Eteocretan language

Eteocretan (ˌiːtioʊˈkriːtən,_ˌɛt- from 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 ancient Crete. In eastern Crete, about half a dozen inscriptions have been found, which, though written in Greek alphabets, 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 preserved in the Linear A inscriptions of a millennium earlier. Since that language remains undeciphered, it is not certain that Eteocretan and Minoan are related, although this is very likely. Ancient testimony suggests that the language is that of the Eteocretans '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". Odysseus, 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 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); the others were found at Dreros (modern Driros). There are five inscriptions which are clearly Eteocretan, two of them bilingual with Greek. Three more fragments may be Eteocretan. The Eteocretan corpus is documented and discussed in Duhoux's L'Étéocrétois: les textes—la langue.

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Related concepts (6)

Tyrsenian languages

Tyrsenian (also Tyrrhenian or Common Tyrrhenic), named after the Tyrrhenians (Ancient Greek, Ionic: Τυρσηνοί Tyrsenoi), is a proposed extinct family of closely related ancient languages put forward by linguist Helmut Rix (1998), which consists of the Etruscan language of northern, central and south-western Italy, and eastern Corsica (France); the Raetic language of the Alps, named after the Rhaetian people; and the Lemnian language of the Aegean Sea.

Paleo-European languages

The Paleo-European languages, or Old European languages, are the mostly unknown languages that were spoken in Europe prior to the spread of the Indo-European and Uralic families caused by the Bronze Age invasion from the Eurasian steppe of pastoralists whose descendant languages dominate the continent today. Today, the vast majority of European populations speak Indo-European languages, but until the Bronze Age, it was the opposite, with Paleo-European languages of non-Indo-European affiliation dominating the linguistic landscape of Europe.

Lemnian language

The Lemnian language was spoken on the island of Lemnos, Greece, in the second half of the 6th century BC. It is mainly attested by an inscription found on a funerary stele, termed the Lemnos stele, discovered in 1885 near Kaminia. Fragments of inscriptions on local pottery show that it was spoken there by a community. In 2009, a newly discovered inscription was reported from the site of Hephaistia, the principal ancient city of Lemnos. Lemnian is largely accepted as being a Tyrsenian language, and as such related to Etruscan and Raetic.