The Origins of Writing, the Alphabet and the Syllable PA - LEXILINE JOURNAL 563

This is the 11th posting in this series [updated for Luvian in a later posting, and in further amended form subsequently published as a book under the title Ancient Signs]. It begins the syllabic grid with the Syllable PA. Each syllable will be presented in its own posting.

First there is a scan of the page, followed by the text with clickable links, a format necessitated by Blogger not resolving online the Aegean Font and Microsoft Word images.

TABLE I

TABLE OF CYPRIOT SYLLABARY, MINOAN LINEAR B, PHAISTOS DISK, AXE OF ARKALOCHORI, OLD ELAMITE and SUMERIAN SIGN CONCORDANCE
A Table of the Sign Concordance of: 1) The Cypriot Syllabary, 2) Linear B -- Michael Ventris and John Chadwick, 3) the Phaistos Disk -- Andis Kaulins, 4) the Axe of Arkalochori -- Andis Kaulins, 5) Old Elamite Script -- Andis Kaulins, 6) Sumerian Pictographs and Egyptian Hieroglyphs

Syllabic Value of the Sign (Symbol) (there was no universally established AEIOU vowel system yet in this era, and there were dipthongs, so that a strict AEIOU system here is a bit misleading)	Cypriot Syllabary signs from the BabelMap (Unicode Character Map for Windows)	Linear B (Ventris & followers) (standard Bennet numbers in parentheses) Aegean Font	Phaistos Disk (Kaulins) (first deciphered by him in the years 1978- 1980)	Axe of Arkalochori (Kaulins) (these same basic signs are also on the Phaistos Disk). This column also provides explanatory photo images for various Minoan symbols	Elamite Script (Kaulins) (same basic signs as the Phaistos Disk -  see also here)	Sumerian Pictographs and/or Egyptian Hieroglyphs and/or sign commentary on individual symbols
PA (and BA ?) In Linear B, sign B03 has been assigned a value of PA and sign B16 was originally assigned a value of PA2, correctly BA, but later changed in error to QA. The first word on the Axe of Arkalochori is βασιλεύς, thus negating in Linear B the transcription qa si-re-u which is correctly ba-si-leu-s. In Linear B signs, the meaning is often not the vertical line but usually the other sign elements. In B16 it is an abstract head with ears placed at the top of the vertical.	Cypriot syllabary: 𐠞 PA Cypriot syllabary: 𐠢 PU "scraping tool" scraper above line as earth viz. the ground	Linear B 𐀞(03) PA 𐀣(16) Sign B16 once read as PA2, now read in error as QA. Correct is BA	Phaistos Disk 𐇑 PA Some think this to be the Peleset,[1] people of Keftiu, Crete. More likely is "warrior" πολεμιστής πολεμίζω Thracian "peltast" πελταστής later Greek ὁπ[o]λίτης hoplitēs	The Axe of Arkalochori. (2 drawing variants) 󿼉or󿼃 PA Warrior image found at William H. Stiebing, Jr., Invasions of the Sea Peoples, Bibl. Arch. Review The warrior image suggests a warrior sign	Old Elamite PA The abstracted sign in Old Elamite shows the head and neck in profile view.	Sumerian PAR2 BAR "sharp tool, pick, head?" (Jaritz #118) PA2 BA "division, scraping tool" (Jaritz #005)

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[1] The Peleset are listed in the hieroglyphs of Egypt among the so-called Sea Peoples. These hieroglyphs are reproduced below from the Wikipedia. The erroneous mainstream scholarship reading of those Egyptian hieroglyphs is n3 ḫ3t.w n p3 ym (try pronouncing that artificial notation !), allegedly meaning "Sea Peoples" or "People of Foreign Lands". The hieroglyphs are followed by a list of ethnic names. My reading of those same hieroglyphs shows the corrected reading to result in terms strikingly similar to Greek. Ponder what the following hieroglyphic readings tell us about Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs in terms of Ancient Greek connections generally.

n3 ḫ3t.w n p3 ym

An- thro- po- n- y- my     hydro (or) naiya    peir-aikos (peir-as)

ἀνθρω [ἀνθρώπων]...ἐπωνυμιa... (Ναιά, νᾶμα, ὕδωρ)...πειραικός (πεῖρας)

= Names of peoples of the border countries beyond the limit (mouth) of the Nile.

Note: The Nile: in Ancient Egyptian iteru or Ḥ'pī [Latvian upe "river], Coptic piaro (Sahidic) or phiaro (Bohairic).

The Egyptian hieroglyph for the Mediterranean is  (in my reading ἀέξω (αὔξω) εὐρεῖα naiya peiras viz. ἀέξω εὐρεῖα nama/hydro peiras meaning "great wide river limit" viz. "mouth of the Nile") and for the Nile is [ (hydro) which is the same as Greek ὕδωρ "udro-, hydro, water" viz. νᾶμα "nama" or naiya (Ναιάς). Nama in Greek means anything flowing, running water, stream, spring, and could have the same N-root as Greek Νεῖλος for "Nile" as in ὕδος τὸ Νείλου, to which compare Arabic: النيل‎, an-nīl. The N- root is retained in English in naval, nautical and nymph (Ναιάς), Finnish nevo "sea", Swedish ny "new river", and Russian Neva.

One can see clearly from the "Sea Peoples" hieroglyph that the term anthro- derived from *ana-terra, in Greek *ana- *xer- i.e. χέρσος.