The Mad Linguist
18th August 2003, 01:47 AM
In another thread davefoc wrote:
The presence of the Mad Linquist and Cleopatra have inspired me to tell one of my favorite stories. It has almost nothing to do with the subject of the thread so my apologies for that.
When tablets were found with writing on them in Mycenean archaeological digs the general consensus by scholars was that the people who wrote them weren't Greek because it was believed that the people who are in Greece today immigrated to the area at a later date.
With this in mind a number of scholars had made partial translations of the tablets, but nobody had succeeded in coming up with definitive translations.
Michael Ventris, a guy that spoke several languages, but who was only an amateur linquist, decided to take a shot at deciphering the tablets. Initially, using the conventional wisdom of the day that the lanquage of the tablets was not Greek, he made little progress. But at some point he decided to assume that ancient Greek was the lanquage that they were written in.
With this assumption he made considerable progress in translating the tablets and eventually published his findings. The work was widely rejected both because he was an amateur and because most professional archaeologists at the time believed that the Myceneans were not Greek. His work was also rejected because it conflicted with the tentative translations that had been made by the professionals.
But a while after he had published his works a large circle was discovered (in Tyros I think) that had linear B words and pictures of the corresponding items. The circles confirmed his translations although for awhile after the discovery there were some critics who tried to convince people that the earlier translations were on the right track.
A number of things appealed to me about this story. One of those was one of the words, tripodos, or tripod in English. So buried in the English lanquish was a word that could be traced back over 3200 years ago.
Unfortunately Michael Ventris was killed soon after the decipherment, in an automobile accident I think.
Mad Linquist, Cleopatra and other's comments and/or corrections would be qppreciated. Perhaps they could help me figure out why this has anything to do with a thread on Welsh.
Starting a new thread is my effort not to derail the Welsh discussion. So this thread is for discussing all things Mycenaean. (Hey, this forum is for History too! Says so at the top).
That is indeed basically the story as I've heard it too. What I would add is that Linear B is a very poorly designed alphabet for Greek - it's a syllabary, and Greek, like most Indo-European languages, is very difficult to write with a syllabary. This may have been what informed the initial theory that the people who wrote in Linear B were not Greek.
It seems to have been borrowed from / patterned after Linear A, which was most certainly not Greek. We've still not interpreted that; I believe it's associated with the Minoan civilisation on Crete.
It's not surprising that after the Greek Dark Ages, Linear B was never readopted and Greek was written using an alphabet learned from the Phoenicians instead.
The Mycenaean language is Greek, but it's not "Greek Greek". A guess is that it's a sister or cousin of the dialect that later became Classical Greek (but, of course, still within the Hellenic language group). Evidence for this is that some sound changes which have taken place in Classical Greek haven't yet happened in Mycenaean. For example, "w" at the start of a word hasn't yet been deleted so you get "wanaks" for "king" instead of "anaks", for instance. Another word for "king", "basileus" in Classical Greek iirc, begins with "q" in Mycenaean (I think... by eck I wish I had my textbooks to hand!).
The presence of the Mad Linquist and Cleopatra have inspired me to tell one of my favorite stories. It has almost nothing to do with the subject of the thread so my apologies for that.
When tablets were found with writing on them in Mycenean archaeological digs the general consensus by scholars was that the people who wrote them weren't Greek because it was believed that the people who are in Greece today immigrated to the area at a later date.
With this in mind a number of scholars had made partial translations of the tablets, but nobody had succeeded in coming up with definitive translations.
Michael Ventris, a guy that spoke several languages, but who was only an amateur linquist, decided to take a shot at deciphering the tablets. Initially, using the conventional wisdom of the day that the lanquage of the tablets was not Greek, he made little progress. But at some point he decided to assume that ancient Greek was the lanquage that they were written in.
With this assumption he made considerable progress in translating the tablets and eventually published his findings. The work was widely rejected both because he was an amateur and because most professional archaeologists at the time believed that the Myceneans were not Greek. His work was also rejected because it conflicted with the tentative translations that had been made by the professionals.
But a while after he had published his works a large circle was discovered (in Tyros I think) that had linear B words and pictures of the corresponding items. The circles confirmed his translations although for awhile after the discovery there were some critics who tried to convince people that the earlier translations were on the right track.
A number of things appealed to me about this story. One of those was one of the words, tripodos, or tripod in English. So buried in the English lanquish was a word that could be traced back over 3200 years ago.
Unfortunately Michael Ventris was killed soon after the decipherment, in an automobile accident I think.
Mad Linquist, Cleopatra and other's comments and/or corrections would be qppreciated. Perhaps they could help me figure out why this has anything to do with a thread on Welsh.
Starting a new thread is my effort not to derail the Welsh discussion. So this thread is for discussing all things Mycenaean. (Hey, this forum is for History too! Says so at the top).
That is indeed basically the story as I've heard it too. What I would add is that Linear B is a very poorly designed alphabet for Greek - it's a syllabary, and Greek, like most Indo-European languages, is very difficult to write with a syllabary. This may have been what informed the initial theory that the people who wrote in Linear B were not Greek.
It seems to have been borrowed from / patterned after Linear A, which was most certainly not Greek. We've still not interpreted that; I believe it's associated with the Minoan civilisation on Crete.
It's not surprising that after the Greek Dark Ages, Linear B was never readopted and Greek was written using an alphabet learned from the Phoenicians instead.
The Mycenaean language is Greek, but it's not "Greek Greek". A guess is that it's a sister or cousin of the dialect that later became Classical Greek (but, of course, still within the Hellenic language group). Evidence for this is that some sound changes which have taken place in Classical Greek haven't yet happened in Mycenaean. For example, "w" at the start of a word hasn't yet been deleted so you get "wanaks" for "king" instead of "anaks", for instance. Another word for "king", "basileus" in Classical Greek iirc, begins with "q" in Mycenaean (I think... by eck I wish I had my textbooks to hand!).