TheLastWithPaganBlood said:
You caught my attention here (ok, guess that's not very hard). I want to know more! And what are these scripts?! YOu can just link if you feel like it.
Well, the Etruscans lived in Etruria, which later became incorporated with the Roman empire, while the people of Latium spoke Latin. They were part of the founders of Rome and thus the Roman Empire. The Etruscan language is, however, not an Indo-European language (unlike Latin), which makes it very interesting, because at the point in time that it existed, there were hardly any such languages in the European area. As a matter of fact, the only non-Indo-European languages I can think of as existing in that era were Iberian and Basque. The Basque language is the only such language still in existance. So, Etruscan can potentially give us much information about pre-Indo-European populations, only the language has not been deciphered. It is a variant form of the same alphabet the Phoenicians used, which eventually was adopted but the Greek and the Romans into our own A, B, C's. Nothing funny there, it's just that there are not enough remains that have writing on them for us to deciper the whole language. Either way, the written language is not runes, which is all I was getting at with that.
Linear A on the other hand, is a neat mystery! About 2000 BC a system of writing that consisted of pictograms developed on Crete. It is generally called Cretan Hieroglyphic Writing. It was replaced about 1600 BC by Linear A, which in turn was replaced by Minoan Linear B at about 1450 BC. Linear B consists of 87 different signs, so it's not an alphabet, but it's also not a hieroglyphic or pictogram form of writing. It is, instead, a syllabic alphabet - each sign has its own sound. Linear B was deciphered by Michael Ventris in 1952, and it turned out that the language was a very early form of Greek. Linear A, though, still has not been cracked. It cannot be read as Greek. In that case, the Minoans, who used Linear A, may not have been descendants of the Greek at all! The Minonas would have developed the hieroglyphic language and then Linear A for their very own language, and then they must have been conquered by Greek peoples from the mainland (this is supported by the archaeology). The new ruling class would have adapted Linear A to suit their own language, thus creating Linear B. So what language did the people of Crete speak before then, and where did they come from? We won't know until Linear A is cracked, and that in itself has huuuuuuge consequences for all sorts of scientific research (such as "where did Indo-Europeans first come from?")!
There are interesting sites on the net about this, but I cannot remember any off the top of my head that I care to stand by. Google "Linear A" and see what you can find.
