Linear B is a syllabic script that was used for writing Mycenaean Greek, the earliest attested form of Greek.&nbsp;The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries.

What is Linear B?

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<ul><li><a href="https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U10000.pdf">U+10000–U+1007F </a>Syllabary </li><li><a href="https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U10080.pdf">U+10080–U+100FF </a>Ideograms </li> </ul>

This article contains <a href="/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet">IPA </a>phonetic symbols.

This article contains <a href="/wiki/Linear_B_Syllabary">Linear B Unicode characters </a>.

Linear B is a <a href="/wiki/Syllabary">syllabic script </a>that was used for writing <a href="/wiki/Mycenaean_Greek">Mycenaean Greek </a>, the earliest <a href="/wiki/Attested_language">attested </a>form of <a href="/wiki/Greek_language">Greek </a>. The script predates the <a href="/wiki/Greek_alphabet">Greek alphabet </a>by several centuries. The oldest Mycenaean writing dates to about 1450 BC.<a href="#cite_note-1">[1] </a> It is descended from the older <a href="/wiki/Linear_A">Linear A </a>, an undeciphered earlier script used for writing the <a href="/wiki/Minoan_language">Minoan language </a>, as is the later <a href="/wiki/Cypriot_syllabary">Cypriot syllabary </a>, which also recorded Greek. Linear B, found mainly in the palace archives at <a href="/wiki/Knossos">Knossos </a>, <a href="/wiki/Kydonia">Cydonia </a>,<a href="#cite_note-2">[2] </a> <a href="/wiki/Pylos">Pylos </a>, <a href="/wiki/Thebes,_Greece">Thebes </a>and <a href="/wiki/Mycenae">Mycenae </a>,<a href="#cite_note-3">[3] </a> disappeared with the fall of <a href="/wiki/Mycenaean_Greece">Mycenaean </a>civilization during the <a href="/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse">Late Bronze Age collapse </a>. The succeeding period, known as the <a href="/wiki/Greek_Dark_Ages">Greek Dark Ages </a>, provides no evidence of the use of writing. It is also the only one of the Bronze Age Aegean scripts to have been deciphered, by English architect and self-taught linguist <a href="/wiki/Michael_Ventris">Michael Ventris </a>.<a href="#cite_note-4">[4] </a>

Linear B consists of around 87 syllabic signs and over 100 <a href="/wiki/Ideogram">ideographic </a>signs. These ideograms or "signifying" signs symbolize objects or commodities. They have no phonetic value and are never used as word signs in writing a sentence.

The application of Linear B appears to have been confined to administrative contexts. In all the thousands of clay tablets, a relatively small number of different "hands" have been detected: 45 in <a href="/wiki/Pylos">Pylos </a>(west coast of the <a href="/wiki/Peloponnese">Peloponnese </a>, in southern <a href="/wiki/Greece">Greece </a>) and 66 in <a href="/wiki/Knossos">Knossos </a>(<a href="/wiki/Crete">Crete </a>).<a href="#cite_note-5">[5] </a> It is possible that the script was used only by a guild of professional scribes who served the central palaces.[<a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed">citation needed </a> ] Once the palaces were destroyed, the script disappeared.<a href="#cite_note-6">[6] </a>

<ul><li><a href="#Script">1 Script </a><ul><li><a href="#Syllabic_signs">1.1 Syllabic signs </a> </li><li><a href="#Special_and_unknown_signs">1.2 Special and unknown signs </a> </li><li><a href="#Spelling_and_pronunciation">1.3 Spelling and pronunciation </a> </li><li><a href="#Ideograms">1.4 Ideograms </a> </li> </ul> </li><li><a href="#Archives">2 Archives </a><ul><li><a href="#Corpus">2.1 Corpus </a> </li><li><a href="#Chronology">2.2 Chronology </a><ul><li><a href="#Timeline_of_Bronze_Age_eastern_Mediterranean_scripts">2.2.1 Timeline of Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean scripts </a> </li><li><a href="#Timeline_of_Linear_B">2.2.2 Timeline of Linear B </a> </li><li><a href="#Controversy_on_the_date_of_the_Knossos_tablets">2.2.3 Controversy on the date of the Knossos tablets </a> </li> </ul> </li><li><a href="#Contents">2.3 Contents </a> </li> </ul> </li><li><a href="#Discovery_and_decipherment">3 Discovery and decipherment </a><ul><li><a href="#Arthur_J._Evans'_classification_of_scripts">3.1 Arthur J. Evans' classification of scripts </a> </li><li><a href="#Early_attempts">3.2 Early attempts </a> </li><li><a href="#Alice_Kober's_triplets">3.3 Alice Kober's triplets </a> </li><li><a href="#Emmett_L._Bennett's_transcription_conventions">3.4 Emmett L. Bennett's transcription conventions </a> </li><li><a href="#Michael_Ventris'_identification_as_Greek">3.5 Michael Ventris' identification as Greek </a> </li> </ul> </li><li><a href="#Unicode">4 Unicode </a> </li><li><a href="#See_also">5 See also </a> </li><li><a href="#Notes">6 Notes </a> </li><li><a href="#References">7 References </a><ul><li><a href="#Citations">7.1 Citations </a> </li><li><a href="#Sources">7.2 Sources </a> </li> </ul> </li><li><a href="#Further_reading">8 Further reading </a> </li><li><a href="#External_links">9 External links </a> </li> </ul>

