2013, pp.35-52
References
- Finkelberg, Margalit (2000). "The Language of Linear A: Greek, Semitic, or Anatolian?". Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph Series (38). https://www.academia.edu/24273902.
External links
- Duhoux, Yves. Pre-Hellenic languages of Crete
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