[Cryptography] Linear B

Richard Outerbridge outer at interlog.com
Tue Jun 5 15:29:01 EDT 2018


From an expert friend.
__outer

> From: Laurel Bowman <laurelbowman at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: Fwd: [Cryptography] Linear B
> Date: June 5, 2018 (156) at 14:43:02 EDT
> To: Richard Outerbridge <outer at interlog.com>
> 
> It’s true that the Minoan language was not Greek; we don’t know what it was.  That’s what’s in Linear A.    Linear B is the Linear A syllabary adapted for use with a different language, i.e. Mycenaean Greek. Glad to see Alice Kober getting due credit.
> 
> As for “that’s not even Ancient Greek you ignorant assholes”,  “Classical” Greek is the 5th-4th century dialect, primarily Attic; there is also “Ionic” Greek (same period, written by Herodotus); “Archaic” Greek, in several dialects, written by e.g. Sappho; “Homeric” Greek, an art language composed of forms and vocabulary from several different dialects (mostly Ionic but lots of Aeolic and some others), and preserved from several time periods including Mycenaean, never actually spoken.  Every one of these including Mycenaean is lumped together as “ancient Greek”.  I can read Mycenaean (when it’s been transliterated from Linear B, which I can do slowly but I suck at it) from my knowledge of the other ancient dialects.
> 
> So my point is: Every one of these dialects is lumped together as “ancient Greek”.  What your interlocutor is identifying as the ONLY “ancient Greek” is in fact ATTIC Greek, a local dialect proper to Athens in the 5th century BCE.  
> 
> Later forms of Greek - Hellenistic Greek is transitional; koiné Greek was the lingua franca around the Mediterranean after around 1st cent. BCE and was the language in which the New Testament was written, so it would reach more people; and modern Greek - are not “ancient Greek”.  Everything 4th cent. BCE and before is “Ancient Greek.”
> 
> Also, far be it from me to tell cryptographers what their field is, but given that Ventris WAS a cryptographer, and used cryptographic techniques to break Linear B, it looks pretty damn cryptographic to me. 
> 
> Feel free to share.
> 
> 	
> Laurel Bowman
> Graduate Advisor
> Department of Greek and Roman Studies
> University of Victoria
> PO Box 1700 STN CSC
> Victoria BC
> Canada V8W 2Y2
> https://web.uvic.ca/~lbowman

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