HOW TO SAY 8 WORDS in Egyptian hieroglyphics, Mycenaean Linear B, ancient Greek and modern Greek!
Tag Archive: Greek
Converting Linear B to ancient Greek, Rule 6a, TA TE TI TO TU:Rule 6a is very simple. In the majority of Linear B words containing TA TE TI TO TU, these syllabograms must be converted to ta te ti to tu in (archaic) ancient Greek. However, by now it is becoming obvious that almost all or all of the previous rules we have already learned (1-5) also apply to almost all Greek words, and so we must always keep this in mind. In other words, multiple rules almost always apply to almost all Linear B words converted into Greek. The best way to confirm this is simply to check the Greek spelling in Tselentis of every single word you convert from Linear B into Greek. This requires perseverance and above all, practice, practice, practice, until it sinks in. From here on in, as we learn each additional rule, from 6b upwards, the number of multiple rules applying to almost every Linear B word converted into Greek will increase by 1 with each new rule. So far the number of multiple rules applying to each Linear B word converted into Greek = 1 2 3a 3b 4 5 6a for a maximum of 7 possible variations. With rule 6b, the maximum number of multiples will increase to 8. Rule 6b follows in the next post.
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KEY POST! How to download all of Scripta Minoa! This procedure works only in Firefox, but can be readily adapted to other browsers. To download Scripta Minoa, Vol. 1, in Firefox, 1. First go to the Google.com search page, as seen here:2. Secondly, copy this address in your Google.com HTML search bar, which in Firefox looks like this: https://ia802700.us.archive.org/5/items/scriptaminoawrit01evanuoft/scriptaminoawrit01evanuoft.pdf
And click the right arrow above, to open the file: 3. which will now appear on your desktop, at the LINK above, like this in Firefox:
4. next, to the far right of the document displayed above, you will see the navy blue DOWNLOAD button, with the DOWNLOAD arrow in white. Click on it to download the file:
The DOWNLOAD Button is immediately above. 5. When you click on this button, the next thing you should see is this:
CLICK: Save File, to save this file on your computer. You must then open your Downloads Folder, and open this file. Since the procedure to open Downloads in the Downloads Folder varies according to your operating system (Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 10, Apple) you will have to download and save this file according to your system. I cannot help you with this step. If you need help with this step, consult the HELP files for downloading files on your computer. 6. AFTER you have successfully downloaded this file to your computer, open your Downloads Folder and SAVE the file to your computer, preferably on your desktop. 7. Then open Adobe Acrobat, and open the file on your desktop (or wherever you saved it) in Adobe Acrobat. Adobe Acrobat will open the file far far quicker than the online download, in fact, in a matter of seconds. To download and open Scripta Minoa, Vol. 2, repeat all of the steps above, except that in: Step 2, Secondly, copy this address in your Google.com HTML search bar, which in Firefox looks like this: https://ia902608.us.archive.org/8/items/scriptaminoawrit02evanuoft/scriptaminoawrit02evanuoft.pdf
And click the right arrow above, to open the file: And then you should see this page:
This is the Google address for Scripta Minoa, Vol. 2, which is not quite the same as the Google address for Scripta Minoa, Vol. 1. NOTE that certain details in Steps 1-7 above will vary from browser to browser. We did not provide instructions for Internet Explorer, as we only use Firefox. So if you are using a browser other than Firefox, you may have to adjust some of the input(s) for each step above. Please NOTE that the Linear B fragments and tablets appear in Scripta Minoa, Volume 2, not Volume 1. You can see this for yourself when you open Scripta Minoa, Volume 2, in your Adobe Acrobat Reader. SCROLL DOWN the file until you see this page, the first page of the fragments and tablets in Vol. 2.:
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How to read entries in The Linear B Lexicon by Chris Tselentis (Greece):Here is a table illustrating exactly how to read entries in The Linear B Lexicon by Chris Tselentis (Greece)
You can download the entire Lexicon from my academia.edu account here. CLICK on the title to download it:
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Converting Linear B into ancient Greek: Rule 5, neuter gender:The table above makes it painfully obvious that archaic Greek neuter nouns MUST end in n, and there is no exception to this rule. It is impossible for Linear B to express this final n, because Linear B is a syllabary, and in a syllabary all words can end only in a vowel. But in archaic and ancient Greek, all neuter words MUST end with n. Rule 5 (neuter) is similar to Rule 4 (masculine), except for the final letter, which is j for masculine is n for neuter. This is the last rule for July 2018.
