Pre-Greek: The misplaced tongue hidden inside Ancient Greek

Around 1,000 Greek words can’t be traced to any Indo-European language. Where do they arrive from?

Ἦσαν οἱ Πελασγοὶ βάρβαρον γλῶσσαν ἱέντες.
Êsan hoi Pelasgoì bárbaron glôssan híentes.
‘The Pelasgians said a tongue which was not Greek.’

~ Herodotus (Histories 1.57)

There are concerning 1,000 words in Ancient Greek that can’t be traced rear to any Indo-European tongue or any another known tongue in the region. These lexical enigmas equal contain several words and names you power think of as quintessentially Greek:

• λαβύρινθος (labýrinthos) ‘labyrinth’
• ἐλαία (elaía) ‘olive (tree)’
• Ἀχιλλεύς (Akhilleús) ‘Achilles’
• Ὀδυσσεύς (Odysseús) ‘Odysseus’
• Κόρινθος (Kórinthos) ‘Corinth’
• Ἀθῆναι (Athênai) ‘Athens’ / Ἀθήνη (Athḗnē) ‘Athena’ (goddess of wisdom)
• Ἄρης (Árēs) ‘Ares’ (god of war)

Despite centuries of effort, linguists have not been capable to trace these words rear to Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the genitor tongue from which all the another Indo-European (IE) languages descend. Nor have they identified words in neighboring languages that Greek power have borrowed them from.

Where, then, do these words arrive from? In this matter of the Linguistic Discovery newsletter, we’ll dig through layers of linguistic former to disclose the mystery tongue that influenced Ancient Greek.

Paleo-European / Old European Languages

All languages merge a fossil document of their history.

While Indo-European languages have been about for a lengthy time, and Greek has likewise been spoken in Greece for multiple millennia, Indo-European languages haven’t always blanketed the bulk of Europe akin they do today. At one item the Indo-Europeans were pastoralist newcomers to a different land, one that had been occupied by Neolithic agriculture societies for millennia.

The peoples who preceded the Indo-Europeans—called Early European Farmers—spoke any figure of Paleo-European (a.k.a. Old European) languages. Very few of these remaining any written evidence (just Aquitanian, Etruscan, Iberian, and a fistful of others), and lone one survives today (Basque). Even so, these Old European languages remaining an indelible grade on the Indo-European languages that succeeded them.

Imagine you’re a collection of first Hellenic (Greek) speakers whose ancestors had migrated complete generations from the Pontic–Caspian Steppe into the east Mediterranean. Along the way, those ancestors encountered all sorts of novel foods, plants, animals, and terrain—things akin olives, hyacinth, figs, and cypresses. Even the sea was unfamiliar at one point, migrating as your ancestors did from a landlocked steppe. What do you call all these things?

One choice is to enlist existing vocabulary for new purposes. For example, whenever the Greeks archetypal described hippopotamuses in the mid-5th hundred years BCE, they cleverly called them ‘river horses’ (ἵππος ὁ ποτάμιος [híppos ho potámios] ‘the equine of the river’ [lit. ‘the riverine horse’]; Herodotus, Histories 2.71, c. 440s BCE). This afterward gave increase to the compound ἱπποπόταμος (hippopótamos) ‘hippopotamus’ (Dioscorides, De materia medica 2.25, c. 50–70 CE). The Greeks equal applied this scheme to the sea! One of the words the Ancient Greeks used for ‘sea’ was πόντος (póntos), which comes from PIE *póntoh₁s ‘path; road’. Every another branch of Indo-European kept the first ‘path/way’ definition (e.g. Latin pōns ~ pontis ‘bridge’, from which English gets pontiff and pontificate), but Greek extended it to average ‘sea’, apparently in the awareness of ‘the water-way; the sea-crossing’. Another Ancient Greek term used poetically to mention to the ‘sea’ was ἅλς (háls), whose chief definition was really ‘salt’. The sea, then, was ‘the salt’.

This scheme of coining new conditions for novel experiences was, however, the smaller group one. Why invent new words for things the local Paleo-Europeans already had names for? Why not merely clasp the local name? That’s exactly what Indo-Europeans did as they settled throughout the continent, casually borrowing hundreds of words for plants, animals, types of terrain, places, and another natural phenomena. Thus it’s no astonishment that the primary Greek term for ‘sea’ is really θάλασσα (thálassa → English thalassocracy ‘rule of the sea’, used for maritime empires), which, dissimilar póntos and háls, has no resolute Indo-European etymology. Linguists have lengthy tried to nexus this term to Indo-European, but no recommendation has won broad acceptance. This is exactly what we’d expect: since the Proto-Indo-European tongue arose in the landlocked steppes, it had no need for—and has no securely reconstructable term for—‘sea’. (Linguists have, however, reconstructed conditions for snow, cold, wolves, bears, and honey—all accordant alongside the temperate, continental interior.) Its female branches lone acquired sea vocabulary later. As they reached the coasts, all tongue innovated or borrowed its own term for ‘sea’: English sea, Latin mare, Greek thálassa, etc.

The identical procedure happened for all the another items I mentioned earlier:

• olive: ἐλαία (elaía) ‘olive (tree)’: A extremely first borrowing which existed in Proto-Hellenic as *elaíwā and Mycenaean Greek (in Linear B) as 𐀁𐀨𐀷 (e‑ra‑wa), but has no apparent Indo-European etymology. This identical Pre-Greek term was additionally the origin of the Etruscan term *𐌄𐌋𐌄𐌉𐌅𐌀 (*eleiva) ‘olive’, anywhere it was borrowed by the Romans as olīva (the origin of the English words olive and oil).
• hyacinth: ὑάκινθος (hyákinthos) ‘hyacinth’: Again, no apparent Indo-European etymology exists. English borrowed the term hyacinth from Greek. Hyacinthus was likely a Pre-Greek god who was superseded by Apollo, and was portrayed as his beloved in Greek mythology.
• fig: Greek borrowed multiple words for ‘fig’, including ἐρῑνεός (erīneós) ‘wild fig-tree’, ὄλυνθος (ólynthos) ‘wild fig’, and σῦκον (sŷkon) ‘fig’. These too have no Indo-European precedent.
• cypress: Appears in Mycenaean Greek (in Linear B) as 𐀒𐀠𐀫 (ku‑pa‑ro) and Ancient Greek as κυπάρισσος (kypárissos). Lacks an Indo-European etymology. English borrowed the term cypress from Greek.

Because the Proto-Indo-Europeans lived exterior the native range of these plants, their tongue lacked words for them. They lone borrowed the words upon arriving in the east Mediterranean. Speakers coin or get new words as they need them, and immigration events frequently trigger specified a need, leaving a trace of that immigration in the language’s lexicon (and grammar, but that’s a item for another article). In this way, all languages merge a fossil document of their history. They are a catalog of what the community lacked whenever they arrived in an area or came into communication alongside new peoples. In this article, we’ll use that linguistic fossil document to detect what the tongue that existed in the Aegean previous to the Greeks—which we’ll call Pre-Greek—was like.

