Did Pelasgians speak Proto-Kartvelian?

[arvistro]

Decided this needed a post of its own. Quote below taken from user Garrick.

If this decipherment is legit, then Pelasgian question is solved. Or is not it?

Researchers reconstructed language Phaistos disk as Colchian Kartvelian/Caucasian!

Prof. Nana Shengelaila

On Decipherment of the Phaistos Disk and Linear A Inscriptions in Colchian Language by Gia Kvashilava

http://www.academia.edu/2545249/Pro...ptions_in_Colchian_Language_by_Gia_Kvashilava

The overview of the data of the ancient population of the Peloponnese (Pelasgia), Asia Minor, Aegean islands before the Indo-European migrations show that indigenous inhabitants of this area were of non-Indo-European and non-Semitic origin. According to some researchers (P. Kretschmer, F. Schachermeyr, J. Chadwick, E. J. Furnée, Th. V. Gamkrelidze, V. V. Ivanov and others) they were Proto-Kartvelian tribes whose language formed an influential substratum for the Greek dialect after the invasion of the Greek tribes of the Peloponnese and Eagean islands.

Besides, the analysis of archaeological, ethnological, historical, linguistic and biological material, the typological study of graphical qualities of Linear A granted well-grounded Linear A inscriptions in the Colchian language.

 

[RobertColumbia]

One of the first things that I noticed was that the article was written by a Georgian organization, the "Centre for the [sic] Colchian-Iberian Ethno-Cultural Scientific Research". This could indicate a potentially serious nationalistic bias. There is also little explanation of the mechanics of how the translation was done - at a minimum I would have hoped to see some character analysis and an interlinear translation. The article mentions that the translation was "carried out by Dr. Gia Kvashilava on the basis of the phonological values of Linear B, which is an identical script to Linear A, and consistent with the principles of his algorithm applied to the whole stock of Linear A texts." (p.6), but no explanation of how this conclusion was made was given, not even a mention of whether they were translating an alphabetic text, syllabic text, or logographic text.

It's an interesting hypothesis, but I wouldn't start closing the books quite yet.

 

[Taranis]

One of the first things that I noticed was that the article was written by a Georgian organization, the "Centre for the [sic] Colchian-Iberian Ethno-Cultural Scientific Research". This could indicate a potentially serious nationalistic bias. There is also little explanation of the mechanics of how the translation was done - at a minimum I would have hoped to see some character analysis and an interlinear translation. The article mentions that the translation was "carried out by Dr. Gia Kvashilava on the basis of the phonological values of Linear B, which is an identical script to Linear A, and consistent with the principles of his algorithm applied to the whole stock of Linear A texts." (p.6), but no explanation of how this conclusion was made was given, not even a mention of whether they were translating an alphabetic text, syllabic text, or logographic text.

It's an interesting hypothesis, but I wouldn't start closing the books quite yet.

I largely agree with the points that RobertColumbia brought up above (especially the lack of methodology and the dubious affiliation). In addition to that, Linear B (if its to be used as a template for reading Linear A) is quite unsuitable for writing a Kartvelic language (or Mycenaean Greek, for that matter). Notably, the script doesn't distinguish between *l and *r (which both modern Georgian and reconstructed Proto-Kartvelic do).

As regards the term "Pelasgian", it has been misused in a lot of ways, which ultimately has harmed the research into the field. Notably the claim by Johann Georg von Hahn (a 19th century diplomat) that Pelasgian was an early form of Albanian. In my opinion, the "safe" usage of Pelasgian would be any kind of pre-Greek language in the Aegaean region. By that definition, it becomes very clear that there probably wasn't "one" Pelasgian language, but at least several "Pelasgian" languages:

- Lemnian, a relative of Etruscan, on Lemnos.
- Minoan (the language of Linear A, also perhaps of the Phaistos disk), and its presumed descendant from the later period, Eteocretan.
- Possibly other languages (notably Semitic, at least based on Greek loanwords).

 

[arvistro]

I think they provided source to methodoligy within article.

 

[Taranis]

I think they provided source to methodoligy within article.

The article does not provide the phonological values of the Phaistos symbols, it does not provide a transliterated rendering of the supposed "proto-kartvelic" text, it only provides an English translation. That should give you pause.

 

[RobertColumbia]

...In addition to that, Linear B (if its to be used as a template for reading Linear A) is quite unsuitable for writing a Kartvelic language (or Mycenaean Greek, for that matter). Notably, the script doesn't distinguish between *l and *r (which both modern Georgian and reconstructed Proto-Kartvelic do)....

Yes, whether or not Linear A represents fundamentally the same writing system as Linear B is not clear at this point. There is precedent for superficially-similar writing systems that have very few structural similarities - the Cherokee syllabary as designed by Sequoyah bears a superficial similarity to the Roman alphabet because many of the characters were inspired by looking at English-language documents, but its structure and phonology is almost entirely unlike European alphabetic scripts. Imagine if a person who spoke and read Cherokee but had no knowledge of English or European writing systems came upon an English-language book. What might they think? They might conclude that the (to them) incomprehensible Cherokee-like scribbles were an attempt to write a non-Cherokee language in a proto-Cherokee script and thus embark on a quest to attempt to "read" the document by mapping what they see to the closest Cherokee characters that they know. The result would be incomprehensible jibberish - a non-Cherokee, non-English string of seemingly random sounds.

 

[Taranis]

Yes, whether or not Linear A represents fundamentally the same writing system as Linear B is not clear at this point. There is precedent for superficially-similar writing systems that have very few structural similarities - the Cherokee syllabary as designed by Sequoyah bears a superficial similarity to the Roman alphabet because many of the characters were inspired by looking at English-language documents, but its structure and phonology is almost entirely unlike European alphabetic scripts. Imagine if a person who spoke and read Cherokee but had no knowledge of English or European writing systems came upon an English-language book. What might they think? They might conclude that the (to them) incomprehensible Cherokee-like scribbles were an attempt to write a non-Cherokee language in a proto-Cherokee script and thus embark on a quest to attempt to "read" the document by mapping what they see to the closest Cherokee characters that they know. The result would be incomprehensible jibberish - a non-Cherokee, non-English string of seemingly random sounds.

I won't disagree with that analysis. Like I said, "if we use Linear B as a template for reading Linear A". But with regard for the Cherokee script, I would like to point out that Sequoyah's Cherokee script was developed explicitly with having the phonetics of the Cherokee language in mind (as a syllabary, the Cherokee script lacks a series for /b/ or /p/, for example, since Cherokee has neither phonemes!), while Linear B was quite unsuitable for writing Greek.