Linear A to Linear B

X99Lynx at aol.com X99Lynx at aol.com
Thu Oct 7 00:36:49 UTC 1999


In a message dated 10/6/99 1:03:09 PM, kurisuto at unagi.cis.upenn.edu wrote:

<<OK, then, why can't we read it if it's Greek?  Linear A and Linear B have
many of the same characters.  If both are Greek, the only way this could
have happened would be if the scribes at some point decided to keep the
same characters,...>>

I'd like to address the statement here: <<the ONLY way this could have
happened...>> (caps mine)

AND this from the same post: <<I don't know where you keep
getting this 'certainty' business; you're attributing a certainty to me
which I don't hold...>>

But in the case quoted above you apparently do.  To say this is the ONLY way
this could have happened is to assume a fair measure of certainty.

Let's look at some alternatives.

1. LINEAR A and LINEAR B DEVELOPED INDEPENDENTLY FROM THE SAME PICTOGRAPHIC
SYSTEM.   When sounds were eventually assigned to the same pictograms, that
occurred in entirely different contexts, traditions or languages.  (The word
for house, for example, might have corresponded to two different sets of
sounds in two different languages.  The common pictogram for house would
become associated with a different sets of sounds in each language.  When the
pictogram was later permanently assigned to a sound or sounds derived from
"house", the resulting character would have represented two distinct sets of
sounds in those two different languages.)  Such symbols would appear to be
common, but the sounds they represent would not the same.  Greek might have
followed one character-to-sound system in A.  And a different one in B.

2. LINEAR A IS ONLY PARTIALLY PHONETIC.  Like early hieroglyhics, the script
may be partly pictogram and partly sound-referenced.  E.g., the letter /a/ in
early script might refer to a sound or it might refer to what it is, a
picture of an ox.  The transition to Linear B may have involved the re-use of
former pictographic symbols to stand for sounds instead.  This might have
mandated a revamping of the former partial character-to-sound correspondence
that existed in Linear A.  So these characters would reappear, but would in
Lin B refer to sounds instead of the objects represented, taking the place of
other characters that dropped out of use.

3. A LANGUAGE INTERVENED DESTROYING THE SOUND EQUIVALENCE BETWEEN LIN A AND
B.  Already noted in an earlier post, apparently a transitional script
between A and B has been found at "Canaanite" sites in Isreal.   If a
language with many non-equivalent sounds - or one used to representing only
consonants or syllables - intervened, the Greek scribes using Linear B would
have been working with a different sound/character system than scribes who
would had written Greek using Linear A.  The transition from Linear A to an
intervening syllabic script, for example, might have resulted in
sound/character sets that would be unusable by scribes attempting to write
Greek in Linear B, mandating a realignment of character-sound correspondence.

4.  LINEAR A IS GREEK WRITTEN BY MINOAN SPEAKERS.  LINEAR B IS GREEK WRITTEN
BY GREEK SPEAKERS.  Or some other such circumstance that would cause a severe
difference in the way words were heard, understood and translated into script.

There are of course other scenarios.  Two of the above were borrowed from
others who've commented on the situation.  Another one worth mentioning is
the circumstances that created the similarities in characters (but not
necessarily sound equivalencies) in the current modern Russian and English
alphabets.  And finally it may be important to note that we have no evidence
that scribes writing Linear B ever saw Linear A or vice versa.

Given all the above, is it proper to say <<Linear A and Linear B have
many of the same characters.  If both are Greek, the ONLY way this could have
happened would be if the scribes at some point decided to keep the
same characters,...>>?

Note that I'm not advocating any of these, but merely pointing out that
saying ONLY one explanation will work is overstating the case.

I wrote:
<<As you note this is evidence but not conclusive.  A shift in vowel sounds
(e.g., from -u to -i or -oi) that might have prompted the change from A to B
would actually work the other way.>>

Mr. Crist replied:
<<But we know that no such change happened in pre-Greek.  Attested Greek
[oi] generally represents PIE *oy, etc.; _not_ earlier *-u.>>

Again, in terms of certainty - <<...we KNOW that no such change happened in
pre-Greek>>.

Actually all we "know" is that if such a sound change did occur in some
dialect of pre-Greek, it was not preserved in Greek - unless Lin A/B
preserved it.

But what I actually had in mind was a sound shift in the unknown language
that may have occurred between the time the Greeks borrowed Linear A and when
they borrowed Linear B.  That characters would have stood for one thing in
Linear A, but later stood for another when Linear B was borrowed.

Sean Crist also wrote:
<<you're attributing a certainty to me which I don't hold and which I never
voiced. I'm simply correctly reporting that based on our current state of
knowledge, Linear A does not appear to be Greek.>>

But this is not what was first "reported:"
<<Actually, we can say with pretty fair CERTAINTY that Linear A is not Greek

nor any other Indo-European language.>> (Caps are mine)
(Message dated 9/30/99 8:49:01AM)

There is a different level of confidence expressed in "...does not appear to
be Greek" and "pretty fair certainty... is not Greek."

I was addressing the latter.  I'm fine with the former.

Sean Crist wrote:
<<there's no shame in the fact that the field was once wrong on this
question.>>

And you're 100% right. (Or perhaps 99.99%)  No shame should be found in the
Ventris/Lin B situation at all.  I would never suggest such a thing.  The
history of the physical sciences is actually pretty much one "wrong" theory
after another.  And that's what taught physicists and astronomers and
geologists to recognize their uncertainties and wherever possible to quantify
them.  And even to make it a principle in physics and math, without which
further analysis would have been impossible.

Many of our arguments have been about what we can be sure of and how much we
are sure of.   You look well on your way to a brilliant career.  In the
course of that career, you "know" that some things that seem pretty certain
now will turn out to be not quite the case.  Might as well anticipate them by
qualifying how you describe them now.

Stephen Jay Gould is absolutely brilliant at (among other things) showing how
"bad" theories advanced our knowledge.  And showing how, e.g., Lamarck and
the creationist who named first named dinosaurs (forgot his name) already
could foresee the problems with their theories but didn't have the tools to
solve them.  The thing that often got them in trouble was simply that they
overstated the strenght of their case and therefore didn't allow a window for
what came afterwards.

Most theories are not 100% right.  There's always allowance for a little
uncertainty.

Regards,
Steve Long



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