Substrates, Superstrates, & Adstrates

Migration is fair one part of the puzzle, however. When one tongue disappears and leaves lone traces of beingness in another languages in the region, this is typically the outcome of social stratification: one additional socially foremost community (militarily, economically, technologically, politically, etc.) imposes its tongue on another small foremost one. Linguists mention to this circumstance as linguistic stratification: the socially foremost tongue is called the superstrate language, during the small foremost assortment is called the substrate language. This metaphor likens languages and community movements to geological strata, anywhere all new community to act an area adds another tier to the linguistic former of the region.

In the way of linguistic stratification, the two languages naturally power one another, but the substrate tongue is frequently misplaced entirely, leaving lone traces inside the superstrate language. So whenever we have indirect evidence of a historically unidentified tongue that influenced a historically known language—like the way the Pre-Greeks influenced Ancient Greek—we are normally looking at a case of linguistic stratification. Indeed, the first Greeks, and particularly the Mycenaeans (c. 1750–1050 BCE), are connected alongside important advances in innovation (including writing), economy, and social institution in the Aegean. Another example of linguistic strata can be seen in the diversification of Latin into its descendant Romance languages (Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian, and multiple dozen others). While the control of Roman civilization gradually erased many of the local languages of Europe and the Mediterranean, all of those local languages nonetheless influenced the Latin spoken in their corresponding regions. Over time, those assorted flavors of Latin became distinct languages.

One another category of linguistic “stratum” (which breaks the geological layering metaphor somewhat) is an adstrate language—a tongue which influences a neighboring population. Like substrates, this frequently happens in cases of social stratification, anywhere the adstrate community is considered socially better or foremost to the surrounding communities (but it can additionally happen because of uncomplicated geographic proximity). Due to the traditional control of the Roman Empire throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, for instance, Latin functioned as an adstrate tongue for many of the languages that sat throughout the līmes (the Roman frontier). Even although the Germanic-speaking territories east of the Rhine and north of the Danube never cut under Roman administration, centuries of trade, armed forces contact, and traditional prestige motionless remaining a tier of adstrate borrowings in Proto-Germanic:

In this article, we’ll be hunting for the two a substrate and an adstrate that influenced Ancient Greek.

How to acknowledge borrowed words

Any stated part of linguistic evidence can appearance fairly susceptible on its own; it is lone in the environment of broader patterns that specified evidence becomes convincing.

At this item you power fairly be asking, “How do we know that several substrate tongue influenced Ancient Greek? How do we know that the mystery words were borrowed? Can’t they fair be random exceptions?” This exact issue has vexed historic linguists operating on the Pre-Greek issue for complete a century. Nonetheless, we not lone have fine reasons for thinking a term power be borrowed, but we can equal be extremely certain whenever a term can’t arrive from Indo-European. Sometimes, the answer is apparent since there’s a akin term alongside a apparent etymology sitting correct in a nearby language. The Ancient Greek term ἔβενος (ébenos) ‘ebony’, for example, has no Indo-European etymology, but fair throughout the Mediterranean Sea was the Egyptian term 𓍁 𓈖 𓏭 𓆱 hb‑n‑j‑WOOD (hebni) ‘ebony’, and we cognize that the Ancient Greeks traded extensively alongside the Egyptians. But the evidence for a loanword is frequently additional subtle. Below are several of the distinct types of evidence (or non-evidence) linguists use to decide which words are borrowed (in Ancient Greek in particular). As a fun bonus, at the end of this part I’ve additionally provided a big catalog of words in English that are idea to ultimately get from a Pre-Greek language.

Words which deficiency an Indo-European etymology

The site of linguistics continues to refine Indo-European etymologies, either via newly-discovered tablets and inscriptions, or improved preparedness of existing data in the form of etymological dictionaries and online databases, allowing them to bring additional (and additional accurate) data to withstand on Indo-European history. Despite these advances, the mystery words of Ancient Greek have resolutely resisted etymologization. If the figure of possible non–Indo-European mystery words were gradually decreasing alongside all new finding or advance, the deficiency of an Indo-European etymology power not average anything. It’d be reasonable, in that case, to perspective them as a impermanent issue that we’d anticipate to resolve eventually. But there is no sign that forthcoming discoveries volition always reveal Indo-European origins for these words. If a term existed in Proto-Indo-European, we should anticipate to discover cognates of it in several of its kid languages, and that’s fair not the case for these words.

Some another words without a resolute Indo-European etymology include:

• θησαυρός (thēsaurós) ‘treasury, treasure’ → English: thesaurus
• ἴδη (ídē) ‘wood, wooded hill’ → location name: Mount Ida
• βασιλεύς (basileús) ‘king’ → English basilica, basil (because it was connected alongside royalty)

The final example is particularly convincing since Indo-European already has a term for ‘king; ruler’ (PIE *h₃rḗǵs → Latin rēx ‘king’), and basileús doesn’t resemble it. It is thus apt that Greek borrowed basileús as a term for the local rulers whenever they arrived in the Aegean.

Also convincing are words which exterior in Latin or other, non–Indo-European languages whenever the words in those languages also deficiency etymologies. For example, Greek οἶνος (oînos) ‘wine’ has confamiliars¹ in:

• Latin: vinum
• Hittite: winija‑
• Armenian: gini
• Ethiopian (Ge’ez): wain
• Hebrew: jajin

None of these words can be reconstructed rear to a term in their protolanguages (Proto-Indo-European or Proto-Semitic), so the sensible decision is that the first term for ‘wine’ must have arrive from several Paleo-European substrate language. The term afterward dispersed about the Mediterranean as part of the diffusion of vino civilization under the power of the Phoenicians (from c. 1000 BCE) and subsequently the Greeks (from c. 600 BCE).

Here are the words that appear to have been borrowed from a Pre–Indo-European tongue into the two Greek and another languages about the Mediterranean:

Words which are phonologically unattainable for Indo-European

Sometimes there is no Proto-Indo-European word—reconstructed or imagined—that could perchance create a term in Ancient Greek if it followed the normal audio changes that happened during the development from PIE to Greek. For example, the /dn/ at the commencement of δνόφος (dnóphos) ‘darkness’ cannot be explained by any Indo-European audio law. Ancient Greek additionally had the suspiciously akin term κνέφας (knéphas), which additionally method ‘darkness’ (and ‘twilight; dusk’) and which additionally starts alongside an unattainable audio sequence for inherited Indo-European words in Greek, /kn/. Add to this the words ζόφος (zóphos) and ψέφας (pséphas) which also average ‘darkness’ and deficiency apparent Indo-European origins, and it’s apparent that we’re looking at a set of connected words that must have all arrive from a Pre-Greek term definition ‘darkness’, and that term must have started alongside a audio or sequence of appears that was difficult for the first Greeks to pronounce: dnóphos ~ knéphas ~ zóphos ~ pséphas. In fact, most of the Ancient Greek words that commencement alongside ⟨ψ⟩ /ps/ (a audio sequence that was unattainable in Proto-Indo-European) are mystery words without Indo-European etymologies. Linguists have projected all sorts of connections for all of these words, so that there are as many hypothesized etymologies for them as there are researchers. This deficiency of agreement is itself indicative that the words are likely Pre-Greek, but the chief item current is that these words do not fit the audio patterns of Indo-European.

