--- In
AncientBibleHistory@yahoogroups.com, "Michael Smith"
<mytoyneighborhood@...> wrote:
--- In
AncientBibleHistory@yahoogroups.com, "John <jdcroft@...>"
<jdcroft@...> wrote:
Aha! lookwhoscross-eyednow@... is a Michael.
Hi Michael,
You wrote:
> Hi John. Continueing from last e-mail with quotes from Manuel
Robbins regarding Caphtor/Crete:
>
> "A final note on Keftiu deals with a student's writing board found
in Egypt. It contains a scribal exercise titled "to make names in
Keftiu." The exercise required that several Keftiu names be written
in hieroglyphics. The renowned American scholar William Albright
determined the sounds to be assigned to certain hieroglyphics
representing foreign names, and another American scholar, Michael
Astour, studied the origin of the names on the writing board. He
found that six names were Hurrian, six more were Semitic, and two
may
have been Hurrian or Semitic. While the language of Crete before
the
arrival of the Greeks is not known, there is not the slightest
evidence to show that Crete had a substantial Hurrian or Semitic
population. This would seem to place Keftiu where there were
population elements of Hurrian and Semitic descent-Cyprus, Syria or
eastern Anatolia."
>
> He also mentions the uncertainty of equating Keftiu with Caphtor,
due to the lack of "r" in the Egyptian Keftiu. Well, please let me
know what you think regarding all that.
The language spoken by the people of Crete is in much dispute and
will be so until Linear A is clearly translated. Some have
suggested
that the Cretians spoke a Semitic language (eg Cyrus Gordon, Martin
Bernal etc), but this is very contentious. James Mellaart suggests
that the Minoan, and the pre-Greek languages of the mainland and
Cyclades islands were part of a neolithic family of languages which
spread from as far east as the Caucasas and Euphrates to as far west
as Sicily and Italy. There is significant support for this thesis
in
terms of place name analysis in the areas mentioned. Work is
proceeding using the phononeme signs of Linear B to determine
the "sound" of Linear A, and then equate that back into vocabulary
and grammar.
Ginny Hichs writes
"For instance, [Barnal's] theory about Athena=Neit sounds good until
it is recognized that Athena shows up in the Linear A tablets
written
by the Minoans. She shows either as A-ta-no-dju-wa-ja (nominative)
or
A-ta-no-dju-wa-e (vocative). Not too surprisingly for a people who
Lucy Goodison showed conclusively have a sun goddess, her name
transparently means sun (atano- cf Luwian astanus) goddess (djuwaja,
cf Mycenaean and later Greek diwia). (In case there is a question
about sign #88 = dju, some of the Linear A name lists alternate
forms
of the same name Te-tu and Te-dju.)
I don't want to sound totally unsympathetic to Cyrus Gordon, Martin
Bernal and others who have tried to find a Semitic language on Crete
at that early time. Gordon recognized that the Bible (Amos 9:7, for
instance) says the Philistines were descended from the Minoans, and
then made a wrong turn in assuming the Philistines started out
speaking a Semitic language. Since later studies have shown that the
Philistine language must have been Indo-European, then Bernal takes
another wrong turn and assumes that the Minoans spoke a Semitic
language, and the Philistines must have been Greek.
(Never mind that the Philistine name Padi shows up in the Linear A
tablets in a recognizable dative form (Pa-de), whereas when the same
name shows up in Linear B it is spelled differently on each of the 3
occasions where it occurs (and it refers to someone at Knossos, I
believe)). The Philistine name Ikausu shows up in Linear A (I-ku-su)
and not at all in Linear B....
The Minoan language seems to be about mid-way between Hittite and
Luwian, on the one hand, and Greek on the other. Such inscriptions
as
to-sa pu-re-ja (so much tribute, or so many contributions) on an
altar inscribed centuries before the Greeks showed up on Crete are
startling. Then, just when it is safe to assume the language is
related to Greek, then an inscription appears, like Si-ma i-ja-t(e),
Sima made the pot the inscription was written on. The language seems
to show gender much like early Greek, with feminine nouns (and
neuter
plurals?) ending in a, masculine ending in u or o.
The verbs, even when they are based on Greek roots, often take
Hittite
endings. The mix appears most clearly in the late writing on the
Psychro stone - epioi zetante Inete par Siphai (these words were
taught (cf dateomai) to Ineti by Sipha. Epioi is most closely
related
to epeos (Greek). Then the ending -ante on the verb looks too close
to -anda endings in Hittite. Ineti wrote his name in the late Minoan
script under his words - I-ne-ti, so Inete must be the dative
expected to follow a passive verb. Par is a perfectly good Indo-
European preposition which occurs also in Linear A (pa-r(a) Tu-ru-nu-
i-me).
Incidentally, the Philistine word for "helmet" shows up in the
Hebrew
as qoba - related to Hittite kupahhi."
This work is fascinating, because Anatolian languages seem to have
been the first to differentiate from the Proto-Indo-European. Prior
to that, according to linguist Glen Gordon, who has been closely
following work on the translation of Etruscan, we find that there
are
grammatical and vocabularly shared between Etruscan and Proto-Indo-
European such that Etruscan may have been a split from Indo-European
of even earlier vintage (occurring some time between the split
between the Boreal language family - with Uralo-Yukaghir and PIE
languages. If so, it could be, following up on Nostratic theory -
that the Proto-Anatolian languages are in fact variants of
Tyrrhenian.
Regards
John
--- End forwarded message ---
--- End forwarded message ---