Eteocretan ( from , lit. "true Cretans", itself composed from ἐτεός ''eteós'' "true" and Κρής ''Krḗs'' "Cretan") is the
pre-Greek
The pre-Greek substrate (or substratum) consists of the unknown pre-Greek language or languages (either Pre-Indo-European or other Indo-European languages) spoken in prehistoric Greece prior to the emergence of the Proto-Greek language in the r ...
language attested in a few
alphabetic
An alphabet is a standard set of letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from another in a given ...
inscriptions of ancient
Crete
Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...
.
In eastern Crete, about half a dozen inscriptions have been found, which, though written in
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BC. It was derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and is the earliest known alphabetic script to systematically write vowels as wel ...
s, are clearly not Greek. These inscriptions date from the late 7th or early 6th century down to the 3rd century BC. The language, which so far cannot be translated, is probably a survival of a language spoken on Crete before the arrival of the proto-Greek language and is probably derived from the
Minoan language
The Minoan language is the language (or languages) of the ancient Minoan civilization of Crete written in the Cretan hieroglyphs and later in the Linear A syllabary. As the Cretan hieroglyphs are undeciphered and Linear A only partly deciphered ...
preserved in the
Linear A
Linear A is a writing system that was used by the Minoans of Crete from 1800 BC to 1450 BC. Linear A was the primary script used in Minoan palaces, palace and religious writings of the Minoan civilization. It evolved into Linear B, ...
inscriptions of a millennium earlier. Since that language remains undeciphered, it is not certain that Eteocretan and Minoan are related, although this is probable.
Ancient testimony suggests that the language is that of the Eteocretans (meaning 'true Cretans'). The term ''Eteocretan'' is sometimes applied to the Minoan language (or languages) written more than a millennium earlier in so-called
Cretan 'hieroglyphics' (almost certainly a syllabary) and in the Linear A script. Yves Duhoux, a leading authority on Eteocretan, has stated that "it is essential to rigorously separate the study of Eteocretan from that of the 'hieroglyphic' and Linear A inscriptions".
Ancient Greek sources
Odysseus
In Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology, Odysseus ( ; , ), also known by the Latin variant Ulysses ( , ; ), is a legendary Greeks, Greek king of Homeric Ithaca, Ithaca and the hero of Homer's Epic poetry, epic poem, the ''Odyssey''. Od ...
, after returning home and pretending to be a grandson of Minos, tells his wife Penelope about his alleged homeland of Crete:
In the first century AD the geographer
Strabo
Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-si ...
noted the following about the settlement of the different 'tribes' of Crete:
Indeed, more than half the known Eteocretan texts are from Praisos (Strabo's Πρᾶσος);
[Margarita Guarducci: ''Inscriptiones Creticae,'' vol. 3. Rome 1942, pp. 134–142.] the others were found at
Dreros (modern Driros).
Inscriptions
There are five inscriptions which are clearly Eteocretan, two of them
bilingual
Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolin ...
with Greek. Three more fragments may be Eteocretan. The Eteocretan corpus is documented and discussed in Duhoux's ''L'Étéocrétois: les textes—la langue''.
Dreros
The two bilingual inscriptions, together with six other Greek inscriptions, were found in the western part of the large Hellenistic cistern next to the east wall of the
Delphinion (temple of Apollo Delphinios) in Dreros, at a depth between three and four metres. The texts are all written in the
archaic Cretan alphabet and date from the late seventh or early sixth century BC. They record official religious and political decisions and probably came from the east wall of the Delphinion; they were published by
Henri Van Effenterre in 1937 and 1946 and were kept in the museum at
Neapolis.
The longer of these two inscriptions was found in the autumn of 1936 but not published until 1946.
[Henri Van Effenterre in ''Revue de Philologie'', third series, vol. 20, issue 2 (1946), pp. 131–138.] The Greek part of the text is very worn and could not easily be read. Almost certainly with modern technology the Greek part would yield more but the inscription was lost during the occupation of the island in
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. Despite searches over 70 years, it has not been found.
The other Dreros inscription was also published by Van Effenterre in 1946.
[Henri Van Effenterre in ''Bulletin de correspondance hellénique'', vol. 70 (1946), p. 602 f.] The Eteocretan part of the text has disappeared, only the fragment τυπρμηριηια (''tuprmēriēia'') remaining.
