Minoan language

The Minoan language is the language, or possibly languages, of the ancient Minoan civilization of Crete, written in the Cretan hieroglyphs and later in the Linear A syllabary. Because the Cretan hieroglyphs are undeciphered and Linear A is only partly deciphered, the language is unknown and unclassified, and it cannot even be certain that the two scripts record the same language. It is mainly known from Linear A inscriptions, mostly on clay tablets, found at more than 40 localities across Crete, while the Cretan hieroglyphs date to the first half of the second millennium BC. The Eteocretan language, attested in a few alphabetic inscriptions from Crete about a thousand years later, may descend from Minoan but is also unclassified. Minoan does not appear to be a close relative of any known language.