Frühgriechisch

Frühgriechisch refers to the earliest attested stage of the Greek language. It is primarily known from Linear B, a syllabic script used in Mycenaean Greece from approximately the 15th to the 12th centuries BCE. The decipherment of Linear B in the 1950s by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick revealed that the script recorded an early form of Greek, rather than an unknown indigenous language as had been previously hypothesized.

The corpus of texts written in Linear B is relatively small, consisting mainly of administrative and economic records found on clay tablets in palace archives at Knossos, Mycenae, Pylos, and other Mycenaean sites. These tablets provide invaluable insights into the vocabulary, grammar, and phonology of Frühgriechisch. The language recorded is a dialectal ancestor of later classical Greek, showing distinct features that distinguish it from later stages of the language.

Key characteristics of Frühgriechisch include a rich system of case endings and verb conjugations, as well as specific phonetic features that evolved over time. For example, certain consonant clusters and vowel combinations found in Linear B texts were later simplified or altered in subsequent Greek dialects. The study of Frühgriechisch is crucial for understanding the historical development of the Greek language and its relationship to other Indo-European languages. It forms the bedrock upon which later Greek literature and linguistic traditions were built, offering a window into the culture and society of Bronze Age Greece.