Pre-Greek languages

[Nikos Sarantakos]

At 12:05 25/09/99 GMT, Anthony Appleyard wrote:
>  Rick Mc Callister <rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu> wrote (Subject: Was: Can
>Parent and Daughter co-exist? Now: Greek/Pelasgian):-

>> Briquel's Les pelasges en Italie [or some similar title] includes
>> claims that the "Pelasgians" in Italy which are sometimes equated
>> with the Etruscans had their origins principally in Thessaly,
>> Beotia, Lesbos, Arcadia which made me wonder if his sources had confused
>> Pelasgians with pre-Doric Greeks ...

>How much is now known of each of the various pre-Greek languages of Greece
>and Anatolia? How much headway has been made in identifying the Linear A
>language or Eteocypriot or Lesbian?

Well, some two years ago there was an announcement in Greece
by a fellow named Tsikritsis, who claimed he has deciphered Linear
A as being Greek. The fellow keeps a remarkably low profile,
perhaps because he is a mathematician with a PhD in theology.
Mind you, said PhD has as subject the development of an
algorithm that identifies a text as false (English word fails me,
pseudepigraphon in Greek) or genuine. I heard that he had
forwarded his findings in a well-known journal and he is
awaiting the verdict of international scientific community.
The gist of his method, if I remember well, is that some of
the symbols of Linear B have the same value in Linear A,
while some others have changed. Apparently, his algorithm
helped him to distinguish between them.

It is easy to dismiss all that as nationalistic or plain ravings, but
I for one would want to hear more. In fact, my gut feeling
(totally unscientific) is that Linear A is most probably Greek.
With the (enormous) benefit of hindsight, it seems to me
preposterously nearsighted that all the scientific community before Ventrys
(and Ventrys himself, almost up to the end) refused to
consider the hypothesis of Linear B being Greek.
But if we assume Linear B is Greek (and I believe this is considered
proven), it becomes rather self-evident that Linear A is also
Greek. As I say, this is unscientific, and a mere gut feeling.

I hasten to add that I don't share the views of some of my
compatriots concerning the autochthony of Greeks or
the position of Greek as the mother tongue of all IE (and
beyond!) But my gut feeling (again unscientific) is that
Greek has a much longer history than we currently believe.

Nikos Sarantakos