Mycenaean Greek is the most ancient attested form of the
Greek language
Greek ( el, label= Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy ( Calabria and Salento), southe ...
, on the Greek mainland and
Crete
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, ...
in
Mycenaean Greece (16th to 12th centuries BC), before the hypothesised
Dorian invasion, often cited as the ''
terminus ad quem
''Terminus post quem'' ("limit after which", sometimes abbreviated to TPQ) and ''terminus ante quem'' ("limit before which", abbreviated to TAQ) specify the known limits of dating for events or items..
A ''terminus post quem'' is the earliest da ...
'' for the introduction of the Greek language to Greece. The language is preserved in inscriptions in
Linear B, a script first attested on Crete before the 14th century BC. Most inscriptions are on clay tablets found in
Knossos
Knossos (also Cnossos, both pronounced ; grc, Κνωσός, Knōsós, ; Linear B: ''Ko-no-so'') is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and has been called Europe's oldest city.
Settled as early as the Neolithic period, the na ...
, in central Crete, as well as in
Pylos, in the southwest of the
Peloponnese. Other tablets have been found at
Mycenae
Mycenae ( ; grc, Μυκῆναι or , ''Mykē̂nai'' or ''Mykḗnē'') is an archaeological site near Mykines in Argolis, north-eastern Peloponnese, Greece. It is located about south-west of Athens; north of Argos; and south of Corinth. ...
itself,
Tiryns
Tiryns or (Ancient Greek: Τίρυνς; Modern Greek: Τίρυνθα) is a Mycenaean archaeological site in Argolis in the Peloponnese, and the location from which the mythical hero Heracles performed his Twelve Labours. It lies south of M ...
and
Thebes and at
Chania
Chania ( el, Χανιά ; vec, La Canea), also spelled Hania, is a city in Greece and the capital of the Chania regional unit. It lies along the north west coast of the island Crete, about west of Rethymno and west of Heraklion.
The muni ...
, in Western Crete. The language is named after Mycenae, one of the major centres of Mycenaean Greece.
The tablets long remained undeciphered, and many languages were suggested for them, until
Michael Ventris
Michael George Francis Ventris, (; 12 July 1922 – 6 September 1956) was an English architect, classicist and philologist who deciphered Linear B, the ancient Mycenaean Greek script. A student of languages, Ventris had pursued deciphermen ...
, building on the extensive work of
Alice Kober, deciphered the script in 1952.
The texts on the tablets are mostly lists and inventories. No prose narrative survives, much less myth or poetry. Still, much may be glimpsed from these records about the people who produced them and about Mycenaean Greece, the period before the so-called
Greek Dark Ages.
Orthography
![Linear B Musée archéologique de Mycènes](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/Linear_B_Mus%C3%A9e_arch%C3%A9ologique_de_Myc%C3%A8nes.jpg)
The Mycenaean language is preserved in
Linear B writing, which consists of about 200 syllabic letters and logograms. Since Linear B was derived from
Linear A
Linear A is a writing system that was used by the Minoans of Crete from 1800 to 1450 BC to write the hypothesized Minoan language or languages. Linear A was the primary script used in palace and religious writings of the Minoan civi ...
, the script of an undeciphered
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, ...
, the sounds of Mycenaean are not fully represented. In essence, a limited number of syllabic letters must represent a much greater number of produced syllables that would be more concisely represented by the letters of an
alphabet
An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syllab ...
.
Orthographic simplifications therefore had to be made:
* There is no disambiguation for the Greek categories of
voice
The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound producti ...
and
aspiration except the dentals ''d'', ''t''. For example, , may be either ("I") or ("I have").
* Any ''m'' or ''n'', before a consonant, and any syllable-final ''l'', ''m'', ''n'', ''r'', ''s'' are omitted. , is ("all"); , is ("copper").
* Consonant clusters must be dissolved orthographically, creating apparent vowels: , is ''
ptolin'' ( grc, πόλιν ' or ''ptólin'', "city"
accusative case).
* ''r'' and ''l'' are not disambiguated: , is (classical "king").
