Linear B and Other Ancient Scripts

I’ve been doing a bit of background reading on Linear B and other early writing systems for an essay for my Later Prehistory course. Long-time readers will probably have heard me mention that I’m taking a series of introductory archaeology courses offered by the University of Leicester. The current course, Later Prehistory, tackles a rather wide range of cultures, including the Minoans, the Bronze age cultures of Europe, the early urban civilisations of Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley and China, and the early states of the Americas (e.g. Olmecs, Maya).

Although I am only 1 week into this 12-week course, I have already begun to do some background reading and research for my essay. Students are given a small selection of essay titles to choose from and I’ve decided to choose the title which I felt would be an excellent way for me to combine my love for languages with my passion for archaeology : How did early writing systems differ in their material form and use within society? Discuss in relation to at least three writing systems. I haven’t made any firm decisions on the writing systems I’m choosing to focus on for this essay but Linear B is one of them. Other candidates include the oracle bone script of Shang Dynasty China, Egyptian hieroglyphs and Mesopotamian cuneiform.

I’m currently reading through John Chadwick’s Linear B and Related Scripts to get a better idea of how the Linear B script was used in Minoan society. One thing that becomes clear very early on in the book is that Linear B was used almost exclusively for administrative purposes. There is no evidence as yet to suggest that the script was ever used for historical or “recreational” purposes, which sets it apart from other ancient languages such as cuneiform and Ancient Greek, which were used for writing down their myths and were used for diplomatic affairs. The decipherment  of Linear B was quite a breakthrough in the understanding of the rise (and fall) of Minoan civilization. I found a copy of Andrew Robinson’s biography of Michael Ventris, The Man Who Deciphered Linear B, in the Amsterdam Public Library (Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam), which I will read as soon as I have finished reading Chadwick’s book. Once I have finished reading both of those books, I will move on to Steven Roger Fischer’s A History of Writing and Lesley Adkin’s book Empires of the Plain. Needless to say, I’m going to be quite busy for the next few weeks!

A to Z Challenge Update – I’m still working through Alan R. King’s The Basque Language. I’m trying to memorise some of the dialogues he’s used in the book using the sentence method and am trying to dissect each sentence in order to consolidate everything I’ve learnt so far. It’s good to see that I can finally understand basic sentences and am getting to grips with the case endings. If only the verbs were as straightforward…

The A to Z Challenge – Basque – Part 1

I’ve been studying Basque for about a week now so I thought it was time for a quick update of my progress. I’ve been using a combination of resources, including the Google books version of Colloquial Basque and the online course Egun On (a course created by the Universidad de Deusto and El Correo). I’ve made a list of basic phrases and sentences in my notebook and have began tackling Basque grammar, which is logical but frightening. Conjugating verbs and making sense of paradigm tables is a nightmare…

I haven’t made any real effort at writing anything in Basque yet, though I think I can manage some (very) basic sentences.

Kaixo, ni Kelly naiz, 28 urte dauzkat eta Holandan bizi naiz. Ni euskara ikasten ari naiz.

Translation : Hi, I’m Kelly, I’m 28 years old and I live in Holland. I’m learning Basque.

Very simple sentences…and I have to admit I’m still not sure how to string together 3 separate statements. I tried to do it in the first sentence above but it’s probably wrong.

Another area I have put a lot of effort and time into is vocabulary building. Basque is a language isolate so apart from the odd loanword, a lot of the vocabulary is very different to that of any other language I have studied. Yesterday, I read about the suffix -zale, which shows that a person is fond of a particular activity or topic. For example, bakezale means “pacifist” (bake is the Basque word for “peace”) and gozozale means someone with a sweet tooth (gozo means “sweet”). I plan to make a list of the affixes that can be useful for word building so I will be using this dictionary to help me with that particular task. I’ve noticed that this dictionary also includes some example sentences in the definition fields so I might try using Khazumoto’s sentence method to get a better feel for Basque vocabulary and grammar.

I’m putting together a few documents with basic grammar tips and Basque cultural tidbits, which I’m using to keep track of some of the things I learn during the course of the next month and will make available for public viewing when I move on to Language C.

The A to Z Challenge – Basque – Introduction

Today is the first day of my Basque challenge so I thought I’d share a list of some of the resources I will be using over the next 2 weeks. I’ve chosen a range of online and offline resources. There aren’t that many comprehensive courses for learning Basque but I can tell you that finding resources for learning Basque has been much easier than finding books and online courses for learning Albanian.

Here are some of the books, audio courses and websites I plan to use :

Colloquial Basque by Alan R. King and Begotxu Olaizola Elordi – If I cannot find a hard copy of this book in the local library, I will make use of the Google Books preview version instead.

The Basque Language : A Practical Introduction by Alan R. King – Same as above. I borrowed this book from the library I used to work at a few years ago. It was quite a useful book for beginners, though perhaps not as stimulating as Colloquial Basque.

Basque-English, English-Basque Dictionary and Phrasebook by Joseph Conroy – I have a copy of this book in my own personal library (i.e. one of the bookshelves in my living room). It’s quite a handy little book and the phrasebook section can be very useful for learning grammatical structures and thematic vocabulary.

Buber’s Basque Page : Euskara - Numerous resources can be found on this webpage, including some basic lessons and links to online media.

Curso Deusto de Euskera - Three online courses developed by Deusto University. The courses are quite comprehensive but may be useless for anyone who cannot read Spanish.

Assimil Iniciación al Euskara - An Assimil course designed for Spanish speakers wishing to learn Basque. I doubt I can find a hard copy of this course before the end of my 2 week challenge so I may have to rely on an online copy.

Morris Student Plus - An online Basque-English-Basque dictionary.

If you would like to recommend a certain book or online course, you’re welcome to leave a comment with your recommendation.