Pre-Greek substrate - Wikipedia
The pre-Greek substrate (or substratum) consists of the unknown pre-Greek language or languages (either Pre-Indo-European or other Indo-European languages) spoken in prehistoric Greece prior to the emergence of the Proto-Greek language in the region c. 3200–2200 BC , during the Early Helladic period. About 1,000 words of Greek vocabulary cannot be adequately explained as derivatives from Proto-Greek or Proto-Indo-European, leading to the substratum hypothesis.[ 1] [ 2]
Based upon toponymic and lexical evidence, it is generally assumed that one or several languages were once spoken in both the Greek peninsula and western Asia Minor before Mycenaean Greek and the attested Anatolian languages (Hittite and Luwian) became predominant in the region. Various explanations for this phenomenon have been given by scholars.[ 3]
One substrate language, whose influence is observable on Ancient Greek and Anatolian languages, is taken by a number of scholars to be an Indo-European language related to the Anatolian Luwian language,[ 4] [ 5] and to be responsible for the widespread place-names ending in -ssa and -nda in western Asia Minor, and -ssos and -nthos in mainland Greece.[ 6] [ 7] [ 4] For instance, the name of the mount Parnassos in Greece has been interpreted as the Luwian parna- ('house') attached to the possessive suffix -ssa-. Both Hittite and Luwian texts also attest a place-name Parnassa, which could be related.[ 4] Philologist Martin L. West has proposed to name this unattested Anatolian language "Parnassian", and has argued for "a parallel movement down from Thrace by a branch of the same people as entered Anatolia, the people who were to appear 1,500 years later as the Luwians". From the distribution of the names, it appears that this language was spoken during the Early Helladic II period, which began around 2800 BC.[ 4]
