Pre-Greek languages

[petegray]

Sean Christ wrote:
>... 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?
Secondly, can we really assume that the apparently syllabic nature of the
script reflects the nature of the language?
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.
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!

The guesses Sean makes are quite possibly right - but I wave the flag for
caution, or at least a recognition that these are just assumptions.

Peter