*
Rough breathing
In the polytonic orthography of Ancient Greek, the rough breathing ( grc, δασὺ πνεῦμα, dasỳ pneûma or ''daseîa''; la, spīritus asper) character is a diacritical mark used to indicate the presence of an sound before a vowel, ...
is not indicated: , is ("reins").
* Length of vowels is not marked.
* The consonant usually transcribed ''z'' probably represents *dy, initial *y, *ky, *gy.
[Ventris and Chadwick (1973) page 389.]
* q- is a
labio-velar kʷ or gʷ and in some names kʷʰ:
[ , is (classical , "cowherds").
* Initial ''s'' before a consonant is not written: , is ("station, outpost").
* Double consonants are not represented: , is (classical ]Knossos
Knossos (also Cnossos, both pronounced ; grc, Κνωσός, Knōsós, ; Linear B: ''Ko-no-so'') is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and has been called Europe's oldest city.
Settled as early as the Neolithic period, the na ...
).
In addition to the spelling rules, letters are not polyphonic (more than one sound), but sometimes are homophonic (a sound can be represented by more than one letter), which are not "true homophones" but are "overlapping values." Long words may omit a middle or final letter.
Phonology
Mycenaean preserves some archaic Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo- ...
and Proto-Greek
The Proto-Greek language (also known as Proto-Hellenic) is the Indo-European language which was the last common ancestor of all varieties of Greek, including Mycenaean Greek, the subsequent ancient Greek dialects (i.e., Attic, Ionic, Aeo ...
features not present in later ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
.
One archaic feature is the set of labiovelar consonants , written , which split into , , or in ancient Greek, depending on the context and the dialect.
Another set is the semivowels and the glottal fricative between vowels. All were lost in standard Attic Greek, but was preserved in some Greek dialects and written as digamma
Digamma or wau (uppercase: Ϝ, lowercase: ϝ, numeral: ϛ) is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. It originally stood for the sound but it has remained in use principally as a Greek numeral for 6. Whereas it was originally called ''waw' ...
or beta .
It is unclear how the sound transcribed as was pronounced. It may have been a voiced or voiceless affricate or , marked with asterisks in the table above. It derives from , , and some initial and was written as ζ in the Greek alphabet. In Attic, it may have been pronounced in many cases, but it is in Modern Greek.
There were at least five vowels , which could be both short and long.
As noted above, the syllabic Linear B script used to record Mycenaean is extremely defective and distinguishes only the semivowel
In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are the c ...
s ; the sonorants ; the sibilant ; the stops ; and (marginally) . Voiced, voiceless and aspirate occlusives are all written with the same symbols except that stands for and for both and ). Both and are written ; is unwritten unless followed by .
The length of vowels and consonants is not notated. In most circumstances, the script is unable to notate a consonant not followed by a vowel. Either an extra vowel is inserted (often echoing the quality of the following vowel), or the consonant is omitted. (See above for more details.)
Thus, determining the actual pronunciation of written words is often difficult, and using a combination of the PIE etymology of a word, its form in later Greek and variations in spelling is necessary. Even so, for some words the pronunciation is not known exactly, especially when the meaning is unclear from context, or the word has no descendants in the later dialects.
Morphology
Nouns likely decline
Decline may refer to:
*Decadence, involves a perceived decay in standards, morals, dignity, religious faith, or skill over time
* "Decline" (song), 2017 song by Raye and Mr Eazi
* ''The Decline'' (EP), an EP by NOFX
*The Decline (band), Australian ...
for 7 cases: nominative, genitive, accusative
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘th ...
, dative, vocative
In grammar, the vocative case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which is used for a noun that identifies a person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed, or occasionally for the noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and numer ...
, instrumental
An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to inst ...
and locative; 3 genders: masculine, feminine, neuter; and 3 numbers
A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...
: singular
Singular may refer to:
* Singular, the grammatical number that denotes a unit quantity, as opposed to the plural and other forms
* Singular homology
* SINGULAR, an open source Computer Algebra System (CAS)
* Singular or sounder, a group of boar, ...
, dual, plural
The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...
. The last two cases had merged with other cases by Classical Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
. In Modern Greek
Modern Greek (, , or , ''Kiní Neoellinikí Glóssa''), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the ...
, only nominative, accusative
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘th ...
