La langue des Minoens

Already in our book, Le berceau minoen de la religion hellénique : le labyrinthe des abeilles, Bruxelles, Safran, 2025, p. 402-403, we identified the word λαβύρινθος, that occures as da-pu2-ri-to in Linear B inscriptions, as North-West Semitic, Aramaean dabûrîtô/debûrîtô, meaning “bee(s)” or “bee colony”, “apiary”. This fits well in the thesis of our book, that Minoan mythology was first and foremost an allegorical transposition of the world of bees. Some other ancient Greek words and names, that apparently are part of a linguistic, pre-Hellenic substrate also appeared to be of the same Semitic origin. This has led us to the supposition, that the language of the Linear A texts must be some form of Aramaic. Starting from this hypothesis, we read and translate a number of inscriptions from this corpus.