Linguistics of Writing in the Ancient Mediterranean

FAIN: FT-306077-25

Nikita Bezrukov
University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA 19104-6205)

Research and writing contributing to a journal article and dataset analyzing Cypriot, Linear B, and Paleo-Hispanic syllabic scripts using modern orthographic theories.

This project explores early syllabic writing systems, specifically the Cypriot, Linear B, and Paleo-Hispanic scripts, which use symbols to represent syllables rather than individual letters. While modern orthographic theories have been extensively applied to languages like English and Dutch, they remain underexplored in ancient scripts. The work will result in two key outputs: a journal article and a publicly available, linguistically annotated dataset of these scripts. The project aims to bridge the gap between modern and ancient writing systems, offering fresh insights into the evolution of human literacy.