Linear B
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the ancient syllabary. For the JavaScript engine, see linear b (script engine).
Not to be confused with Linear Pottery culture.
| Linear B | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | |
| Languages | Mycenaean Greek |
Time period
| Late Bronze Age |
| Status | Extinct |
Parent systems
|
Linear A
|
Sister systems
| Cypro-Minoan syllabary |
| Direction | Left-to-right |
| ISO 15924 | Linb, 401 |
Unicode alias
| Linear B |
| |
Linear B is a syllabic script that was used for writing Mycenaean Greek, the earliest attested form of Greek. The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries. The oldest Mycenaean writing dates to about 1450 BC.[1] It is descended from the older Linear A, an undeciphered earlier script used for writing the Minoan language, as is the later Cypriot syllabary, which also recorded Greek. Linear B, found mainly in the palace archives at Knossos, Cydonia,[2] Pylos, Thebes and Mycenae,[3] disappeared with the fall of Mycenaean civilization during the Bronze Age Collapse. The succeeding period, known as the Greek Dark Ages, provides no evidence of the use of writing. It is also the only one of the three "Linears" (the third being Linear C, aka Cypro-Minoan 1) to be deciphered, by English architect and self-taught linguist Michael Ventris.[4]
Linear B consists of around 87 syllabic signs and over 100 ideographic signs. These ideograms or "signifying" signs symbolize objects or commodities. They have no phonetic value and are never used as word signs in writing a sentence.
The application of Linear B appears to have been confined to administrative contexts. In all the thousands of clay tablets, a relatively small number of different "hands" have been detected: 45 in Pylos (west coast of the Peloponnese, in southern Greece) and 66 in Knossos (Crete).[5]From this fact, it could be thought that the script was used by only a guild of professional scribes who served the central palaces. Once the palaces were destroyed, the script disappeared.
Contents
[hide]The script[edit]
Linear B has roughly 200 signs, divided into syllabic signs with phonetic values and ideograms with semantic values. The representations and naming of these signs have been standardized by a series of international colloquia starting with the first in Paris in 1956. After the third meeting in 1961 at the Wingspread Conference Center in Racine, Wisconsin, a standard proposed primarily by Emmett L. Bennett, Jr. (1918–2011), became known as the Wingspread Convention, which was adopted by a new organization, the Comité International Permanent des Études Mycéniennes (CIPEM), affiliated in 1970 by the fifth colloquium with UNESCO. Colloquia continue: the 13th occurred in 2010 in Paris.[6]
Many of the signs are identical or similar to those in Linear A; however, Linear A is encoded still as an unknown language and it is uncertain whether similar signs had similar phonetic values.[7]
Syllabic signs[edit]
The grid developed during decipherment by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick of phonetic values for syllabic signs is shown below.[8]
Initial consonants are in the leftmost column; vowels are in the top row beneath the title. The transcription of the syllable (it may not have been pronounced that way) is listed next to the sign along with Bennett's identifying number for the sign preceded by an asterisk (as was Ventris' and Chadwick's convention).[note 1] In cases where the transcription of the sign remains in doubt, Bennett's number serves to identify the sign.[9] The signs on the tablets and other ancient artefacts often show considerable variation from each other and from the representations below. Discovery of the reasons for the variation and possible semantic differences is a topic of ongoing debate in Mycenaean studies.
| Recognised signs of shape V, CV[note 2] | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -a | -e | -i | -o | -u | ||||||
𐀀  | a
*08
| 𐀁  | e
*38
| 𐀂  | i
*28
| 𐀃  | o
*61
| 𐀄  | u
*10
| |
| d- | 𐀅  | da
*01
| 𐀆  | de
*45
| 𐀇  | di
*07
| 𐀈  | do
*14
| 𐀉  | du
*51
|
| j- | 𐀊  | ja
*57
| 𐀋  | je
*46
| 𐀍  | jo
*36
| ||||
| k- | 𐀏  | ka
*77
| 𐀐  | ke
*44
| 𐀑  | ki
*67
| 𐀒  | ko
*70
| 𐀓  | ku
*81
|
| m- | 𐀔  | ma
*80
| 𐀕  | me
*13
| 𐀖  | mi
*73
| 𐀗  | mo
*15
| 𐀘  | mu
*23
|
| n- | 𐀙  | na
