Mycenaean language
Encyclopedia
Mycenaean Greek is the most ancient attested form of the Greek language
, spoken on the Greek mainland, Crete
and Cyprus
in the 16th to 12th centuries BC, before the hypothesised Dorian invasion
which was often cited as the terminus post quem
for the coming of the Greek language to Greece. The language is preserved in inscriptions in Linear B
, a script first attested on Crete before the 14th century BC. Most instances of these inscriptions are on clay tablets found in Knossos
in central Crete
, and in Pylos
in the southwest of the Peloponnese
. Other tablets have been found at Mycenae itself, Tiryns and Thebes and at Chania in Western Crete. The language is named after Mycenae
, one of the major centres of Mycenaean Greece
.
The tablets remained long undeciphered, and every conceivable language was suggested for them, until Michael Ventris
deciphered the script in 1952 and by a preponderance of evidence proved the language to be an early form of Greek.
The texts on the tablets are mostly lists and inventories. No prose narrative survives, much less myth or poetry. Still, much may be glimpsed from these records about the people who produced them and about Mycenaean Greece, the period before the so-called Greek Dark Ages
.
writing, which consists of about 200 syllabic signs and logograms. Since Linear B was derived from Linear A
, the script of an undeciphered Minoan language probably unrelated to Greek, it does not reflect fully the phonetics of Mycenaean. In essence, a limited number of syllabic signs must represent a much greater number of produced syllables, better represented phonetically by the letters of an alphabet
. Orthographic
simplifications therefore had to be made. The main ones are:
In addition to these spelling rules, signs are not polyphonic (more than one sound) but sometimes they are homophonic (a sound can be represented by more than one sign), which are not "true homophones" but are "overlapping values." Long words may omit a middle or final sign.
qualities, a, e, i, o, u, the semivowels w and j (also transcribed as y), three sonorant
s, m, n, r (standing in for l as well), one sibilant s and six occlusives, p, t, d, k, q (the usual transcription for all labiovelars) and z (which includes [kʲ], [ɡʲ] and [dʲ] sounds which later became Greek ζ).
Mycenaean also preserves /w/, which survived in some Greek dialects as the alphabetic digamma
or F until it was altogether lost later, and the intervocalic /h/.
The Mycenaean form of Greek
preserves a number of archaic features of its Indo-European heritage, such as the labiovelar consonants that underwent context-dependent sound changes by the time alphabetic Greek writing began a few hundred years later.
, the genitive
, the accusative
, the dative
, the instrumental
, the locative
, and the vocative
. The instrumental and the locative had fallen out of use by Classical Greek, and in modern Greek, only the nominative, accusative, genitive and vocative remain.
to LHIIIB
. No Linear B monuments nor non-Linear B transliterations have yet been found.
If it is genuine, the Kafkania pebble
, dated to the 17th century BC, would be the oldest known Mycenean inscription, and hence the earliest preserved testimony of the Greek language.
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
, spoken on the Greek mainland, Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
and Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
in the 16th to 12th centuries BC, before the hypothesised Dorian invasion
Dorian invasion
The Dorian invasion is a concept devised by historians of Ancient Greece to explain the replacement of pre-classical dialects and traditions in southern Greece by the ones that prevailed in Classical Greece...
which was often cited as the terminus post quem
Terminus post quem
Terminus post quem and terminus ante quem specify approximate dates for events...
for the coming of the Greek language to Greece. The language is preserved in inscriptions in Linear B
Linear B
Linear B is a syllabic script that was used for writing Mycenaean Greek, an early form of Greek. It pre-dated the Greek alphabet by several centuries and seems to have died out with the fall of Mycenaean civilization...
, a script first attested on Crete before the 14th century BC. Most instances of these inscriptions are on clay tablets found in Knossos
Knossos
Knossos , also known as Labyrinth, or Knossos Palace, is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and probably the ceremonial and political centre of the Minoan civilization and culture. The palace appears as a maze of workrooms, living spaces, and store rooms close to a central square...
in central Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
, and in Pylos
Pylos
Pylos , historically known under its Italian name Navarino, is a town and a former municipality in Messenia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Pylos-Nestoras, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit. It was the capital of the former...
in the southwest of the Peloponnese
Peloponnese
The Peloponnese, Peloponnesos or Peloponnesus , is a large peninsula , located in a region of southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth...