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Linear B to ancient Greek: Level 2a – part 1, a little more complex:
As we enter the second phase of converting Linear B feminine words into ancient Greek, things get a little more complex. So it is absolutely essential to read the graphic table Level 2a – part 1 so thoroughly that you finally have it memorized. I shall not repeat the comments in the NOTES here, because they speak for themselves.
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Converting Linear B to ancient Greek, Level 1b:Table 2 above illustrates further refinements in the conversion of Linear B spelling to (archaic) ancient Greek orthography. We note in particular Linear B pedira, which becomes pe/dila in ancient Greek. This is because there exists no L series of syllabograms, i.e. LA LE LI LO LU, in Linear B. On the other hand, a great many (archaic) ancient Greek words contain the letter l (lambda) = l Latinized. One such word is pe/dila. So it is to be expected that the l (lambda) = l Latinized in words such as pe/dila must be represented by R in Linear B. There is just no way around it. Next, we have the word onata in Linear B, which of course turns out to be o/nata in (archaic) ancient Greek, just as we would naturally expect. But this word has an alternative spelling o/naton, which is not feminine at all, but rather neuter. Now it just so happens that almost all neuter words in ancient Greek must terminate in n, Latinized as n. But since Linear B is a syllabary, it is impossible for any Linear B word to end in a consonant. However, since almost all neuter ancient Greek words end in n, this consonant must be added to the ancient Greek equivalent of the Linear B word to which it corresponds.
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The absurd fallacy of HERSTORY. There is no such thing in any language other than English, and in fact no such thing in English!
If there is anything which raises my hackles, it has got to be the absurd notion adapted by English language feminists alone that the word HISTORY is somehow gender related, when in fact it most certainly is not! English feminists who insist on changing the word history to herstory are displaying the most egregious linguistic ignorance. As anyone with even a smattering of higher education knows beyond a doubt, the English word history is in fact directly derived from the ancient Greek i9stori/a=, which means: inquiry, knowledge, information, science, narration and above all, a story. Now the sheer absurdity of the position of English feminists is blown wide open by the equivalent words for history in practically every other language, for instance, Dutch = geschiedenis, French = histoire, German = Geschichte, Italian = storia, Polish = przeszłość and Portuguese = história, to cite just a few examples. Any French feminist would laugh out loud at the notion that herstory is somehow the same thing as history, since in French the word for “her” is “son” (masculine gender) and “sa” (feminine gender). Of course, some allophone English feminists will scream aloud that “son” is gender-biased, without realizing in the least that gender in French, and for that matter in any and all inflected languages, including Greek, Latin, German, Russian etc. has nothing whatsoever to do with masculinity or, what is even worse, in their silly “intellectual” construct, sexism! The Dutch and German words, geschiedenis and Geschichte respectively, blow the English feminists’ ridiculous claim right out of the water, let alone the Polish przeszłość. I could cite hundreds of other languages, and the results would always be the same, to wit, the English word history has absolutely nothing to do with masculinity or sexism. So all I have to say to unilingual English feminists, “Get a life!” and at least swallow the truth with grace and dignity.
In the citations below, all italics are mine:
Consider Wikipedia:
Herstory is history written from a feminist perspective, emphasizing the role of women, or told from a woman’s point of view. The principal aim of herstory is to bring women out of obscurity from the historical record. It is a neologism coined as a pun with the word “history”, as part of a feminist critique of conventional historiography, which in their opinion is traditionally written as “his story”, i.e., from the masculine point of view.[1] (The word “history”—from the Ancient Greek ἱστορία, or historia, meaning “knowledge obtained by inquiry”—is etymologically unrelated to the possessive pronoun his.
And Rational Wiki:
“Herstory” is a neologistic term for “women’s history,” a variant of the Marxist “people’s history”; while a people’s history professes to reinterpret history from the perspective of workers and/or common men, a herstory professes to reinterpret it from the perspective of women. Most feminists don’t use it.
The term is an illustration of its coiners’ belief that regular history is heavily slanted toward men’s point of view, a “systemic bias” reflected in the term history, which they seem to have simply assumed was a portmanteau of “his story”.