Another sign that a term is Pre-Greek is the audio β /b/, which was rare or perchance absent in Proto-Indo-European, but average in Pre-Greek loanwords:

• ἄβλαροι (áblaroi) ‘wood’
• ἀβύρβηλος (abýrbēlos) ‘much; burdensome; big; heavy’
• ἀρβύλη (arbýlē) ‘a benevolent of durable footwear or half-boot’
• ἀτάρβακτος (atárbaktos) ‘unafraid’
• βάρβιλος (bárbilos) ‘seedling peach tree’
• θόρυβος (thórybos) ‘noise; uproar, clamor (esp. of a crowd); tumult, confusion’
• κίβαλος (kíbalos) ‘messenger, courier’

There are additionally many words which seem akin they could get from Indo-European, but don’t obey the expected audio patterns. For example, Ancient Greek had two akin words τάφος (táphos) ‘funeral; grave’ (→ English epitaph, cenotaph, taphonomy) and τύμβος (týmbos) ‘grave; tombstone’ (→ English tomb, via Latin). The archetypal of these comes from PIE *dʰm̥bʰos ‘tomb’ and follows all the normal audio changes you’d anticipate from PIE to Ancient Greek. But týmbos is a dupe: it looks related, but it doesn’t prosecute the expected audio changes. So either the similarity between the two words is purely coincidental, in which case týmbos was likely borrowed from a Pre-Greek, non–Indo-European language, or týmbos does in fact get from PIE, but through several unknown, intermediate Indo-European language, which Greek afterward borrowed it from.

Here is a catalog of Greek words alongside plausible Indo-European roots and imaginable cognates in Greek or another languages, but that don’t obey the expected audio changes for Ancient Greek:

Words alongside many of phonetic variation

When words are borrowed from one tongue into another, they frequently initially attain alongside a slew of distinct pronunciations. Sometimes this is since the contributor tongue has appears that the recipient tongue does not, so speakers of the receiving tongue have to approximate them as finest they can. This was apt the case alongside the ‘darkness’ words we saw above: assortment akin dnóphos ~ knéphas ~ zóphos ~ pséphas suggests that there was an first consonant or consonant collection in that term which the Greeks had difficulty pronouncing.

Often, however, assortment in borrowed words occurs merely since speakers of the recipient tongue are unfamiliar alongside the word. The Powhatan term makasin, for example, contains lone appears acquainted to English speakers, but whenever English colonists borrowed the word, the range of spellings included maccaseene, makissin, mogason, moccasin, and mogozeen. It took a hundred years or so for the orthography and articulation to standardize. Random variations in orthography and articulation akin this are frequently a apparent indicator of borrowed words.

The term “random” is crucial there. We additionally see assortment in orthography whenever languages undergo broader audio changes, but this assortment is regular and predictable, not random. For example, Proto-Greek had a set of palatal appears */ty, tʰy, ky, kʰy/ which all became *t͡s or perchance *t͡ʃ. In the Attic, Boeotian, and Euboean dialects of Greek, that *t͡s / *t͡ʃ audio became /tt/, but in the Ionic, Doric, and another dialects of Greek it became /ss/. At the beginnings of words, it became /t/ ~ /s/. This audio alter yielded pairs akin the following:²

The assortment in these words is not evidence that they were borrowed, since this is regular, patterned dialectal variation. Notice that our Pre-Greek term thálassa / thálatta ‘sea’ is in this catalog too. This is a borrowing, but it’s not the /ss/ ~ /tt/ alternation that tells us that. Evidence of its loanword position comes from elsewhere. But its involvement in the /ss/ ~ /tt/ alternation does inform us that it was borrowed extremely first in the former of Greek, before this audio alter took location (the duration of Proto-Greek, c. 2200–1700 BCE). It additionally tells us that it contained among the palatal appears that afterward became /ss/ ~ /tt/.

That’s all to say: uncomplicated assortment is not adequate evidence of borrowing. The assortment must not be attributable to regular audio changes in the language; it must be mostly random instead. In fact, part of the evidence that thálassa ‘sea’ is borrowed is that it also shows random assortment in supplement to the regular dialectal variation. It appears formerly in Hesychius’ glosses as δαλάγχαν (dalánkhan), exhibiting /d/ alternatively of /tʰ/ for the archetypal consonant, and alongside a consonant collection /nkʰ/ alternatively of /ss/ ~ /tt/. But recall that the /ss/ ~ /tt/ appears initially derived from several category of palatal consonant. This powerfully suggests that what Hesychius wrote as ⟨γχ⟩ /nkʰ/ was an attempt to portray a palatal /ky/. (Hesychius was compiling the glossaries of before writers.)

Here are several another Ancient Greek words that we cognize are borrowings in part since of their type pronunciations:

• Ὀδυσσεύς (Odysseús) / Ὀλυσσεύς (Olysseús) ‘Odysseus / Ulysses’
  • The type alongside /l/ is the one that reached Latin (Ulixes), and this is why the epic champion is called Ulysses in the Roman tradition and Odysseus in the Greek tradition.
• λαβύρινθος (labýrinthos) / Mycenaean 𐀅𐁆𐀪𐀵𐀍 da‑pu₂‑ri‑to‑jo (daphurinthoio) ‘labyrinth’
  • This term has the identical /l/ ~ /d/ alternation as Ulysses ~ Odysseus, as fine as a /b/ ~ /pʰ/ alternation.
• σῦκον (sŷkon) / Boeotian τῦκον (tŷkon) ‘fig’
  • Exhibits an /s/ ~ /t/ alternation. Latin and Old Armenian may have additionally borrowed this term from the Pre-Greek substrate as fīcus ‘fig tree’ (→ English ficus) and թուզ (tʻuz) ‘fig’, respectively.
• ἀσφάραγος (aspháragos) / ἀσπάραγος (aspáragos) ‘asparagus’
  • Latin got the /p/ type and gave it to English.

In another cases we see assortment in the existence of an first /w/ sound, which is particularly neat since Greek initially had a /w/ audio but afterward misplaced it! In Mycenaean Greek (c. 1400–1200 BCE), the /w/ was motionless present, as shown in words akin 𐀷𐀙𐀏 (wa‑na‑ka) ‘king; lord’. Many dialects (Aeolic, Doric [including Cretan], Elean, Boeotian, etc.) retained that /w/ and wrote it alongside the letter digamma ⟨ϝ⟩ as ϝάναξ (wánax) fine into the Classical duration (5th–4th C BCE). But the Attic and Ionic dialects misplaced /w/ before the increase of alphabetic penning (8th C BCE), so they wrote the term as ᾰ̓́νᾰξ (ánax). But equal although Homer never writes a digamma, the meter of his poems frequently behaves as although the /w/ were motionless there, since they were initially composed whenever it was!

