Minoan language
language of Minoan culture
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 Minoan language is unknown and unclassified. With the existing evidence, it is even impossible to be certain that the two scripts record the same language.
The Eteocretan language, attested in a few alphabetic inscriptions from Crete 1,000 years later, is possibly a descendant of Minoan, but is also unclassified.
Minoan is mainly known from the inscriptions in Linear A, which are fairly legible on the assumption that many characters carried over into 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.
Classification
The Minoan language does not appear to be a close relative of any known language and it is not entirely certain that all Linear A texts are in the same language. Some scholars have explored potential parallels with Anatolian languages such as Luwian and Lycian, as well as with Semitic languages such as Phoenician and Ugaritic. However, even if these connections are not coincidental, it would be unclear whether Minoan is related to one of these languages or if the parallels arose through language contact.
Phonology
Although an approximate phoneme inventory for Minoan can be inferred from the Linear A sign inventory, the phonology of the language has been subject to debate, and one scholar refers to its reconstruction as "the thirteenth Labour of Herakles". In older work, Minoan was often regarded as having a three vowel system, since Linear A shares Linear B's /i/, /u/, and /a/ series, but not all of the /o/ and /e/ signs, and thus it does occur much less frequently.
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