Re: IE, AA, Nostratic and Ringo

Dear Dennis

You wrote

> There is a body of opinion (Leonard Palmer for one) that claims

that
Linear

> B cannot be derived directly from Linear A, so that both scripts,

while

> obviously closely related, go back to an earlier proto-script. This
> proto-script in turn is traced back to an earlier script from which

the

> Cypriot syllabry is also derived.

I know in some studies of Lin A there is mention of "pictographic" as
an earlier variant. Palmer, while interesting and informative
elsewhere, I'd be inclined to dismiss. He tried to prove that Luvian
Anatolians were the possessors of the Grey Minyan Ware, associated
with the early Helenic wave, and that they were the people who
introduced the *-inthos, *-ossos, *-indos suffixes into Greek place
names. More recent studies, as Mellaart shows, demonstrate that
these
placenames, while common in Greece, extended from the Caucasas to
Italy, and are probably the remnants of a substratum - my Asianics.

> One implication of this is that the scripts are considerably older

than the

> attested samples. The oldest example at Phaistos possibly goes back

to the

> beginning of the 3rd millennium, and by 17th century there several

well

> established regional variants, so they may well go back to mid-3rd
> millennium.

Regional variation over such a long time span is to be expected. It
certainly is found in cuneiform. In fact by comparison to cuneiform,
or even demotic Egyptian, standardisation rather than variation seems
to be the rule. (Hieroglyphics is obviously a special case!)

> Another implication is that it may well be that Linear B was not

originally

> created for Greek, but another language altogether (and not the

same
as the

> Linear A language).

Hmmm..... From what Finlay suggests, it was probably written by
bilingual scribes trained in another language, trying to get their
tongues and heads around alien phonemes. I find this argument the
most convincing for me.

You wrote

> Cyrus Gordon has postulated that the Cretan Semitic likewise did

not
make

> voiced/unvoiced distinction.

The only Cyrus Gordon I know is the author of "The Bible and the
ancient Near East". Is this the same person you are quoting here?
Or
is it the Cyrus Gordon of Brandeis who has vouched for the
authenticity of a discovery of a Hebrew testament King Solomon's
time of the Ten Commandments, found in a New Mexico riverbed! See
http://131.103.222.209/guest_contributors/true_discoverers_of_america.
htm
To my point

> > 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.

Dennis wrote

> So this may be nothing like the actual language in question. Is the

original

> written left-to-right or right-to-left?

From what I understand it is contained embedded in Egyptian text that
can be translated. The direction of the Eteocretian presumably went
the same way as the surrounding Egyptian text, hence this order
rather
than likakate tinim yaya yawa pappuk tinsa!

To my point

> > 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.

Dennis wrote

> Is this the same language as above? How do we know it is

Eteocretan,
after

> all it's attested some 800 years after the Greek take-over of Crete?
> Was it written by a speaker of the language, or is this the

impression of a

> Greek speaker?

Eteocretian long survived the Greek takeover, (just like Pelasgian
on the mainland) and this is not the only sample written in a Aegean
derived Phoenecian script. There is a number of them particularly in
Western Crete (where classical scholars acknowledged Eterocretian to
have survived).

> All in all, the one thing that can be said reasonably definitely

about

> Linear A language is that it contains Semitic words -
> kunisu - with the ideogram for wheat, cf. Ak. ku(n)iSu - emmer wheat
> qapa and supu - types of pots - cf. Heb.kp and Ugaritic sp
> yane - wine - a specifically West Semitic development of the common

wine

> word
> kuminu - cumin - Ak. kammu:nu/Sum. gamun, Heb. kammo:n
> sasame - sesame - Ak. SamaSama, Ug. ssmn
> samuku - raisin - Heb. simmuq
> karopa - a type of vase - Ak. karpatu, Ug. krpnm

Wow! That is the longest list of Linear A language translation that
I
have yet seen. Dennis that is amazing - where did you get that from?

> Personal names attested also seem to parallel Egyptian lists, e.g.

17th

> century "list of names from Kftiw", and show a population with

Egyptian,

> Semitic, Hurrian and Anatolian names.

I understood that this was a list of the names of sailors on a Keftiu
boat, and that it included Egyptian sailors as well. Sailors have
always been a cosmopolitan lot... They needed a lingua franca to
communicate in the Mediterranean much later. But then I may be
wrong.
There does not seem anything as cosmopolitan in the Cretian mythos.