Unfortunately, it happens that the English word history is a loan word, derived directly from the Latin historia, which is itself a loan word from ancient Greek.[1] On the other hand, the English word his is derived from a proto-Germanic root,[2] and is not in the least etymologically connected to the first three letters of history. They just happen to sound the same, and only in English. The origin of this term is a testament to the intellectual laziness of extremists in any field, who are quick to grab hold of anything that seems to support their point of view but reluctant to examine it critically.
and Reddit:
Also, I appreciate the title quote is somewhat playful. But I find it extremely irritating – ‘history’ is directly taken from the Greek word historia, roughly translating to ‘inquiry’ or ‘investigation’. ‘His’ and ‘her’ as actual words do not exist in Ancient Greek; words in the language meaning the same thing do exist. But the only reason ‘herstory’ is a thing is because it’s an awful pun based on the conventions of the English language which the word ‘history’ does not follow; it betrays a lack of knowledge of context, a tendency to jump on anything resembling ‘gendered’ words, and it’s a bad pun.
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Linear A tablet HT 13 (Haghia Triada) successfully translated almost in in its entirety: wine stalks in (parallel) rows, crushing grapes:
This is the first ever almost complete decipherment of Linear A tablet HT (Haghia Triada). The only word I was unable to translate is kuzuni, of which there are 17. It may mean something like barrels, although the Minoans probably did not store wine in barrels, but rather in sealed pithoi. Except for the word kuzuni, this tablet is inscribed entirely in proto-Greek. And it is even possible that kuzuni is proto-Greek, because as in Mycenaean Greek, in which some words, especially all of the words for types of cloth, fell out of use after the fall of Mycenae ca. 1200 BCE, it is possible or even probable that kuzuni is a proto-Greek word which disappeared from proto-Greek before Mycenaean Greek caught on.
The decipherment above is so air-tight that it is almost certainly correct in every detail. We must realize that proto-Greek words such as kaudeta cannot have looked too much like their much later Mycenaean, archaic and classical Greek counterparts, but there is always a resemblance which is quite convincing when you place everything in context. By just taking one look at all of the proto-Greek words I have deciphered on this tablet, you realize that the sense “fits” in all instances. The decipherment of this tablet makes so much sense it almost certainly is correct.
When Alexandre Solc I come around to publishing our article, Evidence for proto-Greek in Linear A, in the next issue of Archaeology and Science (Belgrade) in January 2019, you can rest assured that this tablet will be a prime candidate for the Linear A Oscars!
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Linear B syllabary with correspondances to the ancient Greek alphabet including digamma:
This table of the Linear B syllabary with correspondances to the ancient Greek alphabet including digamma outlines how each series of syllabograms, e.g. A E I O U, DA DE DI DO DU, KA KE KI KO KU, MA ME MI MO MU, TA TE TI TO TU etc. corresponds with the ancient Greek letter series, including the archaic Greek letter digamma, very common in Mycenaean Greek but absent from Classical Greek which are common to them. In some cases, the first consonant of the syllabogram series exactly matches the consonant + vowels of the Greek letters to which that series corresponds. These are:
DA DE DI DO DU = da de dei dh di dh do dw du
MA ME MI MO MU = ma me mei mh mi mh mo mw mu
NA NE NI NO NU = na ne nei nh ni nh no nw nu
SA SE SI SO SU = sa se sei sh si sh so sw su
But there is one significant problem. The Linear B syllabary cannot distinguish between short and long Greek vowels, or Greek double-vowel combinations. Thus,
DE DI DO = de dei dh di dh do dw
ME MI MO = me mei mh mi mh mo mw
NE NI NO = ne nei nh ni nh no nw
SE SI SO = se sei sh si sh so sw
must account for 2 or 3 vowel variations in the ancient Greek alphabet, as seen above. For example, as seen in the D series of syllabograms above, DE = any of 3 = de dei dh DI for either di dh & DO for either do dw. The list of syllabogram series and their Greek alphabetic equivalents above provides several examples of these vowel variations.
Syllabogram series representing multiple consonants + vowels:
Syllabogram series representing multiple consonants + vowels are more complex. These are:
KA KE KI KO KU corresponding to:
ga ge gei gh gi gh go gw gu
ka ke kei kh ki kh ko kw ku
xa xe xei xh xi xh xo xw xu
PA PE PI PO PU corresponding to:
pa pe pei ph pi ph po pw pu
fa fe fei fh fi fh fo fw fu
ya ye yei yh yi yh yo yw yu
QA QE QI QO corresponding to:
ba be bei bh bi bh bo bw bu
ga ge gei gh gi gh go gw gu
RA RE RI RO RU corresponding to:
la le lei lh li lh lo lw lu
ra re rei rh ri rh ro rw ru
TA TE TI TO TU corresponding to:
ta te tei th ti th to tw tu
qa qe qei qh qi qh qo qw qu
Plenty of examples of all of the consonant + vowel variations explained in all instances above are found in the table, following the table of syllabogram series, at the top of this post.