In any case, notice how the /w/ was merely deleted from wánax to output ánax. But for many Pre-Greek loanwords, we see attempts to render a /w/ audio equal in the dialects that misplaced it! The city of Axos on Crete, for example, is written as ϝαξός (Waxós) in the Cretan dialect but Ὀαξός (Oaxós) exterior Crete. If this term had already existed in Greek, the /w/ would have merely disappeared in the non‑/w/ dialects, akin it did for ánax. Instead, those dialects attempted to compose the /w/ audio they heard whenever they adopted the name of the location from the Pre‑Greeks. Since the /w/ audio and ⟨ϝ⟩ letter were already misplaced to them by that point, they approximated it alongside ⟨Ὀ⟩ /o/ instead. This shows that the Greeks adopted the Pre-Greek location name after /w/ had disappeared in most dialects.

We see the identical attempt to portray /w/ in variations of the term for ‘hyacinth’:

• standard written form: ὑάκινθος (hyákinthos)
• Cretan: ϝάκινθος (wákinthos)
• Cretan variant: βάκινθος (bákinthos)

Here, the /w/ surfaces as ὑα‑ /hya/, ϝα‑ /wa/, and βα‑ /ba/.

In sum, random assortment is frequently a key part of evidence that a term is borrowed.

Words in certain semantic categories

As mentioned above, certain categories of words are apt to be borrowed by a group migrating into an area, namely conditions for plants, animals, terrain, and several uncomplicated tools. Thus, if a term has no powerful etymology and it refers to either a natural event or local matter civilization or social practices, it’s a fine applicant for a loanword. In Beekes 2010 etymological dictionary of Greek, he lists 1,106 words as coming from Pre-Greek. Of those, the largest categories of words are for flora and fauna. (Beekes does not contain most location names in the dictionary.) The array below shows the total category counts. You can see that, alongside the elimination of individual physiology, these are exactly the types of words we’d anticipate to be borrowed from Pre-Greek.

• Flora: 178
• Fauna: 180
• Landscape & Natural Phenomena: 37
• Minerals: 27
• Agriculture: 38
  • Viniculture: 20
• Human Physiology: 81
• Attire & Jewelry: 21
• Equipment & Utensils: 154
• Construction: 34
• Culture: 51
  • Musical Instruments / Arts: 18
  • Religious Festivals / Feasting: 8
  • Divine/Numinous Beings, Priests, & Temples: 12
  • Theonyms / Mythical Characters: 26

What I discover particularly engaging is that the Greeks adopted nearly their complete pantheon from Pre-Greek civilization! Except for Zeus, Eos, Pan, Hades, and perchance Poseidon, all the names of Greek gods cannot be reconstructed to Proto-Indo-European, and are apt loanwords from Pre-Greek substrate tongue (Verhasselt 2009: 211).

Pairs of words that average the identical thing

When a tongue has many pairs of words that the two mention to approximately the identical concept, this is frequently a sign of extended borrowing. This is particularly true whenever those words are concentrated in one or a few semantic fields. For example, English famously has pairs of words for animals and the foods that arrive from those animals, anywhere the name of the animal derives from English but the name of the food derives from French:

Originally, the two the English and French words referred to the animal—boef was merely the Norman French term for ‘cow’; porc was the term for ‘pig’, and so on. But because of the social stratification between French speakers and English speakers following the Norman Conquest, the French words eventually came to mention to the food fairly than the animal.

In cases of community immigration or invasion, specified as the arrival of the first Greeks in the Aegean or the Norman intrusion of England, the outcome is frequently that words from all tongue are connected alongside distinct social contexts or registers, reflecting the uneven blend of the two cultures. This method that two or additional words for the identical idea can be side-by-side in a language, all being used in distinct contexts. (Notice that this is additionally a case of linguistic stratification, anywhere French was the superstrate and English was the substrate.)

Ancient Greek exhibited this form alongside words relating to weaving. Alongside Indo-European words for weaving and textiles are a set of substitute words for the identical things, which deficiency any apparent Indo-European etymology. Pairs of words akin the ones in the array below are a powerful sign of substrate borrowing.

Converging Evidence

Obviously, none of these methods of identifying borrowed words is airtight. Any stated term power be a random elimination whose clarification is misplaced to history. And no sole characteristic listed complete is diagnostic by itself. Instead, we decide borrowings through the confluence of evidence, and the way certain words form together in groups. We appearance for words that act in recurrent or systematic patterns.

Consider the following Ancient Greek words:

• ἄσβολος (ásbolos) ‘soot’
• σποδός (spodós) ‘ashes; ember’
• ψόλος (psólos) ‘soot; smoke’

All these words deficiency apparent etymologies, and display the identical /d/ ~ /l/ assortment we saw earlier. The first /a/ of ásbolos cannot be explained by normal audio changes, and the consonant collection /sb/ is anomalous for Proto-Indo-European. psólos reverses the command of the consonants to /ps/, which aligns it alongside the many another Pre-Greek loanwords that commencement alongside an first /ps/. (Remember from before that nearly all Greek words commencement alongside /ps/ have turned out to be loanwords.) Add to this the fact that PIE has a term for ‘ash’, *h₂eh₁s‑, which looks nothing akin any of these forms, and is the origin of the Greek reflex ἄζω (ázō) ‘to dry up; to parch’. This is thus another case of copy words for the identical thing—one borrowed, one native. Taken together, the evidence shows that these three words are undoubtedly distinct variants of several non-Greek borrowing.

Or regard the words ἄνθραξ (ánthrax) and κάνδαρος (kándaros, attested in Hesychius’ glosses), which the two average ‘charcoal’. While there is a possible but shaky PIE etymology for kándaros (*(s)kand‑ ‘to shine; to glow’), there are no fine ones for ánthrax. There is additionally no known procedure by which an first /k/ gets added to or deleted from a term in the journey from PIE to Ancient Greek, and no clarification for the assortment between /tʰ/ and /d/. In fact, the two the changeable first /k/ and the ‑ak suffix in ánthrax (pronounced /án.tʰraks/) are features established in many Pre-Greek loanwords. Given this converging evidence, the most apt clarification for these words is that they the two arrive from a sole Pre-Greek word.

To sum up, linguists really have a amazing figure of tools at our disposal for resolving fair which words in a tongue are borrowed.

Where was the Pre-Greek tongue spoken?

We can do equal improved than merely identifying particular words that were likely borrowed: in several cases we can display that the words must have arrive from the same, particular substrate language (or closely-related languages). We can catalog particular features the tongue power have had, and equal approximately anywhere it was spoken, although we have small or no straightforward written evidence of it.

The most conclusive part of evidence that we’re looking at borrowings from a specific substrate tongue is whenever we see similar-looking pieces of words throughout many of the borrowings. This may portray a prefix, suffix, or complete term in the substrate tongue that got borrowed wholesale alongside alongside the remainder of the word/phrase. For example, location names in England are rife alongside fossilized affixes that were initially words in substrate or adstrate languages:

• Brittonic penn ‘head, hill, headland’ → English Pen‑
  • Penrith
  • Penzance
  • Pendle Hill
  • Penge (London)
• Latin castra ‘camp’ → English ‑chester / ‑cester / ‑caster
  • Chester
  • Manchester
  • Winchester
  • Leicester
  • Worcester
  • Gloucester
  • Lancaster
• Old Norse bý ‘farmstead’ → English ‑by
  • Derby
  • Rugby
  • Whitby
  • Grimsby
  • Selby

Each of these suffixes acts as a document of a particular stratum in English’s history: the pre–Anglo-Saxon Celtic layer, the Roman occupation layer, and the Old Norse (Viking) layer. Toponyms (place names) are an particularly affluent origin of data concerning extinct substrate languages since migrating populations lean to clasp existing location names, particularly for names of settlements. (At smallest fractional of U.S. states have names derived from an indigenous language, for example.) Toponyms lean to be comparatively stable complete time, at smallest compared to another words in the lexicon.