Linear B has roughly 200 signs, divided into syllabic signs with <a href="/wiki/Phonetic">phonetic </a>values and <a href="/wiki/Ideogram">ideograms </a>with <a href="/wiki/Semantic">semantic </a>values. The representations and naming of these signs have been standardized by a series of international colloquia starting with the first in Paris in 1956. After the third meeting in 1961 at the Wingspread Conference Center in <a href="/wiki/Racine,_Wisconsin">Racine, Wisconsin </a>, a standard proposed primarily by <a href="/wiki/Emmett_L._Bennett,_Jr.">Emmett L. Bennett, Jr. </a>, became known as the Wingspread Convention, which was adopted by a new organization, the <a href="/wiki/Comit%C3%A9_International_Permanent_des_%C3%89tudes_Myc%C3%A9niennes">Comité International Permanent des Études Mycéniennes </a>(CIPEM), affiliated in 1970 by the fifth colloquium with <a href="/wiki/UNESCO">UNESCO </a>. Colloquia continue: the 13th occurred in 2010 in Paris.<a href="#cite_note-7">[7] </a>

Many of the signs are identical or similar to those in <a href="/wiki/Linear_A">Linear A </a>; however, Linear A encodes an as-yet unknown language, and it is uncertain whether similar signs had the same <a href="/wiki/Phonetic_value">phonetic values </a>.<a href="#cite_note-8">[8] </a>

The grid developed during decipherment by <a href="/wiki/Michael_Ventris">Michael Ventris </a>and <a href="/wiki/John_Chadwick">John Chadwick </a>of phonetic values for syllabic signs is shown below.<a href="#cite_note-9">[9] </a> (Note that "q" represents the labilized velar stops [ɡʷ, kʷ, kʷʰ], not a uvular stop of IPA.)

Initial consonants are in the leftmost column; vowels are in the top row beneath the title. The transcription of the syllable, which may not have been pronounced that way, is listed next to the sign along with Bennett's identifying <a href="/wiki/Number">number </a>for the sign preceded by an asterisk (as was Ventris' and Chadwick's convention).<a href="#cite_note-10">[note 1] </a> If the transcription of the sign remains uncertain, Bennett's number serves to identify the sign.<a href="#cite_note-11">[10] </a> The signs on the tablets and sealings often show considerable variation from each other and from the representations below. Discovery of the reasons for the variation and possible semantic differences is a topic of ongoing debate in Mycenaean studies.

In addition to the grid, the first edition of Documents in Mycenaean Greek contained a number of other signs termed "homophones" because they appeared at that time to resemble the sounds of other syllables and were transcribed accordingly: pa2 and pa3 were presumed homophonous to pa . Many of these were identified by the second edition and are shown in the "special values" below.<a href="#cite_note-VC385-13">[11] </a> The second edition relates: "It may be taken as axiomatic that there are no true homophones." The unconfirmed identifications of *34 and *35 as ai2 and ai3 were removed. pa2 became qa .<a href="#cite_note-14">[12] </a>

Other values remain unknown, mainly because of scarcity of evidence concerning them.<a href="#cite_note-VC385-13">[11] </a> <a href="#cite_note-15">[note 3] </a> Note that *34 and *35 are mirror images of each other but whether this graphic relationship indicates a phonetic one remains unconfirmed.

In recent times, <a href="/wiki/CIPEM">CIPEM </a>inherited the former authority of Bennett and the Wingspread Convention in deciding what signs are "confirmed" and how to officially represent the various sign categories. In editions of Mycenaean texts, the signs whose values have not been confirmed by <a href="/wiki/CIPEM">CIPEM </a>are always transcribed as numbers preceded by an asterisk (e.g., *64 ). CIPEM also allocates the numerical identifiers, and until such allocation, new signs (or obscured or mutilated signs) are transcribed as a bullet-point enclosed in square brackets: [•].