CONVENTIONS in Linear A and ancient Greek orthography:
Linear B is also unable to account for the presence of consonants in the ancient Greek alphabet, especially in the case of final or ultimate consonants, which are extremely common in ancient Greek, and de rigueur in masculine and neuter nouns and adjectives, and in the conjugations of several persons, singular and plural, in all cases of ancient Greek verbs (present, future, imperfect, aorist, perfect and pluperfect in all moods, indicative, optative and subjunctive). But only the present and aorist (CHECK) in the indicative and the present in the optative occur in Linear B.
I shall be posting the Greek equivalents to Linear B nouns, adjectives and verbs in an upcoming post.
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Special post for Linear B students: how to convert from Linear B to the ancient Greek alphabet and vice versa:
The following tables illustrate how to convert from Linear B to the ancient Greek alphabet and vice versa.
A: Linear B to ancient Greek:
B: ancient Greek to Linear B:
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Just uploaded to academia.edu = Exhaustive Linear A lexicon of 1030 New Minoan and Old Minoan words, with extensive sectional commentaries.pdfWhat with its 1030 entries of New Minoan (NM1), Pre-Greek substratum and Old Minoan terms, this is the most exhaustive Linear A Lexicon ever published in history, exceeding Prof. John G. Younger’s (at 774 intact words) by 226, with the emphasis squarely on intact exograms (words). Every possible origin of Linear A words is investigated, with extensive sectional commentaries. This lexicon, 65 pp. long, includes 4 appendices and a bibliography of 108 items. You will not want to miss out on reading this paper, representing one of the most significant historical breakthroughs in the decipherment of the Linear syllabary. If you are a member of academia.edu, please download it, and read it at your leisure. If you are not already a member of academia.edu, you can sign up for free, and then download it. My recent research into (Minoan) Linear A has meant that I have been catapulted from the top 5 % to the top 0.1 % of users on academia.edu in the past three weeks, here:
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Rational partial decipherment of Minoan Linear A tablet HT 117 (Haghia Triada) & the first real glimpse of Minoan grammar actualized:This albeit partial decipherment of Minoan Linear A tablet HT 117 (Haghia Triada) incorporates an approximately equal admixture of Old Minoan, i.e. the original Minoan language, also known as the Minoan substratum (of which I am unable to decipher most of the words) and of New Minoan, i.e. the superstratum of words of probable Mycenaean provenance, most of which I have been able to decipher with relative ease. While some of the New Minoan translations obviously appear to break the grammatical rules of Mycenaean Greek, such as mitu for “mint”, which is after all mita (and feminine) in Mycenaean Greek or daminu for “in 1 village”, which is damo in the nominative in Linear B, these adjustments can be readily accounted for by the fact that Old Minoan grammar is not at all the same beast as Mycenaean grammar. Although we are not yet familiar with much of Old Minoan grammar, which is after all the grammar of Minoan, just the same as modernized Anglo-Saxon grammar is the grammar of English, in spite of the enormous superstratum of French, Latin and Greek words in the latter language, this tablet alone perhaps affords us a first glimpse into the mechanics of Minoan grammar. Thus, it would appear that mitu may be the Minoan accusative of mita, and daminu may be the locative of damo in Minoan. Although there is no scientific way for me to substantiate this claim, I believe I am onto something, and that I may be making the first cracks in the obdurate wall of the grammar of the Minoan language substratum. If this is so, then I may be actually pointing the way to unravelling at least a subset of Old Minoan grammar. To illustrate my point, let us take a look at these phrases in English, as adapted from their Norman French superstrata. In French, the phrases would read as follows: “ avec la menthe”& “ dans le village”, whereas in English they read as “with mint” & “in the village”. Take special note of the fact that, while the Norman French superstrata words in English, “mint” and “village” are (almost) identical to their Norman French counterparts, the grammar of the phrases is entirely at odds, because after the grammar