Greek Danáē, Linear B da-nwa

Writing system

Greek Δανάη \ Danáē, the mother of Perseus, came from *danawā. The Linear B word da-nwa, likely the name of a goddess receiving honey, seems related. I think that the sign NWA also stood for NAWA, allowing an easier comparison. This is partly because -nwa- would be rare in any form of Greek, but also to follow other spelling conventions. For ex., LB *da-na-wa could stand for danwa or danawa, so having the equivalent single sign replace 2 might be equivalent to either. I've also said that a similar principle was at work in Linear A, to explain A-KA-RU & KA-RU, 2 transaction terms, being the same (if KA could also be AKA, etc., in https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoricalLinguistics/comments/1nvx74a/linear_a_math_8/ ). I think looking for more ex. might be helpful, since many LA words, using LB values for the signs, do not quite match any known places or words. If words beginning with CV were really VCV in some cases (or maybe even VC, if C1V1-C2V1- could be used for cases when VCCV needed to be specified), it might help find the origin of the speakers of LA.

Posted Feb 1, 2026, 4:24 AM UTC

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