, genitive and vocative
In grammar, the vocative case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which is used for a noun that identifies a person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed, or occasionally for the noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and numer ...
remain as separate cases with their own morphological markings. Adjective
In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun.
Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the ma ...
s agree with nouns in case, gender
Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures ...
, and number
A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...
.
Verbs probably conjugate for 3 tenses
In grammar, tense is a category that expresses time reference. Tenses are usually manifested by the use of specific forms of verbs, particularly in their conjugation patterns.
The main tenses found in many languages include the past, present, ...
: past
The past is the set of all events that occurred before a given point in time. The past is contrasted with and defined by the present and the future. The concept of the past is derived from the linear fashion in which human observers experience ...
, present, future; 3 aspects: perfect, perfective
The perfective aspect ( abbreviated ), sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect that describes an action viewed as a simple whole; i.e., a unit without interior composition. The perfective aspect is distinguished from the i ...
, imperfective
The imperfective (abbreviated or more ambiguously ) is a grammatical aspect used to describe ongoing, habitual, repeated, or similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. Although many languages have a g ...
; 3 numbers
A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...
: singular
Singular may refer to:
* Singular, the grammatical number that denotes a unit quantity, as opposed to the plural and other forms
* Singular homology
* SINGULAR, an open source Computer Algebra System (CAS)
* Singular or sounder, a group of boar, ...
, dual, plural
The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...
; 4 moods: indicative
A realis mood ( abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood which is used principally to indicate that something is a statement of fact; in other words, to express what the speaker considers to be a known state of affairs, as in declarative sentences. Mos ...
, imperative, subjunctive, optative
The optative mood ( or ; abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope regarding a given action. It is a superset of the cohortative mood and is closely related to the subjunctive mood but is distinct from the desiderative mo ...
; 3 voices: active
Active may refer to:
Music
* ''Active'' (album), a 1992 album by Casiopea
* Active Records, a record label
Ships
* ''Active'' (ship), several commercial ships by that name
* HMS ''Active'', the name of various ships of the British Royal ...
, middle, passive
Passive may refer to:
* Passive voice, a grammatical voice common in many languages, see also Pseudopassive
* Passive language, a language from which an interpreter works
* Passivity (behavior), the condition of submitting to the influence of o ...
; 3 persons
A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...
: first, second, third; infinitive
Infinitive (abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is deri ...
s, and verbal adjectives.
The verbal augment is almost entirely absent from Mycenaean Greek with only one known exception, , ''a-pe-do-ke'' ( PY Fr 1184), but even that appears elsewhere without the augment, as , ''a-pu-do-ke'' ( KN Od 681). The augment is sometimes omitted in Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
.
Greek features
Mycenaean had already undergone the following sound changes peculiar to the Greek language and so is considered to be Greek:
Phonological changes
* Initial and intervocalic ''*s'' to .
* Voiced aspirates devoiced.
* Syllabic liquids to or ; syllabic nasals to or .
* ''*kj'' and ''*tj'' to before a vowel.
* Initial ''*j'' to or replaced by z (exact value unknown, possibly ).
* ''*gj'' and ''*dj'' to z.
*''*-ti'' to -si (also found in Attic- Ionic, Arcadocypriot, and Lesbian, but not Doric, Boeotian, or Thessalian
Thessaly ( el, Θεσσαλία, translit=Thessalía, ; ancient Thessalian: , ) is a traditional geographic and modern administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thess ...
).
Morphological changes
* The use of ''-eus'' to produce agent nouns
* The third-person singular ending ''-ei''
* The infinitive ending ''-ein'', contracted from ''-e-en''
Lexical items
* Uniquely Greek words:
** , ''qa-si-re-u'', *'' gʷasileus'' (later Greek: , ', "king")
** , ''ka-ko'', *''kʰalkos'' (later Greek: , ', " bronze")
* Greek forms of words known in other languages:
** , ', *''wanax
(Greek: ; from earlier , ') is an ancient Greek word for "tribal chief, lord, (military) leader".. It is one of the two Greek titles traditionally translated as "king", the other being basileus, and is inherited from Mycenaean Greece. It is nota ...