Places akin Corinth, Knossos, Athens, and Lemnos had already been settled for thousands of years whenever the archetypal Greeks arrived in the Aegean. So it shouldn’t be a astonishment that all four of those names are indisputably Pre-Greek borrowings, and that they all merge suffixes that recur period and again in placenames throughout the Aegean! The most celebrated of these is the ‑νθ (‑nth) suffix, which appears in, inter alia:

• Ἐρύμανθος (Erýmanthos): Erymanthos, a mountain range in the Peloponnese peninsula
• Ὑάκινθος (Hyákinthos): Hyakinthos/Hyacinth, a mountain in Attica
• Κήρινθος (Kḗrinthos): Kerinthos, an ancient town in Euboea
• Κόρινθος (Kórinthos): Corinth, a city on the isthmus joining the Peloponnese peninsula to mainland Greece
• Ὄλυνθος (Ólynthos): Olynthus, an ancient city in present-day Chalcidice
• Τίρυνς, Τίρυνθος (Tíryns, Tírynthos): Tiryns, an ancient Mycenaean city in the Peloponnese peninsula

Also extensively attested are the ‑σσ (‑ss) suffix in Knossos, the ‑ν (‑n) suffix in Athens, and the ‑μν (‑mn) suffix in Lemnos. Below is a sampling of location names that these suffixes appear in.

• ‑σσ (‑ss)
  • Ἁλικαρνασσός (Halikarnassós): Halicarnassus, an ancient city on the shoreline of Anatolia (modern Turkey)
  • Κνωσσός (Knōssós): Knossos, a Minoan palace on the isle of Crete
  • Λάρισσα (Lárissa): Larissa, a city in Thessaly
  • Παρνασσός (Parnassós): Parnassus, a mountain in chief Greece and residence to Delphi
• ‑ν (‑n)
  • Ἀθῆναι (Athênai): Athens, chief city of Greece
  • Λέρνη (Lérnē): Lerna, a area of springs and a erstwhile lake in traditional Greece, south of Argos
  • Μυκῆναι (Mykênai): Mycenae, an ancient Mycenaean city in the Peloponnese peninsula
  • Μύκονος (Mýkonos): Mykonos, an isle in the southernmost Aegean Sea
• ‑μν (‑mn)
  • Λάρυμνα (Lárymna): Larymna, a harbor town in Phthiotis
  • Λῆμνος (Lêmnos): Lemnos, an isle in the northern Aegean Sea
  • Λεπέτυμνος (Lepétymnos): Lepetymnos, a mountain on the isle of Lesbos
  • Μήθυμνα (Mḗthymna): Methymna, a town on the isle of Lesbos
  • Ῥίθυμνα (Rhíthymna): Rethymno, a city on the isle of Crete

(The logic these suffixes are in the center of these words is since Greek speakers added the normal Greek case suffixes on the end whenever they borrowed them.)

Because these are toponyms tied to particular places, we can equal map the area anywhere this Pre-Greek substrate was initially spoken! Below is a map of Pre-Greek toponyms showing the approximate area anywhere the Pre-Greek substrate was spoken.

You can perspective the complete dataset of Pre-Greek toponyms, including small certain ones and ones that were excluded from this map, here.

How to acknowledge a Pre-Greek suffix

The intellectually careful among you are now likely rightly asking, “How do we know these are suffixes and not fair average appears in these words?” The strongest part of evidence for these suffixes is that in several cases, versions of the term can be established the two alongside and without the suffix. The sole finest example of this benevolent of alternation is the toponym Κήρινθος (Kḗrinthos). When used as a normal term fairly than a location name, kḗrinthos meant ‘bee bread (perga)’, during κηρός (kērós), without the ‑nth suffix, meant ‘beeswax’. Kerinthos, then, was extremely apt named specified since it was known for its beekeeping! We can be equal additional certain that this term for ‘beeswax’ was borrowed from several another tongue since it’s confamiliar alongside akin words about the Mediterranean:

• Latin: cēra ‘wax; beeswax’
• Albanian: qiri ‘candle’
• Lithuanian / Latvian: korỹs / kāre ‘honeycomb’

Other Pre-Greek words that appear alongside and without their suffixes include:

• ∅ ~ ‑nth
  • Ἀμαρυσία (Amarysía), among the names for Artemis
  • Ἀμάρυνθος (Amárynthos), a township on Euboea, and another name for Artemis
• ∅ ~ ‑mn ~ ‑n
  • Δίκτη (Díktē)
  • δίκταμνον (díktamnon) ‘dittany (of Crete)’
  • Δίκτυννα (Díktynna) ‘Cretan goddess’
• ∅ ~ ‑ss ~ ‑n (and a imaginable ‑l suffix)
  • Μυκάλη (Mykálē)
  • Μυκαλησσός (Mykalēssós)
  • Μυκῆναι (Mykênai)
• ∅ ~ ‑m (another Pre-Greek suffix)
  • πύργος (pýrgos) ‘tower’
  • Πέργαμον (Pérgamon)
  • πέργαμος (pérgamos) ‘citadel’ (esp. of Troy)
• ‑nth ~ ‑ng (another Pre-Greek suffix)
  • μήρινθος (mḗrinthos) ‘thread’
  • σμῆριγξ (smêrinx) ‘hair’
• ‑nth ~ ‑ng
  • ἕλμινθος (hélminthos)
  • ἔλμιγγος (élmingos) ‘worm’
• ∅ ~ ‑nth
  • ὄροβος (órobos) ‘bitter vetch’ (an ancient kernel legume)
  • ἐρέβινθος (erébinthos) ‘chickpea’

This final one is an particularly crucial part of evidence since the term for ‘chickpea’ (or extremely akin types of legumes) was additionally borrowed into another languages of Europe, sometimes with, sometimes without the ‑nth suffix:

• Latin: ervum ‘bitter vetch’ (without ‑nth)
• Proto-Germanic: *arwīt‑ ‘pea’ (with ‑nth, as ‑t)
• Armenian: aṙowoyt ‘alfalfa’ (with ‑nth, as ‑t)

In general, whenever a location name has a non-toponymic definition in supplement to its toponymic meaning, and the etymology of that term is unknown, the term is undoubtedly Pre-Greek in origin. This is particularly true if it additionally appears to merge among the known Pre-Greek suffixes. Here are a few final examples akin this:

A corroborating part of evidence for these suffixes is the uncomplicated fact that they happen not fair in toponyms, but in many of the mystery words for plants, animals, foods, etc.—the identical semantic categories of words that are most apt to be borrowed:

Finally, toponyms ending in ‑nth and ‑mn display a distinctive base pattern, alongside a powerful penchant for open syllables (ones not ending in a consonant) and an nearly total deficiency of consonant clusters in the center of the term that commencement alongside a halt consonant. This is extremely different for Proto-Indo-European. As a rule, PIE roots had a CVC construction (C = consonant, V = vowel) and many consonant clusters—the expanded base template is (s)(C)CVC(C), yielding many consonant clusters. So the fact that words which display these Pre-Greek suffixes are also phonologically different for PIE is another part of evidence that these words likely came from a non–Indo-European language.

