Mycenaean (Standardization)

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

In a message dated 4/5/99 8:14:05 AM, I wrote:

<<There is a curve that is observable with the coming of literacy.  A fair
number of IE languages do show quite a bit of change in their first centuries
of literacy - if for no other reasons then just getting the characters and
their sounds straight.

If Mycenaean truly shows no sign of change during the centuries from the time
it was first written, that would seem unusual.  And certainly might suggest
some kind of standardizing... Otherwise we would expect "dialectic
gradients," wouldn't we?>>

Our Moderator's replied:
  <<In accounting ledgers???>>

Well, Linear B wasn't just numbers.

This is a sample from "The Codebreakers" by David Kahn:
"Koldos the shepherd holds a lease from the village: 48 litres of wheat.
One pair of wheels bound with bronze, unfit for service.
Four slaves of Koradollos in charge of seed-corn.
Two tripods: Aigeus the Cretan brings them."

It is said they contain nothing "beside these minutely detailed bureaucratic
records of petty commercial transactions."  And legal, census, conscription,
tax and contractual stuff.

However they do obviously contain plenty of what some on the list would call
"everyday language."  And they reflect the need to be PRECISE and
predictable.  The writers were not being wishy-washy - four slaves of
Koradollas in charge, Aigeus the Cretan, 48 litres of wheat.  Pair of wheels,
but unfit for service. Very precise.

In fact, this is what the overwhelming volume of medieval Latin text is like.
 Doomsday Books and tax records and birth records and conscription records
and official proclamations and who went where when.

In a message dated 3/26/99 1:53:30 AM, mcv at wxs.nl wrote:
<<Kings and tradesmen are usually concerned with the here and now,
and all they require is a language that is flexible (and thus
changes).

Priests and poets are a different matter.  The only (remote)
possibility for PIE or any other pre-literate language to have
been preserved more or less unchanged beyond its "natural
lifespan" is if it was the vehicle of something like the Vedas or
the Homeric poems.  It cannot be excluded that something like
that happened to PIE, but it's not a necessary condition...>>

I think I disagree with that first part.  I think kings and tax collectors
and army commanders want a very clear idea of what is going on, what is owed,
what should be paid this year based on what was paid last year.  They want
precison and consistency in language.  They can't have words, forms or
meanings changing on them.  These are the documents by which we prove who now
owns the land when someone dies, how much we owe or are owed, who was born
where and when, how much wheat is left, who is in charge of what, etc.

But if Miguel is right, we should see these commercial and government scribes
being not too fussy about changes in language.  Local dialects and changes in
sound or morphology and other changes over time should show up without much
concern.

If Mycenaean changed very little (comparatively) - I don't know myself - in
350 years (I think that's the current guess for Lin B), then it was quite
conservative, even for a government/business language.  On the level of Latin.

Does a language out of nowhere just step up, full blown and take over the Lin
A alphabet without losing a beat and without extensive changing?  From
illiterates to almost Roman-style exactitude in one step?

My point is that IF Mycenaean did not experience some serious change from the
time it first moved to literacy, it may have already been standardized before
it became literate.

And this may suggest that in the early days a non-literate language could be
a standardized language and stay standardized over time without writing - not
just because of priest and poets, but also tax collectors, merchants and
Koldos the sheperd and the villiage he owed money to.

Regards,
Steve Long