'' (later Greek: , ', "overlord, king, leader")
** , ', (later Greek: , ', "queen")
**, ''e-ra-wo'' or , ''e-rai-wo'', *''elaiwon'' (later Greek: , ', " olive oil")
** , ''te-o'', *''tʰehos'' (later Greek: , , "god")
** , ''ti-ri-po'', *''tripos
At the University of Cambridge, a Tripos (, plural 'Triposes') is any of the examinations that qualify an undergraduate for a bachelor's degree or the courses taken by a student to prepare for these. For example, an undergraduate studying mathe ...
'' (later Greek: , ', "tripod")
Corpus
The corpus of Mycenaean-era Greek writing consists of some 6,000 tablets and potsherds in Linear B, from LMII to LHIIIB. No Linear B monuments or non-Linear B transliterations have yet been found.
The so-called Kafkania pebble has been claimed as the oldest known Mycenaean inscription, with a purported date to the 17th century BC. However, its authenticity is widely doubted, and most scholarly treatments of Linear B omit it from their corpora.
The earliest generally-accepted date for a Linear B tablet belongs to the tablets from the 'Room of the Chariot Tablets' at Knossos, which are believed to date to the LM II-LM IIIA period, between the last half of the 15th century BCE and the earliest years of the 14th.
Variations and possible dialects
While the Mycenaean dialect is relatively uniform at all the centres where it is found, there are also a few traces of dialectal variants:
* ''i'' for ''e'' in the dative of consonant stems
* ''a'' instead of ''o'' as the reflex of ''ṇ'' (e.g. ''pe-ma'' instead of ''pe-mo'' < ''*spermṇ'')
* the ''e/i'' variation in e.g. ''te-mi-ti-ja/ti-mi-ti-ja''
Based on such variations, Ernst Risch
Ernst Risch (1911–1988) was a Swiss hellenist and philologist.
He was professor of Indo-European studies at the University of Zurich
The University of Zürich (UZH, german: Universität Zürich) is a public research university locat ...
(1966) postulated the existence of some dialects within Linear B. The "Normal Mycenaean" would have been the standardized language of the tablets, and the "Special Mycenaean" represented some local vernacular dialect (or dialects) of the particular scribes producing the tablets.[ Lydia Baumbach (1980)]
A Doric Fifth Column?
(PDF)
Thus, "a particular scribe, distinguished by his handwriting, reverted to the dialect of his everyday speech" and used the variant forms, such as the examples above.
It follows that after the collapse of Mycenaean Greece, while the standardized Mycenaean language was no longer used, the particular local dialects reflecting local vernacular speech would have continued, eventually producing the various Greek dialects of the historic period.
Such theories are also connected with the idea that the Mycenaean language constituted a type of a special koine representing the official language of the palace records and the ruling aristocracy. When the 'Mycenaean linguistic koine' fell into disuse after the fall of the palaces because the script was no longer used, the underlying dialects would have continued to develop in their own ways. That view was formulated by Antonin Bartonek. Other linguists like Leonard Robert Palmer
Leonard Robert Palmer (5 June 1906, Bristol – 26 August 1984, Pitney, Somerset) was author and Professor of Comparative Philology at the University of Oxford from 1952 to 1971. He was also a Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford. Palmer made so ...
(1980), and :de:Yves Duhoux (1985) also support this view of the 'Mycenaean linguistic koine'. (The term 'Mycenaean koine' is also used by archaeologists to refer to the material culture of the region.) However, since the Linear B script does not indicate several possible dialectical features, such as the presence or absence of word-initial aspiration and the length of vowels, it is unsafe to extrapolate that Linear B texts were read as consistently as they were written.
The evidence for "Special Mycenaean" as a distinct dialect has, however, been challenged. Thompson argues that Risch's evidence does not meet the diagnostic criteria to reconstruct two dialects within Mycenaean. In particular, more recent paleographical study, not available to Risch, shows that no individual scribe consistently writes "Special Mycenaean" forms. This inconsistency makes the variation between "Normal Mycenaean" and "Special Mycenaean" unlikely to represent dialectical or sociolectical differences, as these would be expected to concentrate in individual speakers, which is not observed in the Linear B corpus.