. Other tablets have been found at Mycenae itself, Tiryns and Thebes and at Chania in Western Crete. The language is named after Mycenae
Mycenae
Mycenae is an archaeological site in Greece, located about 90 km south-west of Athens, in the north-eastern Peloponnese. Argos is 11 km to the south; Corinth, 48 km to the north...
, one of the major centres of Mycenaean Greece
Mycenaean Greece
Mycenaean Greece was a cultural period of Bronze Age Greece taking its name from the archaeological site of Mycenae in northeastern Argolis, in the Peloponnese of southern Greece. Athens, Pylos, Thebes, and Tiryns are also important Mycenaean sites...
.
The tablets remained long undeciphered, and every conceivable language was suggested for them, until Michael Ventris
Michael Ventris
Michael George Francis Ventris, OBE was an English architect and classical scholar who, along with John Chadwick, was responsible for the decipherment of Linear B.Ventris was educated in Switzerland and at Stowe School...
deciphered the script in 1952 and by a preponderance of evidence proved the language to be an early form of Greek.
The texts on the tablets are mostly lists and inventories. No prose narrative survives, much less myth or poetry. Still, much may be glimpsed from these records about the people who produced them and about Mycenaean Greece, the period before the so-called Greek Dark Ages
Greek Dark Ages
The Greek Dark Age or Ages also known as Geometric or Homeric Age are terms which have regularly been used to refer to the period of Greek history from the presumed Dorian invasion and end of the Mycenaean Palatial civilization around 1200 BC, to the first signs of the Greek city-states in the 9th...
.
Orthography
The Mycenaean language is preserved in Linear BLinear B
Linear B is a syllabic script that was used for writing Mycenaean Greek, an early form of Greek. It pre-dated the Greek alphabet by several centuries and seems to have died out with the fall of Mycenaean civilization...
writing, which consists of about 200 syllabic signs and logograms. Since Linear B was derived from Linear A
Linear A
Linear A is one of two scripts used in ancient Crete before Mycenaean Greek Linear B; Cretan hieroglyphs is the second script. In Minoan times, before the Mycenaean Greek dominion, Linear A was the official script for the palaces and religious activities, and hieroglyphs were mainly used on seals....
, the script of an undeciphered Minoan language probably unrelated to Greek, it does not reflect fully the phonetics of Mycenaean. In essence, a limited number of syllabic signs must represent a much greater number of produced syllables, better represented phonetically by the letters of an alphabet
Alphabet
An alphabet is a standard set of letters—basic written symbols or graphemes—each of which represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic...
. Orthographic
Orthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
simplifications therefore had to be made. The main ones are:
- There is no disambiguation for the Greek phonological categories of voiceVoice (phonetics)Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate...
and aspirationAspiration (phonetics)In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ...
, excepting dentals d, t: e-ko may be either egō or ekhō. - Any m and n before a consonant and any incidence of syllable-final l, m, n, r, s are omitted. Pa-ta is panta; ka-ko is khalkos.
- Consonant clusters must be dissolved orthographically, creating apparent vowels: po-to-ri-ne is ptolin.
- R and L are not disambiguated: pa-si-re-u is basileus.
- Initial aspirationSpiritus asperIn the polytonic orthography of Ancient Greek, the rough breathing , is a diacritical mark used to indicate the presence of an sound before a vowel, diphthong, or rho. It remained in the polytonic orthography even after the Hellenistic period, when the sound disappeared from the Greek language...
is not indicated: a-ni-ja is hāniai. - Length of vowels is not marked.
- The consonant usually transcribed 'z' probably represents *dy, initial *y, *ky, *gy.
- q- is a labio-velar kʷ or gʷ and in some names ghʷ: qo-u-ko-ro is gʷoukoloi, classical boukoloi.
- Initial s before a consonant is not written: ta-to-mo is stathmos.
- Double consonants are not represented: ko-no-so is Knōsos, classical KnossosKnossosKnossos , also known as Labyrinth, or Knossos Palace, is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and probably the ceremonial and political centre of the Minoan civilization and culture. The palace appears as a maze of workrooms, living spaces, and store rooms close to a central square...
.
In addition to these spelling rules, signs are not polyphonic (more than one sound) but sometimes they are homophonic (a sound can be represented by more than one sign), which are not "true homophones" but are "overlapping values." Long words may omit a middle or final sign.