of French, which is a Romance language, and of English, which is a Germanic, cannot possibly coincide. But here again, I must emphatically stress that English grammar is an entirely different matter than English vocabulary, of which the latter is only 26 % Germanic, but 29 % French, 29 % Latin and 4 % Greek, the latter 3 languages, namely, the superstrata, accounting for fully 64 % of all English vocabulary! We must always make this clear distinction between English grammar, which is essentially Anglo-Saxon modernized, and English vocabulary, which is only minimally Germanic. If we carry this hypothesis to its logical outcome, we can readily surmise that the same phenomenon applies to the Linear A syllabary. Where grammar is concerned, the Linear A syllabary is Old Minoan, i.e. the original Minoan language or substrate. Where vocabulary is concerned, Linear A represents an admixture of Old Minoan vocabulary, such as uminase, kuramu, kupa3nu (kupainu), tejare and nadare (all of which I cannot decipher) and of New Minoan Mycenaean derived vocabulary, such as makarite, mitu, sata, kosaiti and daminu on this tablet alone. The orthography of the latter words is not actually consistent with Mycenaean grammar, because constitutionally it cannot be. Once again, the grammar is always Minoan, whereas the vocabulary often falls into the New Minoan (Mycenaean derived) superstratum. In the case of makarite, it would appear that, if the word is dative in Minoan, the Minoan dative is similar to the Mycenaean, ending as it seems to in i. The ultimate te in makarite appears to be the Mycenaean or ancient Greek enclitic te (and). In the case of mitu, which is mita and feminine in Mycenaean Greek, it would appear that the Minoan word is either masculine or that in this case at least, it is instrumental, meaning “with mint”, in which case the Minoan feminine instrumental appears to terminate with u. The word kosaiti appears to follow the same lines. The first two syllables, kosai, apparently are Mycenaean, but the ultimate ti is Minoan, and once again, instrumental (plural). Again, daminu appears to repeat the same pattern. The word damo is masculine (or neuter) in Mycenaean. But the ultimate is inu here, which appears to be the Minoan locative, inu. To summarize, we must make a clear-cut distinction between any New Minoan vocabulary on any Linear A tablet, and its orthography, which must of necessity follow the orthographic conventions of the Minoan language, and not of the Mycenaean, from which any such words are derived. I intend to make this abundantly clear in subsequent posts.
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Is the Minoan Linear A labrys inscribed with I-DA-MA-TE in Minoan or in proto-Greek? PART B: OR is it in proto-Greek? “What?” I hear you asking, “... is that even even remotely possible?” The keyword here is remotely. Remotely, yes, but only remotely. Recall that in the last post, in which I postulated that the four consecutive supersyllabograms ID + DA + MA + TE might conceivably stand for the first syllabogram, i.e. the first syllable of 4 consecutive Minoan Linear A words, though which ones among God knows how many possibilities it is exceedingly difficult to determine. On the other hand, the four consecutive supersyllabograms ID + DA + MA + TE might conceivably stand for the first syllabogram, i.e. the first syllable of 4 consecutive proto-greek Greek words, most likely proto-Mycenaean. If that is the case — and, mark my words, it is far more likely than not that it is not the case — we are once again confronted with a myriad of combinations and permutations of proto-Greek words which have the potential, however thin, of standing in for the 4 consecutive supersyllabograms I + DA + MA +TE. So be forewarned. The putative decipherment of these 4 supersyllabograms into the one possible decipherment I have arbitrarily posited among hundreds is just that, putative and tentative, and nothing more. The tentative decipherment I have come up with runs as follows when the Mycenaean Greek of which it is the apparent forerunner is Latinized: The supersyllabograms in turn might conceivably mean (but only as a long shot): I = iyereya (feminine nominative singular), meaning “priestess” DA = Damateroyo (feminine genitive singular), meaning “of Damater” MA = Matereteiyai (feminine dative singular, meaning “to Mater Thea (the Divine Mother” TE = temenoi (masculine dative or locative singular), meaning “(in) the temple” yielding this Latinized decipherment (which is but one possibility out of 