Minoan language
Spoken in
Aegean languages
- Minoan
The Minoan was a pre-Greek language of Crete, possibly belonged to the hypothetical Aegean languages. It was spoken by the Minoans and supposed ancestor of the eteokretischen language.
The Minoan is known mainly from the reasonably readable by the comparison with Linear B, but until now almost completely incomprehensible Linear A inscriptions or the ( largely unreadable ) Cretan hieroglyphic inscriptions in the first half of the 2nd millennium BC. In addition, an Egyptian papyrus ( Papyrus London 10059 ) and included an Egyptian writing board from the first half of the 2nd millennium BC, written in Egyptian group font name list and a mantra that has been drafted according to the label "in the language of Keftiu ". Researching the Minoan is not well advanced due to the shape of the obtained inscriptions, as most texts apparently represent lists; most likely for a grammatical analysis are short Libations or Dedikationsinschriften who have allowed at least to isolate several unsafe in their function suffixes. Also in the area of vocabulary is almost nothing known; the only determinable with certainty word is kuro " sum total" which initiates a sum at the end of lists.
It is unclear, to date, the classification of the Minoan in a particular language family, so it was brought from linguistic or archaeological reasons, among others, the Etruscan, Semitic, Hittite and Luwian in connection therewith; the poor grammatical and lexical knowledge allow far no unambiguous assignment. Previous attempts to larger parts of the vocabulary to exploit by comparison with a known language, are not recognized by the majority of researchers.