> Ventris and Chadwick, the decipherers of Linear B also wrote :
>
> "...contemporary records (from Mesopotamia and Syria) present the

most

> useful and significant analogies with the Mycenean tablets...In

spite of

> some differences of climate and culture, the similarities in the

size and

> organisation of the royal palaces and in the purposes for which the

tablets

> were written ensure close parallels not only in the listed

commodities and

> their amounts, but even on occasion in phraseology and layout...
> It will be noted that the ratios and volumes of the biblical system

for

> liquids show some analogy with the Mycenean; there are reasons for

regarding

> the former as survivals of a general Canaanite system, traces of

which can

> be seen in Ugarit...The primary dry unit also corresponds perhaps
> accidentally with the Babylonian imeru or 'donkey load' which is

similarly

> divided into ten."

There was incredible economic standardisation throughout the whole
region in the late Bronze Age. A nascent "world economy" had in fact
existed since the Uruk period in Sumer. Under Sargon of Akkad not
only was Lapis Lazuli from Badakshan getting to Egypt, but resins
from
Zimbabwe were getting to Mesopotamia, using, since Ubaid times,
standard weights and measures. This does not mean that there was a
spread of a single language through the area. Japanese today weigh
in
kilograms. That does not mean they speak French. Donkey loads came
to be a standard measurement ever since Assyrians merchants got to
Anatolian Kanesh to establish their own merchant quarter 1,900 BCE
just prior to the emergence of Shamshi Adad in Assyria.

> While they're speaking of Linear B, the same probably holds true

for
Linear

> A.
> Of course, this gives no proof of what language Linear A is, but

does

> indicate an ancient and profound influence from the Middle East.

I don't disagree with "influence", nor with "borrowing". But the
idea
that there were Semitic substrates in the Aegean.... That is another
matter.

> Cyril's conclusion continues, that we can't tell if this is one

language

> family or many, and that all versions of their links, affiliations

and

> origins are purely theoretical.

Yes, I agree, the situation is certainly complex and at this late
stage, probably unrecoverable. Although your translation of Linear A
seems to be heading in some direction ;-)

Dennis continued

> I find the possible Etruscan linkage intriguing. I would see the

parent of

> Etruscan - Tyrrhenian - as the language of Troy I/II, which means,

they may

> well be responsible for the prototype syllabry and its introduction

into

> Greece and Crete (and Cyprus), where they developed separately into

Linear B

> and A. This of course does not necessarily mean that the language

of
Linear

> A is Tyrrhenian, still less Asianic.

I would agree with your Troy I II connection. This makes eminent
sense, and lasts right through to Peoples of the Sea and beyond. I
have some concerns though.

1. Glen is clear that there is an earlier Indo-Tyrrhenian group out
of
which both Tyrrhenian and an Indo-European group was later to develop.

2. Tyrrhenian, in both the Troad and Lemnos, had long been exposed to
IE languages by the time they were written down (8-5 century BCE).

3. The length of time we are talking of from Troy II to classical
times is greater than that from Boewulf to Modern English.
Linguistically huge changes can occur in that time.

4. Whatever the linguistic situation was in the Aegean at the period
we are talking of, it was probably reflective of a similar diversity
(if not greater) than that found in pre-Roman History (witness the
discussions on linguistic diversity in prehistoric times we have been
having on list recently).

6. If there was an Indo-Tyrrhenian, and possibly cognate languages in
the Balkans and Aegean (my Aegeo-Asianic family), there could have in
fact been a whole chain of now extinct daughter and sister languages
stretching through the cultures of Sesklo, Starcevo, Tripolyte
neolithic peoples all the way to the dorstep of PIE.

7. This chain of languages, reflecting a movement in the
dissemination
of mesolithic cultures after the Ice Age, and also the still later
movement of neolithic cultures (above), makes sense archaeologically
and perhaps linguistically. It enables Renfrew's thesis and
Gambutas's thesis to be integrated as two parts of an even larger
whhole.

> Either way, it does not advance your Caucasic/Asianic cause, either

as a

> source of early borrowing or pan-Aegean linguistic unity.

Neither does it refute it! And it is not "my" cause, although
I have espoused it (on the basis of what I have read others as
saying). If you (or Glen) can show me how a Semitic substratum
works, I'll adopt it immediately.... Dennis, on another matter, I
really must suggest you read Thompson on the Hyksos. He is very good
and summarises a lot of recent thinking (avoiding the Manethonian
trap
that Josephus fell into).

Regards

John