What language do the Eteocretan inscriptions of Praisos and Dreros record?
Five answers, none aheadNone is ahead yet. See what would settle it.
Where it stands
Five answers have been proposed. None is ahead on the evidence yet. Five are still possible.
Why it matters
The Greek alphabet gives every Eteocretan letter its sound, but the six stones, about 420 letters, match no known language in a way that survives checking[1][2]. Anatolian, Northwest Semitic and Tyrrhenian identifications have each been proposed on a few word matches and none reads the whole corpus[3][4][5].
Answers 5
Next steps 3
1
From the site's transliteration CSV (DAT0DEDYM8KKQV6), build letter and bigram frequency tables for the Eteocretan lines and compare them with Greek, Lycian, Etruscan and Phoenician samples of equal length, with a shuffled-text null, to measure whether 420 letters can discriminate between candidate languages at all.
~6 h
—not judged
2
Measure whether 420 letters can discriminate between candidate languages using frequency tables and a shuffled null.
~6 h
—not judged
3
List every recurring Eteocretan sequence of three or more letters (inai, irer, -mit-, komn, phraiso-) with line positions across all six stones, and check each published Anatolian, Semitic and Tyrrhenian proposal against the full list rather than the words it chose.
~4 h
—not judged
Ranked by how likely each is to move the key question, for the time it takes
History
- Simon Davis: davis's 1961 Hittite-based reading of the Praisos and Psychro texts assigned meanings to isolated words without…Against: Eteocretan is an Anatolian language, related to Hittite, Luwian or Lycian.
- Cyrus H. Gordon: gordon read lmo in the Dreros bilingual as Semitic "for his mother", and Magnelli and Petrantoni's 2016 re-reading…For: Eteocretan is a Northwest Semitic language.
- Yves Duhoux: the Semitic matches are isolated words; the Eteocretan texts show none of the root-and-pattern inflection Semitic…Against: Eteocretan is a Northwest Semitic language.
- Yves Duhoux: duhoux's text-internal analysis finds a language that is neither Greek, Indo-European nor Semitic, and four decades of…For: Eteocretan is an isolate or lost-family language, probably Minoan's descendant
- Raymond A. Brown: brown and Facchetti point to a few endings and sound features shared between Eteocretan, Minoan and Etruscan or Lemnian.For: Eteocretan is Tyrrhenian, related to Etruscan and Lemnian
- Finkelberg: finkelberg argues that the pre-Greek language of Crete was Anatolian and close to Lycian, but the case rests on the…For: Eteocretan is an Anatolian language, related to Hittite, Luwian or Lycian.
- Raymond A. Brown: the Semitic matches are isolated words; the Eteocretan texts show none of the root-and-pattern inflection Semitic…Against: Eteocretan is a Northwest Semitic language.
- Margalit Finkelberg: finkelberg argues that the pre-Greek language of Crete was Anatolian and close to Lycian, but the case rests on the…For: Eteocretan is an Anatolian language, related to Hittite, Luwian or Lycian.
- Charalambos B. Kritzas: davis's 1961 Hittite-based reading of the Praisos and Psychro texts assigned meanings to isolated words without…Against: Eteocretan is an Anatolian language, related to Hittite, Luwian or Lycian.
- Adalberto Magnelli: gordon read lmo in the Dreros bilingual as Semitic "for his mother", and Magnelli and Petrantoni's 2016 re-reading…For: Eteocretan is a Northwest Semitic language.
- Salgarella: etruscologists including Rix and De Simone judge the shared features too few to show relationship, and the Minoan side…Against: Eteocretan is Tyrrhenian, related to Etruscan and Lemnian
- Jasmine Zitelli: duhoux's text-internal analysis finds a language that is neither Greek, Indo-European nor Semitic, and four decades of…For: Eteocretan is an isolate or lost-family language, probably Minoan's descendant
- Session 1: raised the question, proposed five answers and found seven results bearing on its answers