Praisos (''or'' Praesos)
The other three certain Eteocretan inscriptions were published by
Margherita Guarducci in the third volume of ''Inscriptiones Creticae, Tituli Cretae Orientalis'', in 1942.
The inscriptions are archived in the Archeological Museum at
Heraklion
Heraklion or Herakleion ( ; , , ), sometimes Iraklion, is the largest city and the administrative capital city, capital of the island of Crete and capital of Heraklion (regional unit), Heraklion regional unit. It is the fourth largest city in G ...
. Raymond A. Brown, who examined these inscriptions in the summer of 1976, has published them online with slightly different transcriptions than those given by Guarducci.
The earliest of these inscriptions is, like the Dreros one, written in the archaic Cretan alphabet and likewise dates from the late 7th or early 6th century BC. The second of the Praisos inscriptions is written in the
standard Ionic alphabet, except for ''
lambda
Lambda (; uppercase , lowercase ; , ''lám(b)da'') is the eleventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the voiced alveolar lateral approximant . In the system of Greek numerals, lambda has a value of 30. Lambda is derived from the Phoen ...
'' which is still written in the archaic Cretan style; it probably dates from the 4th century BC. The third inscription, dating probably from the 3rd century BC, is written in the standard Ionic alphabet with the addition of
''digamma'' or ''wau''.
Psychro
Some publications also list the
Psychro or Epioi inscription as Eteocretan, but some scholars deem it to be a modern forgery. They base their assessment on the fact that the inscription has five words, which bear no obvious resemblance to the language of the Dreros and Praisos inscriptions, apparently written in the Ionic alphabet of the third century BC, with the addition of three symbols which resemble the Linear A script of more than a millennium earlier. Their reasoning has since been challenged as unsubstantiated.
Other possible fragmentary inscriptions
Guarducci included three other fragmentary inscriptions;
two of these fragments were also discussed by Yves Duhoux. The latter also discussed several other fragmentary inscriptions which might be Eteocretan. All these inscriptions, however, are so very fragmentary that it really is not possible to state with any certainty that they may not be Greek.
Description
The inscriptions are too few to give much information about the language.
Lexicon
The early inscriptions written in the archaic Cretan alphabet do mark word division; the same goes for the two longer inscriptions from the fourth and third centuries BC.
From the Dreros inscriptions are the following words: ''et isalabre komn men inai isaluria lmo tuprmēriēia''. ''Komn'' and ''lmo'' seem to show that /n/ and /l/ could be syllabic. As to the meanings of the words, nothing can be said with any certainty. Van Effenterre suggested:
* ''inai'' = Dorian Cretan ἔϝαδε (= classical Greek ἅδε, third singular aorist of ἅνδάνω) "it pleased
he council, the people, i. e. "it was decided
hat ….
The word ἔϝαδε occurs in the Greek part of the bilingual text, and all but one of the other Greek texts from the Delphinion in Dreros.
* ''tuprmēriēia'' = καθαρὸν γένοιτο in the Greek part of the inscription, i. e. "may it become pure".
Also, Van Effenterree noted that the word τυρό(ν) ("cheese") seems to occur twice in the Greek part of the first Dreros bilingual and suggested the text concerned the offering of goat cheese to
Leto
In ancient Greek mythology and Ancient Greek religion, religion, Leto (; ) is a childhood goddess, the daughter of the Titans Coeus and Phoebe (Titaness), Phoebe, the sister of Asteria, and the mother of Apollo and Artemis.Hesiod, ''Theogony' ...
, the mother goddess of the Delphinion triad, and that the words ''isalabre'' and ''isaluria'' were related words with the meaning of "(goat) cheese".
The only clearly complete word on the earliest Praisos inscription is ''barze'', and there is no indication of its meaning.
The other two Praisos inscriptions do not show word breaks. It has, however, been noted that in the second line of the fourth century inscription is ''phraisoi inai'' (φραισοι ιναι), and it has been suggested that it means "it pleased the Praisians" (ἔϝαδε Πραισίοις).