100s): iyereya Damateroyo ... matereteiyai (eni) temenoi ... which roughly translates as: The priestess of Damater... (is making offerings -or- sacrificing to) Mater Thea (i.e. the Divine Mother) (in) the temple. In this partial sentence, the phrase (is making offerings -or- sacrificing to) and the preposition eni = “in” do not appear in the original supposed proto-Greek text, which I have extrapolated forward to Mycenaean Greek to make it fully accessible. Although these words are in fact absent from the original putative proto-Greek, they be supplied with relative ease to fill in the gaps. This proto-Greek translation is neatly encapsulated in this chart:On closer examination, it turns out that, although this decipherment is only one among 100s of possible candidates, it is nevertheless one of the most plausible decipherments, for the following reasons: 1. If as I have pointed out in the previous post, Idamate is an actual Minoan word, as well as being in addition a series of 4 supersyllabograms. Thus, in the Minoan language it may very well mean something along the lines of Damate in Mycenaean Linear B: in other words, Idamate in the Minoan language may be the approximate equivalent of Damate in Mycenaean Linear B and of Demeter in ancient Greek. And if that is the case, the second supersyllabogram (DA) in my parallel proto-Greek translation, which I have deciphered as Damate, almost perfectly matches the Minoan word. This co-incidence, if co-incidence it is, is far too great to be ignored, and it lends a great deal of credence to my proto-Greek translation extrapolated forward to Mycenaean Greek of the second supersyllabogram DA in idamate. 2. But there is more, much more. As it so turns out, there is a sacred cave dedicated to Zeus on Mount Ida, which is very close to the Minoan site of Phaistos. Another co-incidence? The name of the cave dedicated to Zeus on Mount Ida is the “Dictaean Cave”, as illustrated here:
3. It is nothing short of a remarkable co-incidence that Idamate, as inscribed on the labrys, may very well signify “Mount Ida”, as I have clearly indicated in the previous post. But what does that imply? I have to wonder whether or not there was a Minoan peak sanctuary on the summit of Mount Ida. This is what a Minoan peak sanctuary probably looked liked:
And if there was, it was of course a temple. Referencing our proto-Greek translation of Idamate, we find that the last supersyllabogram, TE, may readily and realistically rendered as temeno, which in Mycenaean Greek means “a temple”. How fascinating! Does this imply that the priestess to Damater might have been sacrificing to Mater Thea in a temple or peak sanctuary which may possibly have existed on the summit of Mount Ida? The correlation is truly tempting. However, I must sound a strong note of caution. Such an interpretation of the last supersyllabogram of Idamate = TE, as the putative Mycenaean word, temeno = “a temple” as being a peak sanctuary is nothing less than a real stretch of the imagination. So it must be taken with a huge grain of salt. Nevertheless, it is possible, however remotely, that the temple in which the priestess of Damater is worshipping just might have been a peak sanctuary. But I wouldn’t bet my bottom dollars on it. It is thus remotely possible that Idamate signifies both “Mount Ida” in Minoan and “Mater Thea” in proto-Greek extrapolates forward to later Mycenaean Greek. Further credence is possibly lent to this decipherment by the fact that Mount Ida is clearly visible in the near distance behind the ancient site of Phaistos, as illustrated here and on map below:
But we must be extremely skeptical of such an interpretation. Why so? Just as Pavel Serafimov and Anton Perdith erroneously read proto-Slavic into Minoan Linear A tablet HT 31 (Haghia Triada), thereby grossly misinterpreting it, my own attempt to superimpose proto-Greek on the 4 supersyllabograms I + DA + MA +TE may amount to the same genre of fundamental (and gross) inaccuracy in the putative decipherment into proto-Greek of a Minoan Linear A text, in this case, of the word idamate inscribed on the labrys. So we must exercise extreme caution in hypothesizing that the 4 supersyllabograms I + DA + MA +TE are the first syllabograms, i.e. the first syllables of the 4 consecutive proto-Greek words I have arbitrarily assigned to them. So the fact remains that these 4 supersyllabograms are far more likely to be the first syllabogram, i.e. the first syllable of 4 consecutive Minoan words than of proto-Greek words. I cannot stress this enough.
