One of the thorniest problems of the Balkan peninsula and its environs involves the identity of the pre-Greek peoples and whether any or all of them were Indo- European or not. According to Herodotus (8.44), Pelasgians inhabited Greece. Strabo (7.7.1) reports that Thracians once held Attica and ‘even now [c.64 BCE ‒ 19 CE] Thracians, Illyrians, and Epeirots live on the flanks’. Macedonia and parts of Thessaly were occupied by Thracians, Acarnania and Aetolia by Thesprotians. Illyrians lived on the Adriatic from Epidaurum to Lissus — the heart of modern Albanian territory. And so on. But the tradition is confused and has not been sorted out with any accuracy (Katičič 1976).
Two of the most important studies of pre-Greek, Furnée (1972) and Beekes (2007), are the least cited. Both of these show that certain sound sequences pattern together and differ significantly from typical Greek combinations. Of the 4400 words in Furnée’s appendix Beekes estimates that a full thousand are genuine pre-Greek etyma. Both of these studies reject the idea of Pelasgian, but Pelasgian shares some important features with Dacian, and Duridanov (1995) considers both to be of Indo-European origin.
One characteristic of pre-Greek is the alternation of voiceless, voiced, and aspirated stops (Furnée 1972: 101‒200; Beekes 2007: §5.1), e.g. (pl.) σπύραθοι / σφυράδ- ‘ball of dung’, but similar forms are found in Lithuanian (EDG 1387). Others include prenasalization, e.g. κάχρυς / κάγχρυς ‘parched barley’ (Beekes §5.2) and unpredictable alternations like βίττακος / ψιττακός ‘parrot’ and πιστάκιον / ψιστάκιον / βιστάκιον / φιττάκιον ‘pistachio nut’ (Beekes §5.4 ff.).
Beekes (2007) further identifies as pre-Greek αμβ / υμβ, ανθ / ινθ / υνθ, ανδ / ινδ / υνδ, and αγγ / ιγγ / υγγ. The last (Beekes 2007: 33, 37) is found in such words as σάλπιγξ / σαλπιγγ- [Il. 18.219] ‘trumpet’, λάρυγξ / λαρυγγ- [Att.] ‘larynx’, σῦριγξ / σῡριγγ- [Il.] ‘tube: shepherd’s pipe, spear-case’, [Arist.] ‘duct, channel’, and φάρυγξ / φαρυγγ- [Eur.] ‘throat, gullet’, earlier φάρυξ / φαρυγ- [Od.] ‘id.’, although in this case a potential IE etymology has been proposed: ?*bhr̥H-u-g- [*bher-² ‘cut, bore’ / *bherH-] (LIV 80). Beekes (2010: 1556) insists that the word is pre-Greek.
Literary remains are unhelpful. There are pre-Greek Cretan texts in hiero- glyphic and Minoan Linear A script (see Ferrara 2010: 12‒16), the Lemnos stele, inscriptions in Greek letters from Praisos, Crete, and non-Greek inscriptions in an indigenous script on Cyprus. Numerous attempts have been made at identifying the language(s). Many are convinced that Linear A is an Indo-European language
Pelasgian, Ancient Macedonian, and Thracian 19
of Anatolia and that some Greek lexical items and place names in -σσο- / -ττο- and -νθο- correlate with Anatolian place names in -šša and -anda (see Finkelberg 2005: 42‒64; Duhoux 2007: 225 f.).
With Παρνᾱ(σ)σός, a mountain in Phocis and a town in Cappadocia, schol- ars have compared Hitt. Parnašši- (name of a town) and Luvian parnašša- ‘of the (divine) house’. This is reasonable (cf. DELG 858 f.) but Katičič (1976: 43 f.) lists forty towns in -(ᾱ/η)σ(σ)ος / Att. -(η)ττος (e.g. Ion. Ὑμησσός, Att. Ὑμηττός ‘Hymettus’) which, if the suffix is related the way other such Greek alternations are,9 a relation to Luv. -ašša- is impossible (Morpurgo Davies 1986: 112 ff.). One way around this is to assume a common substrate underlying Greek and Luvian. An account of this type is offered by Yakubovich (2008: 14), for whom the same substrate suffixes became productive in Anatolian because they accidentally resembled adjectival -ant and possessive -ašša.
Toponyms in -nth- (twenty-five in Katičič, pp. 42 f.; cf. GrS i. 68 f.; Beekes 2007: 34) have been claimed to be Georgian (see Furnée 1972: 198) or Anatolian, e.g. Πύρανθος (town on Crete) has been related to Hitt. Puranda-, a town in Arzawa. But -(ι)νθο- exhibits a different consonant from its Anatolian counterpart -(a)nda- which lacks aspiration (Yakubovich 2008: 13, w. lit). Borrowing from the same source is possible.