Phonology
The script differentiates five vowelVowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
qualities, a, e, i, o, u, the semivowels w and j (also transcribed as y), three sonorant
Sonorant
In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant is a speech sound that is produced without turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; fricatives and plosives are not sonorants. Vowels are sonorants, as are consonants like and . Other consonants, like or , restrict the airflow enough to cause turbulence, and...
s, m, n, r (standing in for l as well), one sibilant s and six occlusives, p, t, d, k, q (the usual transcription for all labiovelars) and z (which includes [kʲ], [ɡʲ] and [dʲ] sounds which later became Greek ζ).
Mycenaean also preserves /w/, which survived in some Greek dialects as the alphabetic digamma
Digamma
Digamma is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet which originally stood for the sound /w/ and later remained in use only as a numeral symbol for the number "6"...
or F until it was altogether lost later, and the intervocalic /h/.
The Mycenaean form of Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
preserves a number of archaic features of its Indo-European heritage, such as the labiovelar consonants that underwent context-dependent sound changes by the time alphabetic Greek writing began a few hundred years later.
Morphology
Unlike later varieties of Greek, Mycenaean Greek probably had seven grammatical cases, the nominativeNominative case
The nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments...
, the genitive
Genitive case
In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...
, the accusative
Accusative case
The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions...
, the dative
Dative case
The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink"....
, the instrumental
Instrumental case
The instrumental case is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action...
, the locative
Locative case
Locative is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by"...
, and the vocative
Vocative case
The vocative case is the case used for a noun identifying the person being addressed and/or occasionally the determiners of that noun. A vocative expression is an expression of direct address, wherein the identity of the party being spoken to is set forth expressly within a sentence...
. The instrumental and the locative had fallen out of use by Classical Greek, and in modern Greek, only the nominative, accusative, genitive and vocative remain.
Greek features
Mycenaean has already undergone the following sound changes peculiar to the Greek language and therefore is considered to be Greek.Phonological changes
- Initial and intervocalic *s have been lost
- Voiced aspirates have been devoiced
- Syllabic liquids have become ar/al or ; syllabic nasals have become a or o.
- *kj and *tj have become s before a vowel
- Initial *j has been lost or replaced by ζ (exact value unknown, possibly [dz])
- *gj and *dj have become ζ
Morphological changes
- The use of -eus to produce agent nouns
- The third person singular ending -ei
- The infinitive ending -ein (contracted from -e-en)
Lexical items
- Uniquely Greek words; e.g., *wanaks (= ἄναξ ánax 'lord'), *gʷasileus (= βασιλεύς basiléus 'king'), *elaiwon (= ἔλαιον élaion 'olive').
- Greek forms of words known in other languages; e.g., theos, tripos, khalkos.
Corpus
The corpus of Mycenaean-era Greek writing consists of some 6,000 tablets and potsherds in Linear B, from LMIIMinoan chronology
Sir Arthur Evans developed a relative dating scheme of Minoan chronology based on the excavations initiated and managed by him at the site of the ancient city of Knossos. He called the civilization that he discovered there Minoan...
to LHIIIB
Helladic period
Helladic is a modern archaeological term meant to identify a sequence of periods characterizing the culture of mainland ancient Greece during the Bronze Age. The term is commonly used in archaeology and art history...
. No Linear B monuments nor non-Linear B transliterations have yet been found.
If it is genuine, the Kafkania pebble
Kafkania pebble
The Kafkania pebble was found in Kafkania, some north of Olympia, on 1 April 1994. It bears a short inscription of eight syllabic signs in Linear B, possibly reading . The reverse side shows a double-axe symbol. The inscription is identified by some to be in the Mycenean language, though this...
, dated to the 17th century BC, would be the oldest known Mycenean inscription, and hence the earliest preserved testimony of the Greek language.
Further reading
- Easterling, P & Handley, C. Greek Scripts: An illustrated introduction. London: Society for the Promotion of Hellenic StudiesSociety for the Promotion of Hellenic StudiesThe Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, known as the Hellenic Society, was founded in 1879 to advance the study of Greek language, literature, history, art and archaeology in the Ancient, Byzantine and Modern periods....
, 2001. ISBN 0902984179
External links
- Jeremy B. Rutter, "Bibliography: The Linear B Tablets and Mycenaean Social, Political, and Economic Organization"
- The writing of the Mycenaeans (contains an image of the Kafkania pebble)
- Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory (PASP)
- Markos Gavalas, MYCENAEAN (Linear B) – ENGLISH Dictionary (explorecrete.com)
- Palaeolexicon, Word study tool of ancient languages