(continued from NE Luvian Update)
This posting updates the series started here by adding Luvian (also spelled Luwian, formerly Hieroglyphic Hittite) to the syllabic grid for the syllable NI originally published at 34 - The Syllable NI : Origins of Writing in Western Civilization and the Kaulins Minoan Aegean Sign Concordance (MinAegCon™): A Syllabic Grid of Mycenaean Greek Linear B Script, the Cypriot Syllabary, the Phaistos Disk, two Old Elamite Scripts, the Inscription on the Axe of Arkalochori, and Comparable Signs from Sumerian Pictographs and Egyptian Hieroglyphs.
If I have found no comparable Luvian syllable in mainstream sources, there is no update posting for that syllable. This applies particularly to syllables with the vowel "O", which predecessor Sumerian did not have (apparently also not in Luvian). Syllables with the vowel "E" are alleged by Luvian scholars not to have been used for Luvian, though I think otherwise. My research indicates that also Luvian had "consonant plus vowel E" (or similar sound) syllables and I include them if I have been able to identify them (provisionally, of course, subject to ultimate confirmation).
Each syllable will be presented in its own posting.
There is first a scanned image of a "syllabic" grid excerpt from the original Microsoft Word manuscript -- the links there are not clickable because it is one image.
The original text follows -- the links there are clickable -- but embedded fonts or images may be missing because Blogger does not pick them all up from Microsoft Word, so use the scanned image for those.
The Syllable NI plus Luvian in the Minoan Aegean Sign Concordance (by Andis Kaulins)
NI The common concept here is found in trees, blossoms, fruits. The Linear B sign is seen as a fig tree in Minoan agricultural texts. If Linear A has an Indo- is interesting that the syllabically similar means "fig tree". Wikipedia Fig leaf, Matson Photograph Collection, ca 1925-1946 | Cypriot syllabary � � NO Is it possible that some N- based values of the Cypriot syllabary need be exchanged to accord with this grid? The sign placement on this grid would be retained for all signs, regardless of syllabic value change. | Linear B � �(30) NI Fig tree in Minoan agricultural texts. Persian anjir "fig tree". __________ The Phaistos Disk flower sign right is most likely the (Grecian windflower) | Phaistos Disk � � NI anemone blanda Thumb of anemone photo at by Nino | No comparable Axe sign __________ Anemone-like blossoms on the tree of life in Mesopotamia From Uruk, Djemdet Nasr, Moortgat, 11, 67, The fig tree is the 3rd tree noted by name. 1st is the Tree of Life. 2nd is the Tree of Knowledge. Adam and Eve clothed in leaves of the fig tree. The fig was a food of the promised land. | Elamite NI Luvian NI3 "wood ?" X NU Sumerian ŋiš “wood” | Sumerian NIR “two trees” figs? Egyptian (M1) NEHI NHT sycamore fig (Pharaoh fig) R. Hannig, |
[1] Hubert La Marle, Linéaire A, la première écriture syllabique de Crète. Geuthner, Paris, 4 volumes, 1997–1999, 2006; Introduction au linéaire A. Geuthner, Paris, 2002; L'aventure de l'alphabet: les écritures cursives et linéaires du Proche-Orient et de l'Europe du sud-est à l'Âge du Bronze. Geuthner, Paris, 2002; Les racines du crétois ancien et leur morphologie: communication à l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, 2007. http://www.premiumwanadoo.com/crete-minos-linear.a/index.html. Diana Gainer writes at scienceblogs.com in a comment: "For a summary of this and other studies covering most of the world, you could always buy my book "The Human Journey" available on the Kindle electronic book (less than $10 now) on Amazon. There is also a recent study of genetic data of people on the island of Crete, which indicates that they are different from other Greeks. ("The origin of Cretan populations as determined by characterization of HLA alleles" in Tissue Antigens 1999 Mar. 53 (3):213-226). I am not an expert in the chemistry involved, but the conclusions are clear enough. Most of the Greek population originated after 2000 B.C., probably as Indo-European speakers. But most Cretan were there earlier, from before the Neolithic. They share a number of genes with Imazighen populations, Caucasoid Berbers who now live along the North African coast and in various parts of the Sahara desert. Some of these people, it is hypothesized, migrated northward as far as Crete between 8000 and 6000 B.C., when the Sahara-Sahel area first began to dry up (before that, it was very green and supported herds of animals, like modern sub-Saharan Africa, as a recent article in the journal Science demonstrated). They are thought to be related to the populations that became Sumerians (ancient southern Iraqis) and Iberians (ancient Spain and Portugal) also. The authors say that this is supported by linguistic data as well as genetic data, but I have my doubts about that part. So far as I know, Sumerian is an agglutinative language rather like modern Turkish, not known to be related to anything else. Linear A, the oldest type of writing found on Crete, has recently been deciphered by the Frenchman, Hubert la Marle, as a form of ancient Indo-Iranian, an Indo-European language very distantly related to Greek. The ancient Iberian language is thought to be ancestral to Basque, another isolate." See also Linear A deciphered? at Minerva's Owl.
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