Congratulations, now you cognize how to acknowledge a Pre-Greek suffix! So now whenever you see an ‑nth in a Greek loanword in English akin hyacinth, you’ll naturally think to yourself, “Oh neat! That term is from a Pre-Greek substrate language!” (Right?)

What was the Pre-Greek tongue like?

In supplement to the Pre-Greek suffixes, there are several patterns that recur in possible loanwords alongside too awesome a frequence to be uncomplicated coincidence, and propose that the Pre-Greek tongue may have had several prefixes as well: ἀ‑ (a‑), κ(α)‑ (k[a]‑), and σ‑ (s‑). The chief evidence for these prefixes is that there are written records of these words appearing the two alongside and without the first sounds:

ἀ‑ (a‑)

There are about 65 words that display evidence of an a‑ prefix, many of which autumn in the trait semantic domains of flora and crops (19 words), animals (10), as fine as landscapes, foods, and the individual build (smaller numbers). Interestingly, the a‑ prefix is not established on traditional conditions akin jewelry, armor, social hierarchy, professions, instruments, and words relating to the arts, etc.

• γηθυλλίς (gēthyllís) ‘chives’ ~ ἀγασυλλίς (agasyllís) ‘plant that produces ammoniacum (gum resin)’
• γέλγις (gélgis) ~ ἄγλις (áglis) ‘garlic’
• κάστον (káston) ~ ἄκαστος (ákastos) ‘maple’
• κίρρις (kírris) ~ ἀκιρίς (akirís) ‘lamp’
• κόρνοψ (kórnops) ~ ἀκορνοί (akornoí) ‘a benevolent of locust’
• χραμαδοῖλαι (khramadoîlai) ‘tortoise’ ~ ἀχραδαμύλα (akhradamýla) ‘snail’
• νηρίτης (nērī́tēs) ~ ἀναρίτης (anarítēs) ‘sea snail’
• ῥωδιώς (rhōdiṓs) ~ ἀρωδιός (arōdiós) ‘heron’
• (σ)καλαβώτης ([s]kalabṓtēs) ~ ἀσκάλαβος (askálabos) ‘spotted lizard; gecko’
• στάχυς (stákhys) ~ ἄσταχυς (ástakhys) ‘ear of corn’
• στεροπή (steropḗ) ~ ἀστραπή (astrapḗ) ‘lightning’
• κύνωψ (kýnōps) ~ ἀχύνωψ (akhýnōps) ‘ribwort’

κ(α)‑ (k[a]‑)

The k(a)‑ prefix, akin a‑, lone appears on words for plants, animals, and uncomplicated technologies. There are 13 apparent cases, including:

• ἴχλα (íkhla) ~ κίχλη (kíkhlē) ‘thrush’
• ἄρυα (árya) ‘walnuts’ ~ κάρυον (káryon) ‘nut’
• ὄγχνη (ónkhnē) ~ κόγχναι (kónkhnai) ‘pear’
• σκάνδιξ (skándīx) ‘chervil’ ~ κασκάνδιξ (kaskándix) ‘onion’
• ἀπήνη (apḗnē) ~ πήνα (pḗnā) ~ καπάνα (kapā́na) ‘wagon’
  • Note the imaginable a‑prefix here.
• ἄχλαξ (ákhlax) ‘small stones’ ~ χάλαζα (khálaza) ‘hail’ ~ κάχληξ (kákhlēx) ‘small stones’
• ἀλινδέομαι (alindéomai) ~ καλινδέομαι (kalindéomai) ‘to rotate about, wallow’

σ‑ (s‑)

Again, the bulk of conditions alongside s‑ are words for plants, animals, and build parts. Sometimes the s‑ occurs alongside an additional a‑ as well, indicative of the existence of the a‑ prefix.

without a‑

• γέλενος (gélenos) ‘asphodelus, narcissus’ ~ σχέλινος (skhélinos) ‘wild cypress’
• κιδάφη (kidáphē) ~ σκιδάφη (skidáphē) ‘fox’
• κίκερος (kíkeros) ~ σκίγκος (skínkos) ‘a category of reptile established in Asia Minor that is used as medicine’
• κορδύ̄λη (kordȳ́lē) ~ σκορδύ̄λη (skordȳ́lē) ‘tumor; swelling’
• βάταλος (bátalos) ‘a lewd man’ ~ σπάταλος (spátalos) ‘wanton; lascivious’
• πέλεθος (pélethos) ~ σπέλεθος (spélethos) ‘dung’
• φαττάγης (phattágēs) ~ σπατάγγης (spatángēs) ‘scaly ant-eater’
• θριγκός (thrinkós) ‘topmost way of stones in a wall, cornice, frieze’ ~ στριγχός (strinkhós) ‘little wall; crown of a building’
• τοπεῖον (topeîon) ‘rope, cord’ ~ στυππεῖον (styppeîon) ‘the coarse fiber of flax or hemp’
• μήρινθος (mḗrinthos) ~ σμήρινθος (smḗrinthos) ‘cord, thread’
• μύραινα (mȳ́raina) ~ σμύραινα (smȳ́raina) ‘moray eel’
• μῖλαξ (mîlax) ~ σμῖλαξ (smîlax) ‘taxus’
• φάγνος (phágnos) ~ σφάγνος (sphágnos) ‘salvia’
• τρύχνον (trýkhnon) ~ στρύχνον (strýkhnon) ‘nightshade’

with a‑

• φάρυγξ (phárynx) ‘throat, gorge, larynx, windpipe’ ~ σφάραγος (spháragos) ‘throat, gullet’ ~ ἀσφάραγος (aspháragos) ‘gully, chasm, profound trench, abyss’
• κάλαφος (kálaphos) ~ ἀσκάλαφος (askálaphos) ‘an unidentified bird, perchance an owl’
• καλαβώτης (kalabṓtēs) ~ σκαλαβώτης (skalabṓtēs) ~ ἀσκάλαβος (askálabos) ‘lizard, gecko’
• κάμων (kámōn) ~ σκαμ(μ)ωνία (skam(m)ōnía) ~ ἀσκαμωνία (askamōnía) ‘scammony’

Was Pre-Greek one tongue or several?

