Re: Linear A and Baltic


lorad474@xxxxxx wrote:
> > > Need an intellectual diversion?
> > > Do you have knowledge of eirther Latvian or Lithuanian?
> > >
> > > Then try your hand at deciphering the hitherto undeciphered Linear A
> > > script - thought to be an administrative language used by Mycenean
> > > Greeks (Odysseus?) shortly after the collapse of the Minoan Empire ca
> > > 1600 BC.

Some background stuff before we get into the expository parsing,
transliteration and attempted translation/interpolation of Linear A
(and B) from a Baltic perspective.

For educational purposes:
"Linear A and Linear B

When did the Ægeum start to get inhabited by Greek people ?
Ancient Greeks believed that their breed had always been there. Indeed,
they are the result of successive invasions fallen periodically all
across the II millennium B.C.. Around 1950 B.C. an archæological
fracture in the southern Balkan peninsula between Indoeuropean people,
perhaps the Ions, and the previous inhabitants of continental Greece
(who Greeks will later call Pelasgi, or "Sea People") is found. A
strongly patriarchal military society is present at that time, mainly
based on mediterranean agricolture, breeding (of horses too), pottery
and bronze working.

It is around 1600-1580 B.C. that a new change in Greek culture
occurs, perhaps due to new invasions by Achæan and Æolic tribes. In
this period the Minoan civilization flourishes and then, as a result of
mixing and assimilations between different tribes over the land, the
Mycenæan one arises, prevailing on the former. Art and trading had
been radiating all over the Mediterranean civilizations of that which
is also called pre-colonial period (as Mycenæans began the
colonization process that Greeks would be resuming later on I
millennium B.C.); here the palatial cultures as a landscape foundation
for the greatest historical and mythological traditions of Ancient
Greece and the Old World were born.

Between XIII and XII century B.C. the last foreign invasion is
attested in the Ægeum, that of Doric people, condemning the Mycenæan
civilization to an end. In this period the raging war between the
so-called "Sea People" (most certainly Minoans) and the Egyptian empire
is also attested; meanwhile the Hittite empire was falling. Some
scholars, identifying Dori with Achæi, believe that there was just one
wave of "Greek" people around XVI century B.C..

In the briefly outlined historical background Cretan Hieroglyphic
is one of the earliest and still not deciphered Ægean scripts.
Documents in Cretan Hieroglyphic are attested around 2000-1650 B.C.
although many scholars believe that it was only at its earliest stages
that this script had a true ideographic/hieroglyphic form, to be later
replaced by a syllabic one.

Documents and tablets inscribed in Linear A are attested between
1700 and 1450 B.C. over different palatial centers in Crete, as well as
few documents in the Greek continent; a few earlier ones were even
dated back around XX century B.C., thus contemporary to the Cretan
Hieroglyphic ones. The name 'Linear A' was mainly due to the extremely
rectified shape of its signs (differing from Mesopotamical Cuneiform
scripts or graphically more detailed Egyptian Hieroglyphics) and is,
together with the Cretan Hieroglyphic, the script used by the Minoans.
While considering the Linear A syllabary (i.e. the number and frequency
of its signs), its syllabic nature is evident (despite the proved
presence of some ideograms too), the language cealed within it is still
an unsolved enigma.

Most of the Linear A documents are economical ones (lists of goods,
items, provisions, animals, etc.), although religious ones were rather
found (engraved on votive and everyday life items like walls,
tombstones, cups, etc.).

The few documents found, all more or less related to the same few
arguments, making a complete decipherment almost impossible: many
scholars believed that Linear A was just a more archaic way of writing
a proto-Greek language, as well as Linear B actually is, justifying
such a thesis with the fact that part of Linear A and Linear B
syllabaries coincide. But while Linear B script certainly inherited
characters from Linear A, the language represented with Linear A could
not even be Indoeuropean. Some scholars believe that Linear A may hide
two different languages (one of them probably being a proto-Greek one),
some others believe it might be an Indoeuropean language affine to
Hittite or Luvian, or even a Semitic one."
....

Assuredly Linear A and B were IE (Baltic derived) lanuages.
Here is the work of one conjecturalist (Andis Kaulins) that strongly
supports that contention; Luwian was a language proximal and
contemporary with Linear A:

http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi16.htm

.

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