An additional detail suggests that there were different pre-Greek languages in different areas. Mycenaean texts from Pylos attest five -nth- place names vs. one in -ss-, but Knossos attests eleven -ss- (cf. Κνωσσός itself) vs. one -nth- (Hajnal 2005: §3.2, w. lit). Hajnal emphasizes that -nth- entered Greek early enough to undergo assibilation in S/E Greek. Compare the female name ko-ri-si-ja /Korinsíā/ ‘Korinthian’ beside ko-ri-to Κόρινθος, or the male name za-ku-si-jo /dᶻakúnsios/ ‘Zakynthian’ beside Ζάκυνθος (García Ramón 2011: 242). This may be a compound name, like Ῥήσ-κυνθος, Ἀρά-κυνθος (Duridanov 1995: 53, w. lit).
Labyrinth supposedly contains the allegedly Lydian λάβρυς glossed πέλεκυς
‘double-axe’ in Plutarch (Quaest. gr. 45). Some have even suggested that the Lydian sign for λ (𐤷) is a double-axe (see Gusmani 1964: 275), but Furnée (1972: 397 f.) argues that λαβύρινθος more likely meant ‘king’s house’ than ‘house of the double-axes’ and suggests a connection to the Anatolian complex Labarna / tabarna (Hattic king / regal title). This is plausibly the source of the Carian place name Λαβρυανδα, and the Hattic alternation might also account for Myc.
9 That they probably are so related is suggested by the spelling ΑλικαρνᾱΤεύς ‘Halicarnassian’ (etc.) for Herodotus’ Αλικαρνησσεύς (§15.7.1); cf. García Ramón (2011: 242). For the letter Τ see §15.6.
20 Pre-Greek
da-pu(₂)-ri-to- (Kn.) /dabúrintʰo-/ (cf. Hajnal 2005: §5.2), possibly a place name,
given the context potnia da-pu(₂)-ri-to (KN Gg 702) ‘queen of Daburinthos’? (cf.
Duhoux 2008: 262 ff.). García Ramón (2011: 234) takes da-pu₂-ri-to-jo po-ti-ni-ja as ‘Mistress / Lady of the Labyrinth’. The δ/λ-alternation is often a characteristic of pre-Greek (Beekes 2007: §5.7). Beekes (2010: 819) is non-committal.
At least one mainland substrate language had -(ι)νθο-, which was never gen- eralized to Greek roots but remains restricted to loanwords, especially plants and technology, e.g. ἄκανθος ‘acanthus’ [IG iv² 1: 102.241: Epidaurus c.400‒350+] / ἄκανθα [Hom. 1x: v.328+] ‘thistle’, ὄλονθος / ὄλυνθος [Hes.] ‘fruit of the wild fig’, ὑάκινθος [Hom. 1x: 14.348+] / Cret. ϝάκινθος ‘wild hyacinth’, ἄψινθος [c2 Are- taeus] ‘absinthe’, πλίνθος [Alc. 398? (text corrupt)] ‘brick’; cf. μίνθη [Hippon., Crat.+] ‘mint’ (Hajnal 2005: §7.3; Duhoux 2007: 226; Hawkins 2010: 216; EDG 48 f., 955, 1523 f.).
One reputedly interesting -(ι)νθο- word is Myc. a-sa-mi-to / ἀσάμινθος [Od.+] ‘bathtub’. If it is indeed from Akkadian namsû ‘washbowl, washing tub’, it would have been borrowed in the form *νασάμ-ινθ-ος, which was reanalyzed in poetic contexts like *ἀργυρέᾱν νασάμινθον to ἀργυρέᾱν ἀσάμινθον ‘silver bathtub’ (plural at iv.128) (Reece 2009: ch. 16). The reanalyzed form may have been gen- eralized from an epic context already in Mycenaean where, according to Reece, the Homeric bathing type-scene is reflected in other terms, e.g. re-wo-to-ro-ko-wo / λοετροχοός ‘bath-attendant’, ke-ni-qa /kʰernigʷ-/, cf. χέρνιβον [24.304] ‘vessel for washing the hands’ — fifteen terms in all (Probonas 1992). Beekes (2010: 146) relates ἀσάμινθος to Akk. assammu(m) ‘earthenware water vessel’.
The town Pergamon along with πύργος ‘tower’ (§22.9), πέργαμα ‘fortifications’ may be related to Hitt. parku- ‘high’ < *bhr̥ǵh-u- (Furnée 1972: 64 ff.; Duridanov 1995: 52; EDHIL 37). If borrowed from parku-, the words would be pre-Greek (EDG 1262).
While all Anatolian connections are tenuous (Morpurgo Davies 1986: 111 ff.), and Hajnal (2005) denies any influence on Greek beyond the lexicon, there is now genetic evidence for an early Anatolian substrate in Crete but not mainland Greece (King et al. 2008). What the genetic evidence cannot reveal, however, is whether the Anatolian presence on Crete was by speakers of an Indo-European language or Hattic. It is, however, confirmation that different languages were encountered in different areas.
The only currently warranted conclusion is that at least some of the loanwords and toponyms are likely of Anatolian provenience, but that has no bearing on the nature of the pre-Greek languages attested on Crete and elsewhere (cf. Katičič 1976: 40‒97). Moreover, Cappadocian texts from Kültepe, presumably prior to the Indo-European arrival, have the same characteristic pre-Greek suffixes (Katičič, pp. 52 ff.), which some have also called Pelasgian (ibid., pp. 63‒87).
Ancient Macedonian 21