Throughout this article, I’ve mostly talked concerning “the” Pre-Greek language. Indeed, the suffixes in the final two sections provision us powerful logic to accept that Ancient Greek borrowed the words containing those suffixes from a sole Pre-Greek tongue or collection of closely-related languages. Throughout the former of contemporary linguistics, there have been multitudinous names and theories as to the character of this mystery substrate, including:

• Pelasgian, an undocumented Indo-European language
• Parnassian, a tongue in the Anatolian branch of Indo-European, connected to Luwian
• Aegean / Mediterranean, a non–Indo-European tongue which extended complete a ample part of the Mediterranean
• the Kartvelian Theory, that Pre-Greek was connected to Kartvelian languages (e.g. Georgian)
• Pre-Greek, a non–Indo-European tongue spoken chiefly in the area of Greece, following toponymic evidence

Even although all of these theories has been mostly discredited apart from the last, all has advanced our cognition of Pre-Greek in distinct ways. For example, researchers on this topic concur that the Pre-Greek substrate extended at smallest partially into Anatolia (Asia Minor), as you can see from the map of location names above. It was investigation into the now-abandoned Parnassian theory that brought this to light. But there merely isn’t adequate evidence to assistance the idea that the Pre-Greek substrate is connected to Anatolian languages.

Even the Pre-Greek theory has been battered by fierce criticism, since its chief proponent, Robert S.P. Beekes, considers nearly every imaginable loanword to be Pre-Greek as a matter of principle:

“I think that it is methodologically additional audio to commencement from the assumption that non-Greek words are Pre-Greek. Only whenever there is logic to do so should we assume that they have a distinct origin.” (Beekes 2014: 45)

The linguistic reality, however, is much small tidy. Like everyplace alternatively previous to the increase of urbanization and city-states, the Aegean comprised a affluent tapestry of small local languages, spoken by at most thousands of speakers. The Ancient Greeks themselves mentioned a figure of peoples in the region, several of whom were stated to conversation ‘a tongue which was not Greek’ (Herodotus’ clarification of the Pelasgian language, which launched a thousand linguistic theories concerning the Pre-Greeks):

• Aonians
• Cauconians
• Dryopes
• Hyantes
• Lelegians
• Pelasgians
• Temmikes

We additionally have written evidence (albeit frequently exiguous) of many another languages in the region:

• Carian (IE, Anatolian branch)
• Eteocretan (probably non-IE, perchance connected to Minoan)
• Eteocypriot (probably non-IE)
• Illyrian (IE)
• Lemnian (non-IE, perchance Tyrsenian)
• Macedonian (not to be confused alongside the contemporary Slavic language; this one was Greek or closely connected to Greek)
• Minoan (undeciphered and unclassified but likely non-IE)
• Paeonian (IE)
• Thracian (IE)

So it’s unsurprising that many scholars have attacked Beekes’ assumption of a unified Pre-Greek language, and additionally challenged his inspection of dozens and dozens of words. Nonetheless, that motionless leaves hundreds of words which do extremely apt pertain to a sole language, which—for deficiency of a term that hasn’t already been discredited—Beekes calls “Pre-Greek”.³

But what concerning the remainder of the mystery words? Why not assume they arrive from Pre-Greek as well, equal if they don’t have the signature Pre-Greek affixes? Once again, the meanings of the words are an crucial clue: nearly all the words which display particular Pre-Greek features (the ‑nth suffix, the s‑ prefix, etc.) are words for natural phenomena akin flora and animals. The ones without these particular features are mostly cultural conditions referring to things akin jewelry, clothing, social hierarchy, the arts, buildings and structures, etc. (There are two notable exceptions—λαβύρινθος (labýrinthos) ‘labyrinth’ and ἀσάμινθος (asáminthos) ‘bathtub’—which we’ll arrive rear to in a minute.) Moreover, lone the words for natural phenomena appear in languages elsewhere in Europe; the traditional conditions are restricted to the Aegean. Here are a few possible pan-European connections to Pre-Greek words:

• radish (a‑ prefix)
  • Ancient Greek: ῥάφανος (rháphanos)
  • Latin: rāpum
  • Old High Germanic: ruoba
  • Welsh: erfin ‘turnip’ ← Proto-Celtic *arb‑īn-
  • Old Church Slavonic: rěpa ‘turnip’ ← Proto-Balto-Slavic *rāpā́ˀ
• heron (a‑ prefix)
  • Ancient Greek: ἐρῳδιός (erōidiós) ~ ἀρωδιός (arōdiós) ~ ῥωδιώς (rhōdiṓs)
  • Latin: ardea
  • Serbo-Croatian: róda ‘stork’
• bull (s‑ prefix)
  • Ancient Greek: ταῦρος (taûros)
  • Latin: taurus
  • Proto-Germanic: *þeura‑ ~ *steura‑
• small stones (k‑ prefix)
  • Ancient Greek: ἄχλαξ (ákhlax) ‘small stones’ ~ κάχληξ (kákhlēx) ‘small stones’ ~ χάλαζα (khálaza) ‘hail’
  • Proto-Germanic: *hagla‑ ‘hail’
• chickpea (‑nth suffix)
  • Ancient Greek: ὄροβος (órobos) ~ ἐρέβινθος (erébinthos)
  • Proto-Germanic: *arwīt ‘pea’
  • Old Georgian: ერევინდი (erevindi) ~ ერბინდი (erbindi)
  • Latin: ervum ‘bitter vetch’ ← Proto-Italic *erw‑
  • Armenian: առաւոյտ (aṙowoyt) ‘alfalfa’ ← *HrVbʰoud‑

So what explains this allocation of natural phenomena versus traditional concepts? Simply put, we are likely looking at two (or more) substrate languages which the two contributed vocabulary to Ancient Greek. One had the ‑nth suffix and a‑, k‑, and s‑ prefixes, and provided conditions for flora, fauna, and terrain. The another (or others) provided traditional conditions specified as jewelry, titles, clothing, instruments, etc. The logic that the conditions for natural phenomena are shared exterior the Aegean is likely because of the fact that, previous to the arrival of the Indo-Europeans, the Old Europeans were a amazingly homogeneous community of farmers (Skoglund et al. 2012; Skourtanioti et al. 2023). While genetics ≠ languages, this nonetheless suggests that many of the languages of Old Europe were apt related. So it’s entirely imaginable that Germanic and Italic and Celtic and another Indo-European speakers independently borrowed words for things akin ‘chickpea’ and ‘radish’ from Old European languages, and these words fair happened to be cognate alongside the words in Pre-Greek. Alternatively, we can say that these words were average loanwords (‘wanderwords’) throughout Old Europe.

As for the traditional vocabulary, during these conditions could in theory arrive from anyplace nearby, there is one civilization which was known to have an outsized power on the Mycenaean Greeks: the Minoans on the isle of Crete. Minoan civilization was bonzer for its time, alongside monumental architecture, sprawling palace complexes, and luxury arts and crafts. The Minoans are frequently regarded as the archetypal civilization (in the specialized sense) in Europe, and their power dispersed far throughout the east Mediterranean. Archaeologists mention to the way that Minoan civilization emitted outward from Crete as the Versailles Effect, by difference alongside the way the French court under Louis XIV influenced all of Europe. Minoan was, in another words, an adstrate fairly than a substrate, spreading its lexicon to the neighboring languages.