Classification
Though meager, the inscriptions show a language that bears no obvious kinship to
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...
or
Semitic languages; the language appears to have no obvious relation to any other known ancient language of the
Aegean or
Asia Minor
Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...
. Raymond A. Brown, after listing a number of words of pre-Greek origin from Crete suggests a relation between Eteocretan,
Lemnian (Pelasgian),
Minoan
The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age culture which was centered on the island of Crete. Known for its monumental architecture and Minoan art, energetic art, it is often regarded as the first civilization in Europe. The ruins of the Minoan pa ...
, and
Tyrrhenian, coining the name "Aegeo-Asianic" for the proposed language family. This proposed group of languages is supported by G.M. Facchetti and S. Yatsemirsky, and was suggested to have a link to the
pre-Indo-European languages
The pre-Indo-European languages are any of several ancient languages, not necessarily related to one another, that existed in Prehistoric Europe, Asia Minor, Ancient Iran and United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern_Asia, Southern Asia before ...
of Anatolia by archaeologist
James Mellaart. In whichever case, unless further inscriptions, especially bilingual ones, are found, the Eteocretan language must remain 'unclassified.'
While Eteocretan is possibly descended from the Minoan language of the Linear A inscriptions of a millennium earlier, until there is an accepted
decipherment
In philology and linguistics, decipherment is the discovery of the meaning of the symbols found in extinct languages and/or alphabets. Decipherment is possible with respect to languages and scripts. One can also study or try to decipher how spok ...
of
Linear A
Linear A is a writing system that was used by the Minoans of Crete from 1800 BC to 1450 BC. Linear A was the primary script used in Minoan palaces, palace and religious writings of the Minoan civilization. It evolved into Linear B, ...
, that language must also remain unclassified and the question of a relationship between the two remains speculative, especially as there seem to have been other non-Greek languages spoken in Crete.
[Y. Duhoux, ''op. cit.,'' p. 8.]
See also
*
Combinatorial method (linguistics)
*
Cretan hieroglyphs
Cretan hieroglyphs are a hieroglyphic writing system used in early Bronze Age Crete, during the Minoan era. They predate Linear A by about a century, but the two writing systems continued to be used in parallel for most of their history. , t ...
*
Linear A
Linear A is a writing system that was used by the Minoans of Crete from 1800 BC to 1450 BC. Linear A was the primary script used in Minoan palaces, palace and religious writings of the Minoan civilization. It evolved into Linear B, ...
*
Aegean languages
*
Minoan language
The Minoan language is the language (or languages) of the ancient Minoan civilization of Crete written in the Cretan hieroglyphs and later in the Linear A syllabary. As the Cretan hieroglyphs are undeciphered and Linear A only partly deciphered ...
*
Eteocypriot language
Eteocypriot is an extinct non-Indo-European language that was spoken in Cyprus by a non-Hellenic population during the Iron Age. The name means "true" or "original Cypriot" parallel to Eteocretan, both of which names are used by modern scholars t ...
References
Literature
*Raymond A. Brown, "The Eteocretan Inscription from Psychro," in ''Kadmos'', vol. 17, issue 1 (1978), p. 43 ff.
*Raymond A. Brown, ''Evidence for pre-Greek speech on Crete from Greek alphabetic sources.'' Adolf M. Hakkert, Amsterdam 1985.
*Henri Van Effenterre in ''Bulletin de correspondance hellénique'', vol. 70 (1946), p. 602 f.
*Henri Van Effenterre in ''Revue de Philologie'', third series, vol. 20, issue 2 (1946), pp. 131–138.
*Margarita Guarducci: ''Inscriptiones Creticae,'' vol. 3. Rome 1942, pp. 134–142.
*Yves Duhoux: ''L'Étéocrétois: les textes – la langue.'' J. C. Gieben, Amsterdam 1982. .
*Papakitsos, Evangelos and Kenanidis, Ioannis, "The Eteocretan Inscription from Psychro (Crete) is Genuine", Anistoriton Journal, vol. 14 (2014-2015).
External links
Eteocretan text corpus
{{Authority control
Unclassified languages of Europe
Pre-Indo-European languages
Extinct languages of Europe
Languages of ancient Crete
Archaic Greece
Languages attested from the 7th century BC
Languages extinct in the 3rd century BC