*06
| 𐀚  | ne
*24
| 𐀛  | ni
*30
| 𐀜  | no
*52
| 𐀝  | nu
*55
|
| p- | 𐀞  | pa
*03
| 𐀟  | pe
*72
| 𐀠  | pi
*39
| 𐀡  | po
*11
| 𐀢  | pu
*50
|
| q- | 𐀣  | qa
*16
| 𐀤  | qe
*78
| 𐀥  | qi
*21
| 𐀦  | qo
*32
| ||
| r- | 𐀨  | ra
*60
| 𐀩  | re
*27
| 𐀪  | ri
*53
| 𐀫  | ro
*02
| 𐀬  | ru
*26
|
| s- | 𐀭  | sa
*31
| 𐀮  | se
*09
| 𐀯  | si
*41
| 𐀰  | so
*12
| 𐀱  | su
*58
|
| t- | 𐀲  | ta
*59
| 𐀳  | te
*04
| 𐀴  | ti
*37
| 𐀵  | to
*05
| 𐀶  | tu
*69
|
| w- | 𐀷  | wa
*54
| 𐀸  | we
*75
| 𐀹  | wi
*40
| 𐀺  | wo
*42
| ||
| z- | 𐀼  | za
*17
| 𐀽  | ze
*74
| 𐀿  | zo
*20
| ||||
Special and unknown signs[edit]
In addition to the grid, the first edition of Documents contained a number of other signs termed "homophones" because they appeared at that time to resemble the sounds of other syllables and were transcribed accordingly: pa2 and pa3 were presumed homophonous to pa. Many of these were identified by the second edition and are shown in the "special values" below.[10] The second edition relates: "It may be taken as axiomatic that there are no true homophones." The unconfirmed identifications of *34 and *35 as ai2 and ai3 were removed. pa2 became qa.[11]
| Special values | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Character | 𐁀  | 𐁁  | 𐁂  | 𐁃  | 𐁄  | 𐁅  | 𐁇  | 𐁆  | 𐁈  | 𐁉  | 𐁊  | 𐁋  | 𐁌  | 𐁍  | |||||||||||||||
| Transcription | a2 (ha) | a3 (ai) | au | dwe | dwo | nwa | pte | pu2 (phu) | ra2 (rya) | ra3 (rai) | ro2 (ryo) | ta2 (tya) | twe | two | |||||||||||||||
| Bennett's Number | *25 | *43 | *85 | *71 | *90 | *48 | *62 | *29 | *76 | *33 | *68 | *66 | *87 | *91 | |||||||||||||||
Other values remain unknown, mainly because of scarcity of evidence concerning them.[10][note 3] Note that *34 and *35 are mirror images of each other but whether this graphic relationship indicates a phonetic one remains unconfirmed.
| Untranscribed and doubtful values | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Character | 𐁐 | 𐁑 | 𐁒 | 𐁓 | 𐁔 | 𐁕 | 𐁖 | 𐁗 | 𐁘 | 𐀎 | 𐁙 | 𐁚 | 𐁛 | 𐁜 | 𐁝 | ||||||||||||||
| Transcription | *18 | *19 | *22 | *34 | *35 | *47 | *49 | pa3? | *63 | swi? | ju? | zu? | swa? | *83 | *86 | *89 | |||||||||||||
| Bennett's Number | *18 | *19 | *22 | *34 | *35 | *47 | *49 | *56 | *63 | *64 | *65 | *79 | *82 | *83 | *86 | *89 | |||||||||||||
In recent times, CIPEM inherited the former authority of Bennett and the Wingspread Convention in deciding what signs are "confirmed" and how to officially represent the various sign categories. In editions of Mycenaean texts, those signs whose value has not been confirmed by CIPEM are always transcribed as numbers preceded by an asterisk (e.g., *64). CIPEM also allocates the numerical identifiers, and until such allocation, new signs (or obscured or mutilated signs) are transcribed as a bullet-point enclosed in square brackets: [•].
Spelling and pronunciation[edit]
The signs are approximations―each may be used to represent a variety of about 70 distinct combinations of sounds, within rules and conventions. The grid presents a system ofmonosyllabic signs of the type V/CV. Clarification of the 14 or so special values tested the limits of the grid model, but Chadwick in the end concluded that even with the ramifications, the syllabic signs can unexceptionally be considered monosyllabic.[12]
Possible exceptions, Chadwick goes on to explain, include the two diphthongs, 𐁁 (ai) and 𐁂 (au), as in 𐁁𐀓𐀠𐀴𐀍, ai-ku-pi-ti-jo, for Aiguptios (Αἰγύπτιος, "Egyptian") and 𐁂𐀐𐀷, au-ke-wa, forAugewās (Αὐγείας, as in the one of the Augean stables).[note 4] However a diphthong is by definition two vowels united into a single sound and therefore might be typed as just V. Thus 𐁉 (rai), as in 𐀁𐁉𐀺, e-rai-wo, for elaiwon (ἔλαιον),[note 5] is of the type CV. Diphthongs are otherwise treated as two monosyllables: 𐀀𐀫𐀄𐀨, a-ro-u-ra, for arourans (accusative plural of ἄρουραι, "tamarisk trees"), of the types CV and V.[13] Lengths of vowels and accents are not marked.
𐁌 (Twe), 𐁍 (two), 𐁃 (dwe), 𐁄 (dwo), 𐁅 (nwa) and the more doubtful 𐁘 (swi) and 𐁚 (swa) may be regarded as beginning with labialized consonants, rather than two consonants, even though they may alternate with a two-sign form: o-da-twe-ta and o-da-tu-we-ta for Odatwenta; a-si-wi-jo and a-swi-jo for Aswios (Ἄσιος). Similarly, 𐁈 (rya), 𐁊 (ryo) and 𐁋 (tya) begin with palatalizedconsonants rather than two consonants: -ti-ri-ja for -trja (-τρια).