The Minoans additionally developed their own penning scheme called Cretan hieroglyphs, which was not derived from the Egyptian or Mesopotamian systems (Egyptian hieroglyphs, cuneiform, and afterward the Phoenician alphabet). Cretan hieroglyphs afterward evolved into (or perchance alongside) the still-undeciphered Linear A script, which was a blend syllabary and logographic script. The Mycenaean Greeks afterward adopted a type of Linear A to compose Greek. This manuscript is called Linear B, and was deciphered by English decorator and self-taught linguist Michael Ventris in 1952. Because 70% of the signs of Linear B are immediately inherited from Linear A, we cognize the sounds of many words in Linear A, but we motionless don’t cognize what most of those Minoan words mean.

The intractable nature of Linear A means, unfortunately, that we can’t be entirely certain that any Pre-Greek words were borrowed from Minoan, since we don’t cognize what the Linear A words meant. There are nonetheless several powerful candidates for borrowings from Minoan:

• In Linear A, there’s a logogram 𐛢, which is among the smaller group of signs we happen to cognize the definition of—‘wool’. We cognize this since in Linear B the identical sign method ‘wool’. In Linear A, the sign appears in bookkeeping contexts next to numerals, and frequently near the ideogram for sheep ⟨𐘏⟩ (also the sign for /qi/)—exactly what you’d anticipate for a sign definition ‘wool’. But additional importantly, if you appearance closely, you can see that the logogram is really a composite of two syllabic signs—𐙁 (ma) and 𐘘 (ru or lu)—indicating that the term for ‘wool’ was maru or malu. It not-so-coincidentally happens that the Greek term for ‘wool’ was μαλλός (mallós)—a term alongside no Indo-European etymology. Thus mallós is nearly undoubtedly a borrowing from Minoan.
• Labyrinths are powerfully connected alongside Minoan culture, having been built in Greek mythology for King Minos of Crete to clasp the Minotaur. The term λαβύρινθος (labýrinthos) ‘labyrinth’, it again not-so-coincidentally happens, is one of those rare traditional conditions alongside a Pre-Greek ‑nth suffix. It equal appears in Linear B (not Linear A) as 𐀅𐁆𐀪𐀵𐀍 (da‑pu₂‑ri‑to‑jo) ‘of the labyrinth’, definition that the term was borrowed extremely first into Mycenaean Greek. Minoan civilization would have exerted its power on the Pre-Greeks fair as it did the afterward Mycenaean Greeks. So in all likelihood, the Pre-Greeks borrowed the term for ‘labyrinth’ and tacked their ‑nth suffix on the end of it, afterward afterward gave the term to the Greeks.
• The Minoans additionally boasted the oldest known individual bathtubs in the ancient world, a innovation which afterward dispersed elsewhere in the Aegean. The Greek term for ‘bathtub’, ἀσάμινθος (asáminthos), shows the traditional ‑nth suffix equal in first Mycenaean—𐀀𐀭𐀖𐀵 (a‑sa‑mi‑to)—meaning that this term too was apt borrowed by the Pre-Greeks from the Minoans, and in rotate borrowed by the Greeks.
• There are additionally multiple toponyms which appear in Linear A, Linear B, and Classical Greek, definition that the names of these places were borrowed from the Minoans. Predictably, these toponyms are all on the isle of Crete.

We can say alongside several confidence, then, that the mystery loanwords of Ancient Greek arrive from at smallest two languages: the Paleo-European inhabitants of the Greek mainland, and the assorted another cultures in the surrounding region, most particularly the excessive Minoan palatial civilization of Crete.

Languages are a fossil document of the former of their speakers. Hidden below the exterior of all tongue are layers upon layers of history—a consideration of millennia of migrations, trade, and conflict. Historical linguistics allows us to regain several of that history, provided we cognize anywhere and how to appearance for it. We volition likely never completely regain the tongue of the Pre-Greeks, but it has remaining an indelible grade on the languages of the Mediterranean and equal English. Every period you utter words akin labyrinth, mint, narcissism, and guitar, you transport on the civilization of those Paleo-Europeans who inhabited the Aegean previous to the arrival of the archetypal Indo-Europeans complete 4,000 years ago.

📚 Further Reading

English words from Pre-Greek

This is a non-exhaustive catalog of words that are mostly idea to be loanwords from a Pre-Greek substrate tongue into Ancient Greek, and which afterward established their way into English. I’ve done my finest to portray the agreement perspective and evade including dubious cases, but there’s certainly area to differ alongside my idiosyncratic choices. This part is, following all, a high-level summary of a huge site of investigation alongside many of inner debate.

📑 Bibliography

The inquiry of the nature of Pre-Greek and the position of loanwords into Ancient Greek are several of the most well-researched and debated areas in Indo-European linguistics. Below are fair a few of the additional latest sources that provision decent high-level overviews of the topic.

• Beekes, Robert S.P. 2014. Pre-Greek: Phonology, morphology, lexicon (Brill Introductions to Indo-European Languages 2). Brill.
• Duhoux, Y. 2007. Pre-Greek languages: Indirect evidence. In A.-F. Christidis (ed.), A former of ancient Greek: From the beginnings to delayed antiquity, pp. 223–228. Cambridge University Press.
• Meester, Lotte. 2024. Substrate stratification: An disagreement against the unity of Pre-Greek. In Guus Kroonen (ed.), Sub-Indo-European Europe: Problems, methods, results, pp. 283–300. De Gruyter.
• Verhasselt, Gertjan. 2009. The Pre-Greek linguistic substratum: An overview of current research. Les Études Classiques 77: 211–239.

Notes

¹ I use the term confamiliar to mention to words that are connected through borrowing fairly than straightforward inheritance. Two words that are connected to all another since they the two get from the identical term in a genitor tongue are called cognates. The term confamiliar is meant to be the equal of cognate for borrowed words. The two conditions nicely parallel the difference in Latin between cognātus ‘related by birth’ vs. familiāris ‘member of a family (not necessarily connected by blood)’. The term confamiliar is additionally used in the existence sciences to mention to taxonomic members of the identical family; so current I am merely extending the metaphor to mention to members of the identical family of words. This is my own distinctive coinage, though. As far as I know, no another linguists use this term in this way (yet 🤞🏼).

² */tw/ sometimes underwent this audio alter too, which is the origin of of the /ss/ ~ /tt/ alternation in τέσσαρες (téssares) ‘four’. This term comes from PIE *kʷetwóres fairly than a palatalized sound.

³ I don’t really affection the term “Pre-Greek” since in historic linguistics the prefix Pre‑ is mostly reserved for an before phase of a sole language, normally one reconstructed from language-internal evidence alone. This contrasts alongside the final average ancestor of a collection of connected languages, which is reconstructed by comparing those languages, in which case we use the prefix Proto‑. According to this convention, Pre-Greek or Pre-Proto-Greek should really mention to a hypothetical dialect of Indo-European from which Proto-Greek afterward emerged. Regardless, Pre‑ is motionless commonly used for substrates as well, specified as Pre-Greek or Pre-Indo-European (i.e. the languages that existed in Eurasia previous to the arrival of the Indo-Europeans—not to be confused alongside Paleo-European / Old European languages, which refers additional specifically to the Neolithic languages of Europe). (Another logic I dislike the term “Pre-Greek” is since this part would have echoed much cooler titled “Pelasgian: The mystery tongue hidden in Ancient Greek”, or “Parnassian” or the like.)