A major advance in the decipherment of Linear A, the impact of 22 Linear A ligatured logograms, of which 12 are in Mycenaean-derived Greek

A major advance in the decipherment of Linear A, the impact of 22 Linear A ligatured logograms, of which 12 are in Mycenaean-derived Greek:

Here we see 22 ligatured logograms in Linear B. By ligatured logograms we mean two or more Linear A syllabograms bound together as one unit. To date, no previous researcher, not even Andreas Zeke of the Minoan Language Blog, has isolated any more than 10 ligatured logograms. This comes as a great surprise to me, if not a real shock. Considering the huge impact these 22 ligatured logograms is bound to have on the decipherment of Linear A, why any ancient language linguist in the past 117 years since the discovery of the first Linear A tablets at Knossos would not account for all 22 of the ligatured logograms I have taken firmly into account is beyond me.

Since there are at least 2 syllabograms bound together, it is impossible to determine which syllabogram comes first. This means that in the case of 2 ligatured syllabograms, the word represented may be reversed. For instance, in the case of the first ligature in the table below, the ligature could be either aka or kae, although the first is more plausible in the second in this case. If the first ligature is indeed aka, then it is highly likely that it is the Linear A equivalent of the Greek word aska, which is the archaic accusative of askos (here Latinized), meaning “a leather bag or wine skin”, more likely the second than the first. In the case of the third, we have either kuwa, the exact Linear A equivalent of Linear B kowa, which deciphered means “girl”or if reversed, waku, which in ancient Greek is agu (Linear A orthography) or agos, meaning “any matter of religious awe/guilt/sacrifice”, of which the last definition is the most convincing.

12 Mycenaean-derived Greek ligatures:

When it comes to ligatures consisting of more than 2 syllabograms, the number of permutations and combinations rises dramatically. Whereas with 2 ligatured logograms there are only 2 possibilities, with 3 there are 9, and with 4 there are 16… at least theoretically. However, in practical terms, just one syllabogram, the first on the left, very likely certainly takes precedence, meaning that the number of permutations and combinations is probably no greater than 2 even in these cases. However, there is no way of knowing for certain. For instance, what are we to make of the eleventh ligature, which can read as either mesiki or sikime or kimesi, or as 6 additional permutations? As it so happens, 2 translations seem most plausible. The first is mesiki, which can be translated as Greek meseigu (Latinized), meaning “in the middle”, whereas the second is kimesi, which can be rendered as keimesi, instrumental plural of keimos, “with muzzles or halters for a horse”. Either translation is perfectly plausible; so we must account for both.

All in all, of the 22 ligatured logograms, 12 or over half are susceptible to translation into Greek. If anything, this illustrates the great impact of the Mycenaean-derived superstratum on Linear A. In this table, only 10 ligatures appear to be in Old Minoan, i.e. the original Minoan language, aka the Minoan substratum. Finally, with the addition of these 22 ligatured logograms and a few more words I have recently unearthed, the number of words in our Comprehensive Linear A Lexicon soars from 988 to an astonishing 1022, which means that the corpus of Linear A vocabulary now amounts to at least 20 % of that for Linear B. No previous Lexicon of Linear A even approaches this upper limit. Prof. John G. Younger’s Linear A Lexicon, the most thorough-going to date, contains only 774 intact Linear A terms, exclusive of broken words with some syllabograms missing, strings of greater than 15 syllabograms, and any words containing numeric syllabograms, which are utterly indecipherable at any rate. This means that our Lexicon is an astonishing 24.3 % larger than that of Prof. Younger. In addition, I have managed to decipher at least 30 % of Linear B, the highest amount ever. I shall be soon publishing our Lexicon on my academia.edu account, by mid-July at the latest, and it is bound to have a considerable impact on the ancient linguistics community.

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