The one sign Chadwick tags as the exception to the monosyllabic rule is 𐁇 (pte), but this he attributes to a development pte<*pje as in kleptei<*klep-jei.
Linear B does not consistently distinguish between voiced and unvoiced stops (except in the dental series) and between aspirated and unaspirated stops even when these distinctions arephonemic in Mycenaean Greek. For example,[14] pa-te is patēr (πατήρ), pa-si is phāsi (φησί);[note 6] p on the other hand never represents β: βασιλεύς ("king") is qa-si-re-u[note 7]); ko-ru iskorus (κόρυς, "helmet"), ka-ra-we is grāwes (plural of γρηύς), ko-no is skhoinos ("rope"). Exceptionally, however, the dentals are represented by a t-series and a d-series for unvoiced and voiced: to-so for tosos (τόσος or τόσσος) but do-ra for dōra (plural of δῶρον, "gift"); however, to-ra-ke for thōrākes (plural of θώραξ, "breastplate"). In other cases aspiration can be marked but is optional: pu-te for phutēr ("planter", from φυτεύω), but phu-te-re for phutēres ("planters"). Initial aspiration may be marked only in the case of initial a and rarely: ha-te-ro for hateron(masculine ἅτερος),[15] and yet a-ni-ja for hāniai (ἁνίαι).
The j-series represents the semivowel equivalent to English "y", and is used word-initially and as an intervocalic glide after a syllable ending in i: -a-jo for -αῖος (-aios); a-te-mi-ti-jo forἈρτεμίτιος (Artemitios). The w-series similarly are semivowels used word-initially and intervocalically after a syllable ending in u: ku-wa-no for kuanos (κύανος, "blue").[16]
The r-series includes both the /r/ and /l/ phonemes: ti-ri-po for tripos (τρίπος, i.e. τρίπους) and tu-ri-so for Tulisos (Τυλισός).
The q-series is used for monosyllables beginning with a class of consonants that disappeared from classical Greek by regular phonetic change: the labiovelars (see under Mycenaean Greek). These had entered the language from various sources: inheritance from Proto-Indo-European, assimilation, borrowing of foreign words, especially names. In Mycenaean they are /kʷ/, /gʷ/, and rarely /kʷh/ in names and a few words:[17] a-pi-qo-ro for amphiquoloi (ἀμφίπολοι); qo-u-ko-ro for guoukoloi (βουκόλοι. "cowherders"); -qo-i-ta for -φόντης.
Some consonants in some contexts are not written (but are understood): word-initial s- and -w before a consonant, as in pe-ma for sperma (σπέρμα, "seed"); syllable-final -l, -m, -n, -r, -s: a-to-ro-qo for anthrōquos (ἄνθρωπος, "human being, person"). In the first example, the pe-, which was primarily used as its value pe of grid class CV, is being used for sper-, not in that class. This was not an innovative or exceptional use, but followed the stated rules. Similarly, a, being primarily of grid class V, is being used as an- and could be used for al, am, ar, and so on.
Clusters of two or three consonants that do not follow the initial s- and -w rule or the double consonants: ξ (ks or x), ψ (ps) and qus (which later did not exist in classical Greek) were represented by the same number of signs of type CV as the cluster had consonants: ko-no-so for Knōsos,[note 8] ku-ru-so for khrusos (χρυσός, "gold"). The consonants were the same as in the cluster. The vowels so introduced have been called "empty", "null", "extra", "dead" and other terms by various writers as they represent no sound. The sign was not alphabetic: rules governed the selection of the vowel and therefore of the sign. The vowel had to be the same as the one of the first syllable following the cluster or if at the end of the word, preceding: ti-ri-powith ti- (instead of ta-, te- and so on) to match -ri-.
Ideograms[edit]
Linear B also uses a large number of ideograms. They express:
- The type of object concerned (e.g. a cow, wool, a spear)
- A unit of measure.
They are typically at the end of a line before a number and appear to signify the object the number applies to. Many of the values remain unknown or disputed. Some commodities such as cloth and containers are divided into many different categories represented by distinct ideograms. Livestock may be marked with respect to their sex.
The numerical references for the ideograms were originally devised by Ventris and Bennett, divided into functional groups corresponding to the breakdown of Bennett's index. These groups are numbered beginning 100, 110, 120 etc., with some provision of spare numbers for future additions; the official CIPEM numberings used today are based on Ventris and Bennett's numbering, with the provision that three or four letter codes (written in small capitals), based on Latin words that seemed relevant at the time, are used where the meanings are known and agreed. Unicode (as of version 5.0) encodes 123 Linear B ideograms.
The ideograms are symbols, not pictures of the objects in question—e.g. one tablet records a tripod with missing legs, but the ideogram used is of a tripod with three legs. In modern transcriptions of Linear B tablets, it is typically convenient to represent an ideogram by its Latin or English name or by an abbreviation of the Latin name. Ventris and Chadwick generally used English; Bennett, Latin. Neither the English nor the Latin can be relied upon as an accurate name of the object; in fact, the identification of some of the more obscure objects is a matter of exegesis.[18]
No comments:
Post a Comment