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Is the Minoan Linear A labrys inscribed with I-DA-MA-TE in Minoan or in proto-Greek? PART A: Is it in the Minoan language? In my previous post on the Minoan Linear A labrys inscribed with I-DA-MA-TE, I postulated that the word Idamate was probably either the name of the king or of the high priestess (of the labyrinth?) to whom this labrys has been ritually dedicated. But in so doing I was taking the path of least resistance, by seeking out the two most simplistic decipherments which would be the least likely to prove troublesome or controversial. In retrospect, that was a cop-out. No sooner had I posted my two alternate simplistic translations than I was informed by a close colleague of mine in the field of diachronic historical linguistics focusing on Minoan Linear A and Mycenaean Linear B that at least two other alternative decipherments came into play, these being: 1. that the term Idamate may be the Minoan equivalent of the Mycenaean Linear B Damate, which is apparently an early version of the ancient Greek, Demeter, who was the goddess of cereals and harvesting:
2. that the term Idamate may be Minoan for Mount Ida, in which case, the word Mate = “mount”, such that the phrase actually spells out “Ida mount(ain)” :
To give you a rough idea of the number of undeciphered Minoan words beginning with I DA & TE I have not been able to account for, here we have a cross-section of just a few of those words from Prof. John G. Younger’s Linear A Reverse Lexicon: which are beyond my ken:
For I: iininuni ijadi imetu irima itaki For DA: dadana daini daki daku daqaqa For MA: madadu majasa manuqa masuri For TE: tedatiqa tedekima tenamipi teneruda But the situation is far more complex than it appears at first sight. To give you just a notion of the enormous impact of exponential mathematical permutations and combinations on the potential for gross errors in any one of a substantial number of credible decipherments of any given number of Minoan Linear A terms as listed even in the small cross-section of the 100s of Minoan Words in Prof. John G. Younger’s Reverse Linear A Lexicon, all we have to do is relate the mathematical implications of the chart on permutations to any effort whatsoever at the decipherment of even a relatively small no. of Minoan Linear A words: CLICK on the chart of permutations to link to the URL where the discussion of both permutations and combinations occurs:
to realize how blatantly obvious it is that any number of interpretations of any one of the selective cross-section of terms which I have listed here can be deemed the so-called actual term corresponding to the supersyllabogram which supposedly represents it. But, and I must emphatically stress my point, this is just a small cross-section of all of the terms in the Linear B Reverse Lexicon beginning with each of the supersyllabograms I DA MA & TE in turn. It is grossly obvious that, if we allow for the enormous number of permutations and combinations to which the supersyllabograms I DA MA & TE must categorically be subjected mathematically, it is quite out of the question to attempt any decipherment of these 4 supersyllabograms, I DA MA & TE, without taking context absolutely into consideration. And even in that eventuality, there is no guarantee whatsoever that any putative decipherment of each of these supersyllabograms (I DA MA & TE) in turn in the so-called Minoan language will actually hold water, since after all, a smaller, but still significant subset of an extremely large number of permutation and combinations must still remain incontestably in effect. The mathematics of the aforementioned equations simply stack up to a very substantial degree against any truly convincing decipherment of any single Minoan Linear A term, except for one small consideration (or as it turns out, not so small at all). As it so happens, and as we have posited in our first two alternative decipherments above, i.e. 1. that Idamate is Minoan for Mycenaean Damate, the probable equivalent of classical Greek Demeter, or 2. that Idamate actually means “Mount Ida”, these two possible decipherments which do make sense can be extrapolated from the supersyllabograms I DA MA & TE, at least if we take into account the Minoan Linear A terms beginning with I DA & TE (excluding TE), which I have managed, albeit tentatively, to decipher. However, far too many putative decipherments of the great majority of words in the Minoan language itself are at present conceivable, at least to my mind. Yet, this scenario is quite likely to change in the near future, given that I have already managed to tentatively decipher 107 or 21 % of 510 extant Minoan Linear A words, by my arbitrary count. It is entirely conceivable that under these circumstances I shall be able to decipher even more Minoan language words in the near future. In point of fact, if Idamate actually does mean either Idamate (i.e. Demeter) or Ida Mate (i.e. Mount Ida), then: (a) with only 2 possible interpretations for IDAMATE now taken into account, the number of combinations and permutations is greatly reduced to an almost insignificant amount & (b) the actual number of Minoan Linear A words I have deciphered to date rises from 107 to 108 (in a Boolean OR configuration, whereby we can add either “Demeter” or “Mount Ida” to our Lexicon, but not both). A baby step this may be, but a step forward regardless.