Survival
While the use of Mycenaean Greek may have ceased with the fall of the Mycenaean civilization, some traces of it are found in the later Greek dialects. In particular, Arcadocypriot Greek
Arcadocypriot, or southern Achaean, was an ancient Greek dialect spoken in Arcadia in the central Peloponnese and in Cyprus. Its resemblance to Mycenaean Greek, as it is known from the Linear B corpus, suggests that Arcadocypriot is its desc ...
is believed to be rather close to Mycenaean Greek. Arcadocypriot was an ancient Greek dialect
Ancient Greek in classical antiquity, before the development of the common Koine Greek of the Hellenistic period, was divided into several varieties.
Most of these varieties are known only from inscriptions, but a few of them, principally Aeoli ...
spoken in Arcadia
Arcadia may refer to:
Places Australia
* Arcadia, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney
* Arcadia, Queensland
* Arcadia, Victoria
Greece
* Arcadia (region), a region in the central Peloponnese
* Arcadia (regional unit), a modern administrative un ...
(central Peloponnese), and in Cyprus
Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ge ...
.
Ancient Pamphylian also shows some similarity to Arcadocypriot and to Mycenaean Greek.
References
Citations
Sources
* Aura Jorro, Francisco (1985–1993). ''Diccinario micénico''. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Instituto de Filología.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Further reading
* Bakker, Egbert J., ed. 2010. ''A companion to the Ancient Greek language.'' Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
* Chadwick, John. 1958. ''The decipherment of Linear B.'' Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
* Christidis, Anastasios-Phoivos, ed. 2007. ''A History of Ancient Greek: From the Beginnings to Late Antiquity.'' Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
* Colvin, Stephen C. 2007. ''A Historical Greek Reader: Mycenaean to the Koiné.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press.
*
* Easterling, P. E., and Carol Handley. 2001. ''Greek Scripts: An Illustrated Introduction.'' London: Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies.
* Fox, Margalit
Margalit Fox (born 1961) is an American writer. She began her career in publishing in the 1980s, before switching to journalism in the 1990s. She joined the obituary department of ''The New York Times'' in 2004, and authored over 1,400 obituarie ...
. 2013. ''The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code.'' 1st edition. New York : Ecco Press.
* Hooker, J. T. 1980. ''Linear B: An introduction.'' Bristol, UK: Bristol Classical Press.
* Horrocks, Geoffrey. 2010. ''Greek: A history of the language and its speakers.'' 2nd ed. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
*
*
* Jorro, Francisco Aura. "Reflexiones sobre el léxico micénico" In: ''Conuentus Classicorum: temas y formas del Mundo Clásico''. Coord. por Jesús de la Villa, Emma Falque Rey, José Francisco González Castro, María José Muñoz Jiménez, Vol. 1, 2017, pp. 289-320.
*Morpurgo Davies, Anna, and Yves Duhoux, eds. 1985. ''Linear B: A 1984 survey.'' Louvain, Belgium: Peeters.
* ––––. 2008. ''A companion to Linear B: Mycenaean Greek texts and their world.'' Vol. 1. Louvain, Belgium: Peeters.
* Palaima, Thomas G. (1988) "The development of the Mycenaean writing system." In ''Texts, tablets and scribes.'' Edited by J. P. Olivier and T. G. Palaima, 269–342. Suplementos a “Minos” 10. Salamanca, Spain: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas.
* Palmer, Leonard R. (1980) ''The Greek language.'' London: Faber & Faber.
*
*
External links
Jeremy B. Rutter, "Bibliography: The Linear B Tablets and Mycenaean Social, Political, and Economic Organization"
(contains an image of the Kafkania pebble)
Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory (PASP)
Palaeolexicon
Word study tool of ancient languages
Studies in Mycenaean Inscriptions and Dialect, glossaries of individual Mycenaean terms, tablet, and series citations
an online collection of video lectures on Ancient Indo-European languages, including some information about Mycenaean Greek
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mycenaean Greek Language
Language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
Varieties of Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Languages of ancient Thessaly
Languages of ancient Crete
Languages attested from the 16th century BC
Languages extinct in the 12th century BC
tr:Miken Uygarlığı