3 Responses to KN Gg

1. Gretchen E. Leonhardt says:

   20 December 2011 at 11:47

   Since LinB is ancient Greek, υうぷしろん (ūpsilon) would be pronounced /ū/ and εいぷしろんυうぷしろん would be pronounced /eu/ (as in euphemism). One distinction between ancient and modern Greek is the pronunciation of υうぷしろん, which, in modern Greek, is pronounced /f/ or /v/, depending upon the consonants that follow it. Consequently, ancient-Greek transliteration would be more helpful than modern-Greek transliteration for LinB translation.

   Yes, it’s interesting that all but u-me-ta-qe is preceded by the characteristic Greek /eu/ diphthong. It appears that the use of this diphthong to make the /u/ long marks these as LinB words. Conversely, this initial diphthong is absent in LinA. Instead, LinA words typically begin with /a/, /i/, and /u/. Initial /o/ is a rarity, with four occurrences, and initial /e/ is non-existent. I suspect that u-me-ta-qe is a borrowed LinA word, which does not yet appear in the LinA texts. I’ve tried numerous permutations without success.

   However, when I entered u-me-ta-qe in the Japanese dictionary, I retrieved Umetaka (surname) and Amataki (place name). The frequency with which LinA words return given names, place names, and surnames in the Japanese dictionary appears to be somewhere between 30 and 50 percent. I’m still tabulating this frequency. It is likely that the surname indicates a Greek toponym that may be based upon a related definition. The strongest lead that I have, thus far, is AMETAKI in a Greek New-Testament concordance. However, I’m not familiar with the transcription so was unable to determine the entry’s significance. This is another task to add to the to-do list.

   Now for some Greek goodies.

   I didn’t have any success with the εいぷしろんυうぷしろんμみゅーεいぷしろん sequence but had greater success with the εいぷしろんυうぷしろんμみゅーηいーた sequence. I’ve got a match with Εいぷしろんὐμήδης (Eumedes). Look beyond his name to his occupation as herald or messenger. Now, check ἑρろーμみゅーῆ (Hermes, or Roman Mercury), who was the winged messenger. In Hermes, you will find e-u-me-ne (Ἑρろーμみゅーῆνにゅー) (the
   accusative case) and e-u-mo (ἑρμοῦ ) (the genitive case). The οおみくろんῦ ending that indicates the genitive case is cognate with the word of. My Lidell and Scott’s Greek/English Lexicon (1992) shows εいぷしろんρろーμみゅーοおみくろん-γλυφευς, who is a carver of Hermae, so there is your Greek root, e-u-mo (εいぷしろんρろーμみゅーοおみくろん). There are numerous words that carry the root for ερμηνηεια, which means interpretation or explanation. Depending upon the context, the writer could be referring either to Hermes or to an explanation.

   Now, we’ve got a clear reference for checking words that begin with e-u. In borrowing the LinA phonetic system, the Mycenaeans may well have compromised the /er/ phoneme with /eu/. Since Eumedes is a later word, Greek speakers may have retained the /er/ pronunciation but continued to transcribe these words as /eu/. Further analysis of similar LinB words may provide valuable clues.

   As for e-u-meta, I’ll leave that for another day or for another scholar.

   (erase first comment)
2. Gretchen E. Leonhardt says:

   13 December 2011 at 16:04

   a-mi-ni-so @ KN Gg 705 and a-mi-ni-si-ja @ KN E 777
   u-mi-na-si @ HT 28 and 117 and u-*34-si @ HT 15 and 140 (See Haghia Triada (HT) texts.)
   Linear A u-mi-na-si becomes Linear B a-mi-ni-so, which demonstrates the shifts from initial /u/ to /a/, from medial /na/ to /ni/, and from final /si/ to /so/.
   Note that, in HT 15 and 140, *73 /mi/ and *06 /na/ are substituted with the speculated *34 /mna/ or /mina/. (See Linear A/B grids.) In these latter texts, u-mi-na-si would read u-mna-si, which would ultimately become amniso[s].
   It is interesting to note that the Minoan references were found at Haghia Triada while the Mycenaean references were found at Knossos. Since the fire that destroyed Haghia Triada occurred around 1400 BCE, this approximate date can assist Greek-language philologists who are studying diachronic shifts.
   • kiminoa says:

     14 December 2011 at 08:48

     I was curious to see whether /u/ in Linear B is ever followed by a nasal /m/. My database has all of the KN inscriptions, and I’m still working on filling out the inscriptions from the other sites so this query isn’t exhaustive yet, but it does provide something interesting.

     When I read your comment, it immediately struck me that I couldn’t think of any /u/ + nasal /m/ combinations in Linear B, so I ran a query:

     KN Da 1390+ | {E-U-MO}
     KN Dv 1388 | {E-U-ME-TA}
     PY Ea 259 | {U-ME-TA-QE}
     PY Ea 757 | {e-u-me-ne}
     PY Ea 773 | {e-u-me-de}
     PY Ea 812 | {e-u-me-de}
     PY Ea 820 | {e-u-me-de}
     PY Ea 822 | {e-u-me-ne}

     Thanks to Dygo Tosa for pointing it out, this trend is also observed in Aura Jorro’s dictionary entry for u-me-ta-qe.

     I grabbed the copy of Bennett & Olivier’s transliterations that I have on loan, and double-checked the exact positioning of u-me-ta-qe (Chadwick & Ventris 1973*) on this tablet, and this particular tangent could keep me busy for a week: u-me-ta-qe-(a)-po (Bennett & Olivier 1973) is on the .a line above .b – it is above e-ke, and the U is aligned with the KE. So my next task is going to be looking to see if the .a / .b or ^‘annot’ alignments of the scribes have evidence of sharing a beginning symbol elsewhere.

     I wonder if the consistent e-u-m* pattern without other /u/ + /m/ combinations is a similar trend in Ancient Greek or Modern Greek, and Linear B is just reflecting that.

     It usually takes me awhile to ponder and study these things and really appreciate the full implications, so I may wander back in a few days with a few more thoughts on this.

     A quick appendix for those who don’t speak Greek:
     εいぷしろんυうぷしろん is a Greek prefix which means “good” or “well”.

     * Chadwick & Ventris’ transliteration parsed the top line differently as U-ME-TA-QE [ ]-PO. Odds greatly favor ending with QE and beginning with A in Linear B, so I’d be curious to see how much of the A is visible and how much spacing there is. But that’s neither here nor there :)

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