Hi again, everybody! ‘Hall Of Shame’ continues!
28 MINAS TSIKRITSIS
More from the Ancient Greek world: As noted earlier (see ‘Around The World In ‘Mysterious’ Scripts & Texts’ 3, this blog, 28 May 2012), Linear A is one of a number of syllabic scripts found in Crete during the twentieth century by archaeologists such as Arthur Evans. It is visually similar to Linear B, which was deciphered as very early Greek in 1952 by the talented and well-informed amateur Michael Ventris and the linguist John Chadwick; but Linear A itself, as it seems, cannot be read as Greek, and the script has resisted authoritative decipherment. The maverick Cyrus Gordon’s West Semitic interpretation has not been generally accepted; and, although the more mainstream classicist Simon Davis reads Linear A – along with the ‘Minoan Pictographic’, Eteocretan, Cypro-Minoan and Eteocypriot scripts – as Hittite (Indo-European, from Anatolia), this interpretation too is controversial to say the least. (References on request)
More recently, the amateur Minas Tsikritsis (http://www.anistor.gr/english/enback/v014.htm) – proposes (with support from Gavin Menzies, The Lost Empire Of Atlantis, London, 2011; see especially pp. 314-21) that Linear A does indeed represent an early form of (his native) Greek. In fact, he regards fifteen of the symbols on the Phaistos Disk (again, see ‘Around The World In ‘Mysterious’ Scripts & Texts’ 3) as shared with Linear A and B, and ‘deciphers’ part of the Disk text too as Greek. He also proclaims that various bodies of symbols found in various locations spread across Europe, the Near East, India, etc. represent Linear A, and thus indicate (along with his readings of the Cretan texts) that the users of the script operated far beyond Crete and the Aegean. However, the evidence for these identifications appears inadequate; the parallelisms are not patently systematic, and indeed the cited bodies of non-Cretan data are typically too small for systematicity to be manifested.
More next time!
Mark
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Skeptical Humanities 
[…] Linguistics ‘Hall of Shame’ 28 (skepticalhumanities.com) […]
You are discussing the Minoans and the Minoan languages: I am interested in Reincarnation and ancient past lifetimes. I can recall, what seems to have been a earlier lifetime in Minoan Crete, several millennia ago. what I can remember in vivid dream age-regression is detailed enough to indicate a Minoan life; the architecture, houses, physical appearance of people(Tan skin, dark, long hair, dark eyes, long, full skirts on the women) clothing and daily activities seem to be Minoan. My family group also spoken the language, I assume was Minoan. We lived in a suburban district of one of the large Minoan cities, with rows of two story houses on wide, well paved streets. We had small gardens around and between the houses. My mother at that time appeared as you see in illustrations of the women at that time, long black hair, dark eyes and features. This is all from very vivid reincarnation past life memories. It would be interesting if other people with similar memories could also comment. If genuine such data could be of use in Archaeology and linguistics.
I do not dogmatically exclude claims regarding reincarnation and past lives (although as a skeptic I am suspicious of all such claims). The currently-available LINGUISTIC evidence for reincarnation appears much weaker than its proponents suggest, and I would be VERY interested in any specifics of the Minoan language which Anthony might recall. We should note, of course, that no-one really knows what this language was like, as none of the texts or scripts have been persuasively deciphered. But if the material resembled a known language – one which Anthony has never studied and which makes sense historically – it would be of great interest. Standing by!