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What language does Linear A record?

Asked 26 Oct 2026 by ·6 answers·0·0 following
Six answers, none aheadNone is ahead yet. See what would settle it.

Where it stands

Six answers have been proposed. None is ahead on the evidence yet. Six are still possible. Of the two narrower questions under it, none is answered yet.

Why it matters

Everything else depends on this. The signs can be pronounced with fair confidence because most are shared with Linear B, but the words that result match no known language in a way that survives checking, so the texts cannot be read⁠[1]⁠[2].

Answers 6

Evidence: 1 for, 1 against
Disputed
Linear A records a Northwest Semitic language.
Tested, but the results don't decide it
Evidence: 1 for, 1 against
Disputed
Evidence: 2 against
Disputed
Evidence: 2 for
Still possible
Evidence: 1 for, 2 against
Disputed
None of these.
Not tested enough to call either way
Evidence: none yet
Still possible
Show 1 more answer

History

  1. Palmer puts forward: linear A records an Anatolian language of the Luwian or Lycian branch.
  2. Palmer: palmer's 1958 word matches did not generalise to the corpus and were not adopted.Against: Linear A records an Anatolian language of the Luwian or Lycian branch.
  3. Nagy puts forward: linear A records Greek or another Indo-European language ancestral to or close to Greek.
  4. Nagy: some Linear A words and endings look Greek when read with Linear B values.For: Linear A records Greek or another Indo-European language ancestral to or close to Greek.
  5. Gordon puts forward: linear A records a Northwest Semitic language.
  6. Gordon: ku-ro, which precedes totals, resembles Semitic kull "all".For: Linear A records a Northwest Semitic language.
  7. Revesz puts forward: linear A records a Uralic language related to Hungarian.
  8. Davis: linear A and the Phaistos Disc appear to encode the same language, which widens the material slightly but…For: Linear A records a language with no other written record (an isolate or a lost family), so no dictionary…
  9. Salgarella puts forward: linear A records a language with no other written record (an isolate or a lost family), so no dictionary…
  10. Salgarella: six decades of comparison with Anatolian, Semitic, Greek and other languages have produced no reading…For: Linear A records a language with no other written record (an isolate or a lost family), so no dictionary…
  11. Nepal & Perono Cacciafoco: a 2024 consonant-skeleton search against Luwian and Hittite dictionaries found only scattered matches judged…Against: Linear A records an Anatolian language of the Luwian or Lycian branch.
  12. Nepal & Perono Cacciafoco: the claim rests on a feature-based sign similarity measure and selected readings and has not been accepted by…Against: Linear A records a Uralic language related to Hungarian.
  13. Asked on this site
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