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Eteocretan language

 

 
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Eteocretan language
 
 
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The Minoan language is a language
Language

A language is a form of symbol communication in which elements are combined to represents something other than themselves. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon....
 of ancient Crete
Crete

Crete is the largest of the Greek islands and the List of islands in the Mediterranean largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km? ....
. Its relationship to Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
 is unknown and it was spoken before the island's civilization was replaced with that of the mainland
Mycenaean Greece

Mycenaean Greece is a cultural period of ancient Greece taking its name from the archaeological site of Mycenae in northeastern Argolis, in the Peloponnese of southern Greece....
. While attempts have been made to connect it to other languages Minoan should be considered a language isolate
Language isolate

A language isolate, in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other living languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common to any other language....
 until a linguistic affiliation can be ascertained. The Minoan language was written in Linear A
Linear A

Linear A is one of two linear scripts used in ancient Crete before Mycenaean Greek language Linear B. In Minoan Civilization times, before the Greek Mycenaean dominion, Linear A was the official script for the palaces and the cult and Cretan Hieroglyphs were mainly used on seals....
, a syllabary
Syllabary

A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent syllables, which make up words. A symbol in a syllabary typically represents an optional consonant sound followed by a vowel sound....
 used extensively up to 1420 BC, primarily for the purposes of religious inscriptions and administrative records in the Minoan civilization
Minoan civilization

The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age civilization which arose on the island of Crete. The Minoan culture flourished from approximately 27th century BC to 1450 BC; afterwards, Mycenaean Greece culture became dominant at Minoan sites in Crete....
.

The Eteocretan (i.e.






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The Minoan language is a language
Language

A language is a form of symbol communication in which elements are combined to represents something other than themselves. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon....
 of ancient Crete
Crete

Crete is the largest of the Greek islands and the List of islands in the Mediterranean largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km? ....
. Its relationship to Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
 is unknown and it was spoken before the island's civilization was replaced with that of the mainland
Mycenaean Greece

Mycenaean Greece is a cultural period of ancient Greece taking its name from the archaeological site of Mycenae in northeastern Argolis, in the Peloponnese of southern Greece....
. While attempts have been made to connect it to other languages Minoan should be considered a language isolate
Language isolate

A language isolate, in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other living languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common to any other language....
 until a linguistic affiliation can be ascertained. The Minoan language was written in Linear A
Linear A

Linear A is one of two linear scripts used in ancient Crete before Mycenaean Greek language Linear B. In Minoan Civilization times, before the Greek Mycenaean dominion, Linear A was the official script for the palaces and the cult and Cretan Hieroglyphs were mainly used on seals....
, a syllabary
Syllabary

A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent syllables, which make up words. A symbol in a syllabary typically represents an optional consonant sound followed by a vowel sound....
 used extensively up to 1420 BC, primarily for the purposes of religious inscriptions and administrative records in the Minoan civilization
Minoan civilization

The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age civilization which arose on the island of Crete. The Minoan culture flourished from approximately 27th century BC to 1450 BC; afterwards, Mycenaean Greece culture became dominant at Minoan sites in Crete....
.

The Eteocretan (i.e. True Cretan) language is likely descended from Minoan and is largely written in a Euboean-derived
Euboea

For the Greek mythology figure, see Euboea Euboea is the second largest of the Greece Aegean Islands and the second largest List of islands of Greece overall in area and population, after Crete....
 script that was the norm after the Hellenic Dark Ages, although Linear scripts did continue on side-by-side for some time afterwards in the form of a few religious inscriptions. Inscriptions in Eteocretan survive dating from the 7th to the 3rd centuries BC, typically written in the local archaic Greek alphabet
Greek alphabet

The Greek alphabet is a set of twenty-four letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th century BC or early 8th century BCE....
 and the Ionia
Ionia

Ionia is an ancient region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey, the region nearest Izmir, which was historically Smyrna. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Hellenes settlements....
n Greek alphabet. Five inscriptions have been found that are surely Eteocretan, two in Dreros
Dreros

Dreros near Neapolis in the district of Lassithi, Crete, is a Minoan civilization archaeological site, 16 km. northwest of Aghios Nikolaos. Known only by a chance remark of the ninth-century Byzantine grammarian Theognostus , archaeology of the site shows Dreros to have been initially colonised by mainland Greeks in the Archaic period in Gre...
 and three in Praisos in the Cretan prefecture of Lasithi
Lasithi

Lasithi is the easternmost prefecture on the island of Crete, to the east of the prefecture of Heraklion Prefecture. Its capital is Agios Nikolaos, Crete, the other major towns being Ierapetra, Sitia and Neapoli, Crete....
. There are several other inscriptions that might be Eteocretan.

Eteocretans


The Eteocretans are mentioned in Homer
Homer

Homer is traditionally held to be the author of the ancient Greek language epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as of the Homeric Hymns....
's Odyssey
Odyssey

The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Hellenic civilization epic poetrys attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work traditionally ascribed to Homer....
:

This translation by Samuel Butler
Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler may refer to:*Samuel Butler , author of Hudibras*Samuel Butler , classical scholar, schoolmaster at Shrewsbury, Bishop of Lichfield...
 is perhaps too loose as it does not mention the Cydonians. Strabo
Strabo

Strabo was a Ancient Greeks history, geography and philosophy....
 quotes and elucidates this passage, translated by Horace Leonard Jones as follows: Where Butler has "of threefold race", which might refer to the three Dorian tribes, Jones has "of waving plumes", which both depend on the etymology of trichaikes, a hapax legomenon
Hapax legomenon

A hapax legomenon is a Word which occurs only once in either the written record of a language; the works of an author; or in a single text. Sometimes abbreviated to hapaxes....
 ("spoken once," a word which occurs only once in the written records). Strabo, who depends of course on the books available to him, goes on to elaborate:

Decipherment theories

Very little is known about Eteocretan except that it may be the descendant of a language recorded on the Linear A tablets.

See also

  • Cretan hieroglyphs
    Cretan hieroglyphs

    Cretan hieroglyphs are found on artifacts of Bronze Age Minoan civilization Crete . Symbol inventories have been compiled by Evans , Meijer , Olivier/Godart ....
  • Linear A
    Linear A

    Linear A is one of two linear scripts used in ancient Crete before Mycenaean Greek language Linear B. In Minoan Civilization times, before the Greek Mycenaean dominion, Linear A was the official script for the palaces and the cult and Cretan Hieroglyphs were mainly used on seals....
  • Aegean languages
  • Etruscan language
    Etruscan language

    The Etruscan language was spoken and written by the Etruscan civilization in the ancient region of Etruria and in parts of Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna , in Italy....
  • Lemnian language
    Lemnian language

    The Lemnian language is a language of the 6th century BC spoken on the island of Lemnos. It is mainly attested by an inscription found on a funerary stele, termed the Lemnos stele, discovered in 1885 near Kaminia....
  • Eteocypriot
    Eteocypriot

    Eteocypriot was a pre-Indo-European language spoken in Iron Age Cyprus. The name means "true" or "original Cyprian" parallel to Eteocretan, both of which names are used by modern scholarship to mean the pre-Indo-European languages of those places....


External links