Re: IE, AA, Nostratic and Ringo

Dennis

Regarding linguistics of Crete and the Aegean.

Linear B is a principally syllabic script written with some 89
different signs which have been deciphered as representing both bare
vowels (i.e. a, e, i, o, u) and open syllables of the form
consonant+vowel (e.g. pa, pe, pi, po, pu). Closed syllables
consisting
either of vowel+consonant or of consonant+vowel+consonant do not
occur. In addition to the syllabic signs there are over one hundred
ideograms (signs representing physical objects, numerals, measures of
weight and of liquid and dry volumes, and a variety of commodities).
Forty-five of the Linear B syllabic signs have close equivalents in
Linear A, while a further ten have more doubtful parallels in the
older script. There is therefore general scholarly consensus that
Linear B was derived from Linear A for the purpose of writing a
different, non-Minoan language which happens to have been deciphered
as an early form of Greek.

Analysing these features seems to show similarity to no known IE or
Hamito Semitic language. In fact as the decipherers of Linear B
point
out that the clumsy spelling rules are a result of the fact that
Linear B is derived directly from Linear A, a writing system designed
for a non-Greek language. Features such as consonant clusters,
terminal -s, and distinctions between r and l , g and k, and p and b,
all of which occur in Greek, do not appear to have been
characteristic
of this Minoan language, and hence cause bizarre problems in the
"spelling" of Greek words in the modified form of Linear A (i.e.
Linear B) which was used to write Greek.

It is interesting that many of these features are found in Etruscan.
I would recommend you read Cyril's excellent essay on the subject at
the IE Database, particularly "The phonetics (of Eteocretian) is also
surprisingly close to Etruscan (no difference between voiced and
voiceless consonants, between l and r and hesitation between l and d
-
this mutation was common among many Mediterranean languages and
sometimes was borrowed into Latin....

Also the Eteocretian sentence designed as such in an Egyptian papyrus
(around 1500 BC), but unfortunately there is no word separation there
and it lacks vowels. The text is sometimes read as such : santi
kuppap
waya yaya minti tekakali. What it means, we don't know but can
believe
it is not Indo-European.

Third, the language was sometimes written in the Greek alphabet
around
600 BC in Praisios. There too, there is no word separation. Here is
an
example of such inscriptions: onadesiemetepimitspha
dphnalaraphraisoiinai retsnmtorsardophsano satoisstephesiamun
animestepalungutat .... So writing in the Greek alphabet does not add
anything to its deciphering.....

This is unlike anything I have ever seen in Semitic. I'd be
interested in your reconstructions here.

For Glen and Dennis again I can only recommend Cyril's conclusion.

The opinion of the scholars about Pre-Hellenic is that this
particular
language was spoken in the Aegean area and in southern Italy. This
language had obvious links with ancient Asia Minor and even Anatolian
languages (mainly the use of placenames ending in -nd), but there is
no consensus upon the interpretation among the scholars.

The only thing we can be sure of is that Pre-Hellenic, like Aegean
and
many Asia Minor languages (Lemnian, Eteo-Cypriot, Eteo-Cretan) were
remnants of an old pre-Indo-European language complex, far related
to
Indo-European, but not a part of the family (probably linked with the
expansion of agrarian economy along the coast of Mediterranean around
5000 BC), and of which Etruscan and Rhaetian could be later
offsprings.

Hope this helps

John