A Linguistic History of Ancient Cyprus

Steele, Philippa M.

doi:10.1017/cbo9781107337558

Cited by 33 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…What is less doubtful is the idea that Cypro-Minoan is somehow related to the writing systems from the Aegean. The main hypothesis is that this script is probably derived from Linear A, with some parallels between signs being noted in various works (Faucounau, 1977;Ferrara, 2012;Steele, 2013;Valério, 2016;Valério and Davis, 2017).…”

Section: Cypro-minoanmentioning

confidence: 75%

Computational methods for undeciphered scripts

Corazza

2024

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The study of ancient, undeciphered scripts through computational means presents unique challenges that depend both on the nature of the problem and on the peculiarities of each writing system. This volume presents two computational approaches that were successfully applied to two writing systems from the Aegean and Cyprus; the success of these endeavors paves the way for new discoveries and methods. The first part features a discussion of the Linear A and Cypro-Minoan writing systems, as well as a background of the computational approaches used. The description of the paleographic and technical aspects is aimed at scholars of both disciplines and provides an extensive background, which is crucial to understanding the goals and methods of this study. The second part is a discussion of the experimental results, which includes a proposed decipherment of the Linear A fractions. Further, the experiments on Cypro-Minoan demonstrate that, contrary to previous hypotheses, it is a single writing system, rather than comprising three separate systems. The two experiments used completely different computational methods, since the method used to decipher Linear A is based on constraint programming, while the Cypro-Minoan experiments are based on a deep learning model. Michele Corazza is a research fellow at the University of Bologna in the field of natural language processing. After obtaining his master’s degree in computer science, he joined the WIMMICS team in INRIA Sophia Antipolis, France, working as a research engineer on the CREEP project, focused on the detection and prevention of cyberbullying online. During this collaboration he developed machine learning models that detect hate speech and cyberbullying on social networks in a multilingual setting. In 2019 he started a PhD at the University of Bologna, joining the INSCRIBE ERC project, which investigates the origin of writing. His PhD studies focused on the development of computational methods based on writing systems in the Aegean and Cyprus, in particular Linear A and Cypro-Minoan. After defending his thesis in 2023, he joined the HyperModeLex ERC project, which is focused on developing AI models to aid in the European legislative process.

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Section: Cypro-minoanmentioning

confidence: 75%

Computational methods for undeciphered scripts

Corazza

2024

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“…BC dedication from the Aphrodite sanctuary made to the "Astarte from Paphos" 45 (another late example of the "Phoenician" presence in the area is a grafitto from a tomb in Nea Paphos, dated to the 300 BC). 46…”

Section: Phoenician Gods and Cult In Cyprusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cypriot Phoenicians and their cultural identity

Zeman-Wiśniewska

2023

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Phoenician identity is associated with a strong sense of belonging to the city-state; in the case of Cyprus, it is especially Kition, where the “Phoenician” ruling dynasty can be recognised. Another distinctive feature is the Phoenician language and alphabetic writing, with numerous examples of inscriptions found on the island. The third one is religion and cult, with deities bearing Phoenician names, but apparently syncretised with both their Hellenic counterparts and local traditions. For about a century after the death of the last king of Kition the community, which we identify as Cypriot Phoenicians can still be found within the archaeological material, and especially through inscriptions. However, as generations pass, and a new order grows without the ‘Phoenician city-state’ in Cyprus and the cult overseen by it, only some old family traditions are carried on, such as personal names, and regard towards ancestors.

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“…While archaeology has traditionally been a separate discipline from ancient linguistics, scholarship on ancient sociolinguistics has recently emphasised the importance of investigating our sources from all angles as well as understanding their limitations (Langslow 2002;Miller 2004;Clackson 2011). This has been found particularly in the work of Mullen on Gaulish, Greek and Latin in Southern Gaul (Mullen 2012(Mullen , 2013, Steele on the languages of Cyprus (Steele 2010(Steele , 2013 and Tribulato on Sicily (Tribulato 2012), all of whom show the importance of considering language and script alongside layout, object type, iconography and spatial context. In many cases, we can also use Greco-Roman literary sources to support our investigations, though we should always appreciate that they give only a very limited view of cultures and languages other than their own.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fragmentary ancient languages as “bad data”

McDonald¹

2017

Sociolinguistica

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The study of language contact in the ancient world has been an area of huge growth over the past ten years. However, in areas of the ancient world where sources are more limited, scholars have been more hesitant to make sweeping claims about the nature of language contact, even in communities where societal bilingualism is likely to have existed for many centuries. Languages only attested in fragmentary epigraphic corpora are considered the ultimate “bad data” and have not always received a great deal of attention in historical sociolinguistics, despite these texts representing our best evidence of many of the communities across the ancient Mediterranean. In response to this problem, this article asks how we should go about interpreting the evidence of ancient language contact in small or fragmentary corpora of texts. This article uses the Oscan corpus from Southern Italy (Lucania, Bruttium and Messina) c. 400-50 BCE as a case study for examining bilingualism in a fragmentary corpus. It outlines the data gathered from a range of different text-types from Southern Italy, the different kinds of contact phenomena which have been found in these texts, and whether there are any discernible patterns in the data. It argues, because of the fragmentary state of the Oscan corpus, that there is little clear evidence of chronological or geographic differentiation in levels of bilingualism. Rather, the evidence shows that in this corpus some text-types are more likely than others to contain contact phenomena. With this in mind, this paper proposes a new model which includes consideration of text-type for the interpretation of language contact and bilingualism in fragmentary corpora.

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A Linguistic History of Ancient Cyprus

Cited by 33 publications

References 0 publications

Computational methods for undeciphered scripts

Computational methods for undeciphered scripts

Cypriot Phoenicians and their cultural identity

Fragmentary ancient languages as “bad data”

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