The signs are approximations since each may be used to represent a variety of about 70 distinct combinations of sounds within rules and conventions. The grid presents a system of <a href="/wiki/Syllable">monosyllabic </a>signs of the type V/CV. Clarification of the 14 or so special values tested the limits of the grid model, but Chadwick eventually concluded that even with the ramifications, the syllabic signs can unexceptionally be considered monosyllabic.<a href="#cite_note-16">[13] </a>

Possible exceptions, Chadwick goes on to explain, include the two <a href="/wiki/Diphthong">diphthongs </a>, 𐁁 (ai ) and 𐁂 (au ), as in 𐁁𐀓𐀠𐀴𐀍 , ai-ku-pi-ti-jo , for Aiguptios (Αἰγύπτιος , "Egyptian") and 𐁂𐀐𐀷 , au-ke-wa , for Augewās (Αὐγείας "<a href="/wiki/Augeas">Augeas </a>").<a href="#cite_note-17">[note 4] </a> However, a diphthong is by definition two vowels united into a single sound and therefore might be typed as just V. Thus 𐁉 (rai ), as in 𐀁𐁉𐀺 , e-rai-wo , for elaiwon (ἔλαιον ),<a href="#cite_note-18">[note 5] </a> is of the type CV. Diphthongs are otherwise treated as two monosyllables: 𐀀𐀫𐀄𐀨 , a-ro-u-ra , for arourans (accusative plural of ἄρουραι , "tamarisk trees"), of the types CV and V.<a href="#cite_note-19">[14] </a> Lengths of vowels and accents are not marked.

𐁌 (Twe ), 𐁍 (two ), 𐁃 (dwe ), 𐁄 (dwo ), 𐁅 (nwa ) and the more doubtful 𐁘 (swi ) and 𐁚 (swa ) may be regarded as beginning with <a href="/wiki/Labialization">labialized </a>consonants, rather than two consonants, even though they may alternate with a two-sign form: o-da-twe-ta and o-da-tu-we-ta for Odatwenta ; a-si-wi-jo and a-swi-jo for Aswios (Ἄσιος ). Similarly, 𐁈 (rya ), 𐁊 (ryo ) and 𐁋 (tya ) begin with <a href="/wiki/Palatalization_(sound_change)">palatalized </a>consonants rather than two consonants: -ti-ri-ja for -trja (-τρια ).

The one sign Chadwick tags as the exception to the monosyllabic rule is 𐁇 (pte ), but this he attributes to a development pte &lt;*pje as in kleptei &lt;*klep-jei .

Linear B does not consistently distinguish between <a href="/wiki/Voice_(phonetics)">voiced </a>and unvoiced <a href="/wiki/Stop_consonant">stop consonants </a>(except in the <a href="/wiki/Dental_consonant">dental series </a>) and between <a href="/wiki/Aspirated_consonant">aspirated </a>and unaspirated stops even when these distinctions are <a href="/wiki/Phoneme">phonemic </a>in Mycenaean Greek. For example,<a href="#cite_note-20">[15] </a> pa-te is patēr (πατήρ ), pa-si is phāsi (φησί );<a href="#cite_note-21">[note 6] </a> p on the other hand some times does not represent (like in the beginning of the following word) β: βασιλεύς ("<a href="/wiki/Basileus">basileus </a>", meaning in this period "court official or local chieftain") is qa-si-re-u <a href="#cite_note-22">[note 7] </a> ); ko-ru is korus (κόρυς , "helmet"), ka-ra-we is grāwes (plural of γρηύς ), ko-no is skhoinos ("rope"). Exceptionally, however, the dentals are represented by a t -series and a d -series for unvoiced and voiced: to-so for tosos (τόσος or τόσσος ) but do-ra for dōra (plural of δῶρον , "gift"). Aspiration, however, is not marked: to-ra-ke for thōrākes (plural of θώραξ , "breastplate"). In other cases aspiration can be marked but is optional: pu-te for phutēr ("planter", from φυτεύω ), but phu-te-re for phutēres ("planters"). Initial aspiration may be marked only in the case of initial a and rarely: ha-te-ro for hateron (masculine ἅτερος ),<a href="#cite_note-VC388-391-23">[16] </a> and yet a-ni-ja for hāniai (ἁνίαι ).

The j -series represents the semivowel equivalent to English "y", and is used word-initially and as an intervocalic glide after a syllable ending in i : -a-jo for -αῖος (-aios ); a-te-mi-ti-jo for Ἀρτεμίτιος (Artemitios ). The w -series similarly are semivowels used word-initially and intervocalically after a syllable ending in u : ku-wa-no for kuanos (κύανος , "blue").<a href="#cite_note-24">[17] </a>

The r -series includes both the /r/ and /l/ <a href="/wiki/Phoneme">phonemes </a>: ti-ri-po for tripos (τρίπος , i.e. τρίπους ) and tu-ri-so for Tulisos (Τυλισός ).

