Mycenaean Greek - Orthography

Orthography

The Mycenaean language is preserved in Linear B writing, which consists of about 200 syllabic signs and logograms. Since Linear B was derived from Linear A, the script of an undeciphered Minoan language probably unrelated to Greek, it does not reflect fully the phonetics of Mycenaean. In essence, a limited number of syllabic signs must represent a much greater number of produced syllables, better represented phonetically by the letters of an alphabet. Orthographic simplifications therefore had to be made. The main ones are:

• There is no disambiguation for the Greek phonological categories of voice and aspiration, excepting dentals d, t: e-ko may be either egō ("I") or ekhō ("I have").
• Any m and n before a consonant and any incidence of syllable-final l, m, n, r, s are omitted. Pa-ta is panta ("all"); ka-ko is khalkos ("copper").
• Consonant clusters must be dissolved orthographically, creating apparent vowels: po-to-ri-ne is ptolin (classical polin, "city").
• R and L are not disambiguated: pa-si-re-u is basileus ("king").
• Initial aspiration is not indicated: a-ni-ja is hāniai ("reins").
• Length of vowels is not marked.
• The consonant usually transcribed 'z' probably represents *dy, initial *y, *ky, *gy.
• q- is a labio-velar kʷ or gʷ and in some names ghʷ: qo-u-ko-ro is gʷoukoloi (classical boukoloi, "cowherds").
• Initial s before a consonant is not written: ta-to-mo is stathmos ("station, outpost").
• Double consonants are not represented: ko-no-so is Knōsos (classical Knossos).

In addition to these spelling rules, signs are not polyphonic (more than one sound) but sometimes they are homophonic (a sound can be represented by more than one sign), which are not "true homophones" but are "overlapping values." Long words may omit a middle or final sign.