Pre-Greek languages

[Sean Crist]

On Thu, 30 Sep 1999, petegray wrote:

> Sean Christ wrote:

Actually, it's Crist, not Christ.  It rhymes with 'wrist'.

>> ... Linear A is not Greek
>> First of all, the script appears to be designed for a language .....  The
>> best guess is that Linear A represents a language whose syllables were
>> something like the type of modern Japanese or Hawaiian, i.e. mostly
>> CV-type syllables,

> This makes a number of assumptions, which can be questioned.
> Firstly, was the script "designed" for the language, or was it adapted, as
> cuneiform was for Hittite?

I could be wrong on this, but my understanding is that Linear A hasn't
been shown to have been directly borrowed from any other known script
system. To the contrary, we have some of the earlier local pictographic
system which it seems to have developed from.

> Secondly, can we really assume that the apparently syllabic nature of the
> script reflects the nature of the language?

We can't be sure, since we don't know what language Linear A represents.

> Thirdly, I believe no other scripts in that area at that time were truly
> alphabetic or capable of expressing complex consonant clusters (please
> correct me if I'm wrong here).   We have consonantal scripts with no vowels,
> and syllabaries.   Speakers of a non-semitic language with consonant
> clusters might have had a choice of Linear A or nothing.

This is assuming that the scribes were aware of other writing systems and
borrowed one, as opposed to coming up with a wholly novel system.  Even if
it's the case that Linear A was borrowed, I think we at least need to say
that it was greatly remodelled from whatever earlier system we decide to
connect it with.  Whether the scribes in question would have likely to
independently think up the idea of an alphabetic writing system is
something I don't know.

> Fourthly both Maori and Japanese write a final vowel -u where the syllable
> is in fact often dropped.    If linear A is a syllabary, some sort of final
> vowel has to be written.   How nice, if there were some consistency in
> Linear A,  writing -u for a final vowel that was not to be pronounced!

It's true that final -u usually drops off after a voiceless consonant in
Japanese, but it's transparently true that it's still phonologically
present (i.e., this is not just a dummy vowel in the Japanese writing
system). For example, it's true that the -u isn't pronounced in _neko
desu_ "It is a cat", but it _is_ pronounced in _neko desu ne_ "It is a
cat, isn't it?"

We don't know anything about this sort of low-level detail for the Linear
A language, so we can't say what phonetic fate -u might have had there.
It's surely possible that it deletes, but we don't know.

  \/ __ __    _\_     --Sean Crist  (kurisuto at unagi.cis.upenn.edu)
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