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Réponse par Richard Vallance Janke à la recherche très récente sur la tablette AN PY 55 = AN 724, menée par Tina et Enriqueta Martinotti, dont leur étude : Tina MARTINOTTI, Enriqueta MARTINOTTI. Poétique Mycénienne dans la Tablette PY 724 An ( PY 55) de Pylos, classfiée comme " liste de rameurs ". Épigraphie mycénienne: traduction de la tablette en linéaire b Py 55=An 724 de Pylos classifiée c.. 2015.<hal-01147208> HAL Id: hal-01147208 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01147208 Submitted on 29 Apr 2015 Depuis Chadwick, la tablette en linéaire b, classifiée Py 55=An 724 a été interprétée à partir de la lecture des séries de signes ro-o-wa comme le nom du port de Pylos et e-re-ta comme « rameur/s » ; plusieurs auteurs pensent que ce texte est une liste de rameurs. Mais la présence de la série ki-ti-ta, interprétée d’abord comme « agriculteur », a produit des controverses : Que faisait le mot « agriculteur » dans une liste de rameurs ? Finalement ki-ti-ta a été interprétée, de manière un peu téméraire comme «unité fiscale»3. Cette dernière hypothèse imagine le cas de l’infortune des agriculteurs qui, ne pouvant payer leurs taxes foncières, s’engageaient dans la marine. Néanmoins, la tablette n’a aucune similitude avec une liste, elle présente des lignes complètes. Toutes ces approximations théoriques, en étant arbitraires, suggèrent une défaillance dans l’interprétation. Ainsi, cette tablette est l’objet de l’analyse que nous exposons ici, en prenant la méthode épigraphique des systèmes syllabaires dont un signe est homophonique, polysémique et logographique. La traduction, ici proposée, suit la méthodeinterprétative4 des phonèmes, et recherche l’énoncé produit pour l’homophonie. Notre analyse démontre que la tablette PY 55 ne traite pas d’une liste de rameurs, mais qu’il s’agit d’un admirable texte littéraire où le mythe, le culte et la tradition se trouvent étroitement liés aux données philologiques, archéologiques, iconographiques et géographiques. Cette tablette est une oeuvre littéraire mycénienne et une des premières chansons épiques ; un texte narratif qui renvoie aux rituels et offrandes dans la grotte dite aujourd’hui « Grotte de Nestor », ainsi que le sacrifice du taureau « auprès de la mer salée », tel que nous l’a transmis la tradition homérique. On verra que ce texte décrit l’épique d’une figure héroïque divine ; les exploits d’un dieu qui étaient dignes de mémoire pour les pyliens. Ce texte décrit un héros divin mythique, guérisseur, guerrier, fécondant, en étroit rapport avec la déesse Terre, et représentant, à ses yeux, l’idéal de la valeur et des vertus bienfaisantes... à laquelle ma réponse à mon compte sur academia.edu, ici :
Bonjour, Tina ! Je tiens à vous répondre cette fois de la manière la plus respectueuse, vu que je viens de lire très attentivement deux de vos articles. J’en lirai les autres dès que j’aurai le temps libre de les assimiler avec le plus grand soin. Je dois vous avouer franchement que je suis très impressioné de votre recherche concernant le déchiffrement du syllabaire Linéaire B. Mais en dépit de mon admiration considérable de vos efforts énergiques à cet égard, je suis toujours constraint de garder plusieurs réservations relatives à votre hypothèse essentielle, là où il s’agit de la nature polysémiotique des syllabogrammes et des mots mycéniens, surtout à la lumière du syllabaire Linéaire C du dialecte arcado-chyprien, qui n’obéit en aucune manière à votre hypothèse essentiel, ce qui me rend plutôt soupçonneux, voire méfiant de quelques-unes des conclusions auxquelles vous souscrivez. De l’autre part, je suis ravi que mes propres hypothèses vous incitent finalement à promulguer les votres, car il est carrément évident que le monde international de la recherche historique et diachronique des syllabaires ne tire pas avantage de votre perspicacité pénétrante depuis je ne sais combien d’années. Néanmoins, il est vraiment à regretter que vous conduisez vos recherches, paraît-il, uniquement en français, étant donné que la plus grande proportion de loin des recherches dans tous les domaines scientifiques et techniques est menée, comme vous le savez très bien, uniquement en anglais. Cela signifie en un mot que la très grande majorité des rechercheurs en linguistique historique et diachonique sont par forfait dépourvus des implications à grande portée, à fort impact et certes à long terme de vos recherches si importantes. Et cela, presqu’inutile de dire, c’est vraiment grand dommage ! Et c’est dans cette optique que presque toute la communauté mondiale de la recherche en linguistique restera malheureusement dépourvue de l’impact considérable, voire, révolutionnaire, de vos recherches sur les syllabaires du monde antique. En plus de tout cela, il me reste à assumer la responsabilité de répondre nettement et de façon strictement logique à plusieurs de vos conclusions, non pas en français, mais en anglais, pour que les rechercheurs allophones en anglais puissent suivre la trame de notre discussion continue en ce qui regarde le déchiffrement des syllabaires Linéaire A et B, nonobstant le Linéaire C, dont je ferai au fur et à mesure plusieurs observations et commentaires d’extrême importance et pertinence à ce même égard. Reste à constater qu’à partir d’aujourd’hui, je me sentirai obligé de discuter en anglais tout aspect des trois syllabaires dont il s’agit (les Linéaires A, B, et C) de telle sorte que nos collègues allophones puissent suivre et comprendre notre dialogue soutenu.
Merci bien, ma collègue très estimée Richard Vallance Janke
