Mycenaean Greek

Mycenaean Greek is the most ancient attested form of the Greek language, on the Greek mainland and Crete in Mycenaean Greece (16th to 12th centuries BC), before the hypothesised Dorian invasion, often cited as the terminus ad quem 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, in central Crete, as well as in Pylos, in the southwest of the Peloponnese. Other tablets have been found at Mycenae itself, Tiryns and Thebes and at Chania, 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, 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 gleaned from these records about the people who produced them and about Mycenaean Greece, the period before the so-called Greek Dark Ages.

Orthography


The Mycenaean language is preserved in Linear B writing, which consists of about 200 syllabic characters and ideograms. Since Linear B was derived from Linear A, the script of an undeciphered Minoan language, the sounds of Mycenaean are not fully represented. A limited number of syllabic characters must represent a much greater number of syllables used in spoken speech: in particular, the Linear B script only fully represents open syllables (those ending in vowel sounds), where Mycenaean Greek frequently used closed syllables (those ending in consonants).

Orthographic simplifications therefore had to be made: Certain characters can be used alternately: for example, 𐀀, a, can always be written wherever 𐁀, a2, can. However, these are not true homophones (characters with the same sound) because the correspondence does not necessarily work both ways: 𐁀, a2 cannot necessarily be used in place of 𐀀, a. For that reason, they are referred to as 'overlapping values': signs such as 𐁀, a2 are interpreted as special cases or 'restricted applications' of signs such as 𐀀, a, and their use as largely a matter of an individual scribe's preference.
 * Contrasts of voice and aspiration were not marked for any consonants except the dentals d, t. For example, 𐀁𐀒, may be either  ("I") or  ("I have").
 * r and l are not distinguished: 𐀣𐀯𐀩𐀄, is  (classical βασιλεύς  "king").
 * The rough breathing is generally not indicated: 𐀀𐀛𐀊,  is  ("reins"). However, 𐁀, a2  is optionally used to indicate ha at word beginning.
 * The consonants l, m, n, r, s are omitted at the end of a syllable or before another consonant (including word-initial s before a consonant): 𐀞𐀲, is  ("all"); 𐀏𐀒,  is  ("copper"), 𐀲𐀵𐀗,  is σταθμός  ("station, outpost").
 * Double consonants are not represented: 𐀒𐀜𐀰, is  (classical Knossos).
 * Other consonant clusters are dissolved orthographically, creating apparent vowels: 𐀡𐀵𐀪𐀚, is ptolin (πόλιν  or πτόλιν ptólin, "city" accusative case ).
 * Length of vowels is not marked.

Phonology


Mycenaean preserves some archaic Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Greek features not present in later ancient Greek:


 * labialized velar consonants, written $⟨q⟩$. In other ancient Greek varieties, labialized velars were replaced with labials , dentals , or velars , depending on the context and the dialect. For example, 𐀦𐀄𐀒𐀫, is  (classical βουκόλοι , "cowherds").


 * The semivowels . Both were lost in standard Attic Greek, although was preserved in some Greek dialects and written as digamma $⟨ϝ⟩$ or beta $⟨β⟩$.


 * The glottal fricative between vowels.

The consonant usually transcribed z probably represents *dy, initial *y, *ky, *gy. It is uncertain how it was pronounced. It may have represented a pair of voiceless and voiced affricates and  (marked with asterisks in the table above):  deriving from Pre-Greek clusters of a voiceless or voiceless aspirated velar stop + *y (*ky, *kʰy, *kʷy, kʷʰy) and corresponding to -ττ- or -σσ- in Greek varieties written in the Greek alphabet, and   deriving from Pre-Greek clusters of a voiced dental or velar stop + *y (*dy, *gy, *ɡʷy), or in certain instances from word-initial *y, and corresponding to ζ in the Greek alphabet.

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 semivowels $⟨j w⟩$; the sonorants $⟨m n r⟩$; the sibilant $⟨s⟩$; the stops $⟨p t d k q z⟩$; and (marginally) $⟨h⟩$. Voiced, voiceless and aspirate occlusives are all written with the same symbols except that $⟨d⟩$ stands for and $⟨t⟩$ for both  and ). Both  and  are written $⟨r⟩$;  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 for 7 cases: nominative, genitive, accusative, dative, vocative, instrumental and locative; 3 genders: masculine, feminine, neuter; and 3 numbers: singular, dual, plural. The last two cases had merged with other cases by Classical Greek. In Modern Greek, only nominative, accusative, genitive and vocative remain as separate cases with their own morphological markings. Adjectives agree with nouns in case, gender, and number.

Verbs probably conjugate for 3 tenses: past, present, future; 3 aspects: perfect, perfective, imperfective; 3 numbers: singular, dual, plural; 4 moods: indicative, imperative, subjunctive, optative; 3 voices: active, middle, passive; 3 persons: first, second, third; infinitives, and verbal adjectives.

The verbal augment is almost entirely absent from Mycenaean Greek with only one known exception, 𐀀𐀟𐀈𐀐, a-pe-do-ke (PY Fr 1184), but even that appears elsewhere without the augment, as 𐀀𐀢𐀈𐀐, a-pu-do-ke (KN Od 681). The augment is sometimes omitted in Homer.

Greek features
Mycenaean had already undergone the following sound changes particular 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).

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, *gʷasiléus (later Greek: βασιλεύς, basiléus, "king")
 * , ka-ko, *kʰalkós (later Greek: χαλκός, chalkos, "bronze")
 * Greek forms of words known in other languages:
 * , wa-na-ka, *wánaks (later Greek: ἄναξ, ánax, "overlord, king, leader")
 * , wa-na-sa, *wánassa (later Greek: ἄνασσα, ánassa, "queen")
 * , e-ra-wo or, e-rai-wo, *élaiwon (later Greek: ἔλαιον, élaion, "olive oil")
 * , te-o, *tʰehós (later Greek: θεός, theos, "god")
 * , ti-ri-po, *tripos (later Greek: τρίπους, tripous, "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 (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.

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 and Yves Duhoux 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 is believed to be rather close to Mycenaean Greek. Arcadocypriot was an ancient Greek dialect spoken in Arcadia (central Peloponnese), and in Cyprus.

Ancient Pamphylian also shows some similarity to Arcadocypriot and to Mycenaean Greek.