Linear B

Linear B is a syllabic script that was used for writing in Mycenaean Greek, the earliest attested form of the Greek language. The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries, the earliest known examples dating to around 1450 BC. It is adapted from the earlier Linear A, an undeciphered script perhaps used for writing the Minoan language, as is the later Cypriot syllabary, which also recorded Greek. Linear B, found mainly in the palace archives at Knossos, Kydonia, Pylos, Thebes and Mycenae, disappeared with the fall of the Mycenaean civilization during the Late Bronze Age collapse. The succeeding period, known as the Greek Dark Ages, provides no evidence of the use of writing.
Linear B was deciphered in 1952 by English architect and self-taught linguist Michael Ventris based on the research of the American classicist Alice Kober. It is the only Bronze Age Aegean script to have been deciphered, with Linear A, Cypro-Minoan, and Cretan hieroglyphic remaining unreadable.
Linear B consists of around 87 syllabic signs and over 100 ideographic 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 texts appear to have been mostly confined to administrative contexts, mainly at Mycenaean palatial sites. In the handwriting of all the thousands of clay tablets, a relatively small number of scribes have been detected: 45 in Pylos and 66 in Knossos. The use of Linear B signs on trade objects like amphora was more widespread. Once the palaces were destroyed, the script disappeared.

Script

Linear B has roughly 200 signs, divided into syllabic signs with phonetic values and ideograms with semantic values. The representations and naming of these signs have been standardized by a series of international colloquia starting in Paris in 1956. After the third meeting in 1961 at the Wingspread Conference Center in Racine, Wisconsin, a standard proposed primarily by Emmett L. Bennett, Jr. became known as the Wingspread Convention, which was adopted by a new organization, the Comité International Permanent des Études Mycéniennes, affiliated in 1970 by the fifth colloquium with UNESCO. Colloquia continue: the 13th occurred in 2010 in Paris.
Many of the signs are identical or similar to those in Linear A; however, Linear A encodes an as yet unknown language, and it is uncertain whether similar signs had the same phonetic values.

Syllabic signs

The grid developed during decipherment by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick of phonetic values for syllabic signs is shown below.
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 number for the sign preceded by an asterisk. If the transcription of the sign remains uncertain, Bennett's number serves to identify the sign. 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.

Special and unknown signs

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. 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.
Other values remain unknown, mainly because of scarcity of evidence concerning them. Note that *34 and *35 are mirror images of each other, but whether this graphic relationship indicates a phonetic one remains unconfirmed.
CIPEM 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 CIPEM are always transcribed as numbers preceded by an asterisk. CIPEM also allocates the numerical identifiers, and until such allocation, new signs are transcribed as a bullet-point enclosed in square brackets: .

Spelling and pronunciation

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 monosyllabic 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.
Possible exceptions, Chadwick goes on to explain, include the two diphthongs, and , as in, ai-ku-pi-ti-jo, for Aiguptios and, au-ke-wa, for Augewās. However, a diphthong is by definition two vowels united into a single sound and therefore might be typed as just V. Thus , as in, e-rai-wo, for elaiwon, is of the type CV. Diphthongs are otherwise treated as two monosyllables:, a-ro-u-ra, for arourans, of the types CV and V. Lengths of vowels and accents are not marked.
, , , , and the more doubtful and may be regarded as beginning with labialized 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. Similarly, , and begin with palatalized consonants rather than two consonants: -ti-ri-ja for -trja.
The one sign Chadwick tags as the exception to the monosyllabic rule is , but this he attributes to a development pte<''*pje as in kleptei<*klep-jei.
Linear B does not consistently distinguish between voiced and unvoiced stop consonants or between aspirated and unaspirated stops, even though these distinctions are phonemic in Mycenaean Greek. For example, pa-te is patēr, pa-si is phāsi, ko-ru is korus, ka-ra-we is grāwes, ko-no is skhoinos, to-so is tosos, to-ra-ke is thōrākes. The exceptional d''-series for voiced dentals is illustrated by do-ra for dōra.
In some cases aspiration may be marked, but this is optional: pu-te for phutēr, but phu-te-re for phutēres. Initial /h/ may be marked only when followed by a, and only rarely: ha-te-ro for hateron, and yet a-ni-ja for hāniai.
The q-series is used for syllables beginning with labialized velar consonants, a class of consonants that disappeared from classical Greek by regular phonetic change. These consonants had various sources: inheritance from Proto-Indo-European, assimilation, borrowing of foreign words, especially names. In Mycenaean they are /kʷ/, /gʷ/, and rarely /kʷh/ in names and a few words: a-pi-qo-ro for amphiq^uoloi ; qo-u-ko-ro for g^uoukoloi ; qa-si-re-u for g^uasileus, -qo-i-ta for -φόντης.
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 ; a-te-mi-ti-jo for Ἀρτεμίτιος. The w-series similarly are semivowels used word-initially and intervocalically after a syllable ending in u: ku-wa-no for kuanos.
The r-series includes both the /r/ and /l/ phonemes: ti-ri-po for tripos and tu-ri-so for Tulisos.
Some consonants in some contexts are not written, such as word-initial s- and -w before a consonant, as in pe-ma for sperma. 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 anthrōq^uos. 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 , ψ and q^us, each consonant in the cluster is represented by a type CV sign that shares its consonant value: ko-no-so for Knōsos, or ku-ru-so for khrusos. The vowels of these signs have been called "empty", "null", "extra", "dead", "dummy" 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 that of the first syllable following the cluster or, if at the end of the word, preceding: ti-ri-po with ti- to match -ri-. A rare exception occurs in words formed from wa-na-ka, wanax : wa-na-ka-te for wanaktei, 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 Agios Vasileios in Laconia. The text reads wa-na-ko-to 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.