The Minoan language is the language (or languages) of the ancient Minoan civilization of

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, Cypru ...

written in the

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. , ...

and later in the

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 ...

syllabary. As the Cretan hieroglyphs are undeciphered and Linear A only partly deciphered, the Minoan language is unknown and unclassified: indeed, with the existing evidence, it is impossible to be certain that the two scripts record the same language. The

Eteocretan language Eteocretan ( from grc-gre, Ἐτεόκρητες, Eteókrētes, lit. "true Cretans", itself composed from ἐτεός ''eteós'' "true" and Κρής ''Krḗs'' "Cretan") is the pre-Greek language attested in a few alphabetic inscriptions of anc ...

, attested in a few alphabetic inscriptions from Crete 1,000 years later, is possibly a descendant of Minoan, but is also unclassified.

Tradition

Minoan is mainly known from the inscriptions in Linear A, which are fairly legible by comparison with Linear B. The Cretan hieroglyphs are dated from the first half of the 2nd millennium BC. The Linear A texts, mostly written in clay tablets, are spread all over Crete with more than 40 localities on the island.

The Egyptian texts

From the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt there are four texts containing names and sayings in the Keftiu language ( de). They are, as usual in non-Egyptian texts, written in Egyptian hieroglyphs, which have allowed the pronunciation of those names and sayings to be reconstructed. *Magic Papyrus Harris ( Harris XII, 1–5); Beg. 18th Dynasty: a saying in the Keftiu language *Writing board (B.M. 5647); early 18th Dynasty: school blackboard with Keftiu name *

London Medical Papyrus The London Medical Papyrus is an ancient Egyptian papyrus in the British Museum, London, England. The writings of this papyrus are of 61 recipes, of which 25 are classified as medical while the remainder are of magic. The medical subjects of the