The q -series is used for monosyllables beginning with a class of consonants that disappeared from classical Greek by regular phonetic change: the <a href="/wiki/Labialized_velar_consonant">labialized velar consonants </a>(see under <a href="/wiki/Mycenaean_Greek">Mycenaean Greek </a>). These had entered the language from various sources: inheritance from <a href="/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_language">Proto-Indo-European </a>, assimilation, borrowing of foreign words, especially names. In Mycenaean they are /kʷ/, /gʷ/, and rarely /kʷh/ in names and a few words:<a href="#cite_note-25">[18] </a> a-pi-qo-ro for amphiqu oloi (ἀμφίπολοι ); qo-u-ko-ro for gu oukoloi (βουκόλοι . "cowherders"); -qo-i-ta for -φόντης .

Some consonants in some contexts are not written (but are understood to be present), such as word-initial s- and -w before a consonant, as in pe-ma for sperma (σπέρμα , "seed"). The pe- , which was primarily used as its value pe of grid class CV, is here being used for sper- . This was not an innovative or exceptional use, but followed the stated rules. Syllable-final -l , -m , -n , -r and -s are also not written out, and only word-final velars are notated by plene writing: a-to-ro-qo for anthrōqu os (ἄνθρωπος , "human being, person"). Here a , being primarily of grid class V, is being used as an- and could be used for al , am , ar , and so on.

In the case of clusters of two or three consonants that do not follow the initial s- and -w rule or the double consonants: ξ (ks or x ), ψ (ps ) and qu s (which later did not exist in classical Greek), each consonant in the cluster is represented by a type CV sign that shares its consonant value: ko-no-so for Knōsos ,<a href="#cite_note-26">[note 8] </a> or ku-ru-so for khrusos (χρυσός , "gold"). The vowels of these signs have been called "empty", "null", "extra", "dead" and other terms by various writers as they represent no sound. There were rules though, that governed the selection of the "empty" vowel and therefore determined which sign was to be used. The vowel had to be the same as the one of the first syllable following the cluster or, if at the end of the word, preceding: ti-ri-po with ti- (instead of ta- , te- and so on) to match -ri- . A rare exception occurs in words formed from wa-na-ka , wanax (ϝάναξ, Homeric and Classical ἄναξ): wa-na-ka-te for wanaktei (dative), and wa-na-ka-te-ro for wanakteros , the adjectival form. This exception may not have applied to all contexts, as an example of wa-na-ka that follows standard rules has emerged in Ayios Vasileios in <a href="/wiki/Laconia">Laconia </a>. The text reads wa-na-ko-to (genitive) and is written on a sealing nodule dating to the late 14th or early 13th century, slightly earlier than other Linear B texts found on mainland Greece.<a href="#cite_note-27">[19] </a>

Linear B also uses a large number of <a href="/wiki/Ideogram">ideograms </a>. They express:

<ul><li>The type of object concerned (e.g. a cow, wool, a spear) </li><li>A unit of measure. </li> </ul>

They have no phonetic value and are never used as word signs in writing a sentence, unlike <a href="/wiki/Japanese_kanji">Japanese kanji </a>. Ideograms are typically at the end of a line before a number and appear to signify to which object the number applies. Many of the values remain unknown or disputed. Some commodities such as cloth and containers are divided into many different categories represented by distinct ideograms. Livestock may be marked with respect to sex.

The numerical references for the ideograms were originally devised by Ventris and Bennett and divided into functional groups corresponding to the breakdown of Bennett's index. The groups are numbered beginning 100, 110, 120 etc., with some provision of spare numbers for future additions; the official CIPEM numberings used today are based on Ventris and Bennett's numbering, with the provision that three or four letter codes (written in small capitals), based on Latin words that seemed relevant at the time, are used where the meanings are known and agreed. Unicode (as of version 5.0) encodes 123 Linear B ideograms.

The ideograms are symbols, not pictures of the objects in question; for example, one tablet records a <a href="/wiki/Tripod">tripod </a>with missing legs, but the ideogram used is of a tripod with three legs. In modern transcriptions of Linear B tablets, it is typically convenient to represent an ideogram by its Latin or English name or by an abbreviation of the Latin name. Ventris and Chadwick generally used English; Bennett, Latin. Neither the English nor the Latin can be relied upon as an accurate name of the object; in fact, the identification of some of the more obscure objects is a matter of <a href="/wiki/Exegesis">exegesis </a>.<a href="#cite_note-28">[20] </a>

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