1. Meaning of the Proto‑Indo‑European word for “sea”
Commenters debated whether the PIE root *mori denoted specifically the ocean or merely a “large body of water.”
- “No, it is mori, attested in marine, muir, maryadah, mal, morje, etc in farflung IE tongues today.” – kleton
- “Wiktionary's note says some people think this root may originally have referred to freshwater/inland seas, not oceans.” – schoen
- “There are decades of scholarship … that in Proto‑Indo‑European the word meant simply 'large body of water' and not specifically 'sea'.” – TFNA
- Germanic cognates illustrate the shift: “Its German equivalent See still mainly means ‘lake’ …” – medvidek
2. Technological regression after the Bronze Age Collapse
Several users linked the loss of Linear A/B scripts to a broader societal decline, drawing parallels to modern vulnerability.
- “I’ve been doing a bit of reading on the Bronze Age Collapse recently. It was such an apocalyptic event that Greeks forgot how to write and read. Before the collapse, Greeks were using Linear A and Linear B. It took them a few hundred years after the Bronze Age Collapse to learn how to write again, this time borrowing the Phoenician alphabet.” – noncoml
- “If those technologies were concentrated amongst the elite and only a handful of palace scribes could write most people would have no or little contact with writing.” – klrefg
- Some noted paradoxical benefits: “we have evidence that the quality of life and health improved for Western Europeans at least in some places after the Roman Empire collapsed …” – klrefg
3. How ancient the Greeks really are / the “Pre‑Greek” hypothesis
The discussion questioned the depth of Greek identity and dismissed pop‑sci claims of a single Pre‑Greek substrate.
- “How long ago before the Myceneneans does there remain a coherent concept of Greek‑ness? ‘Solon, oh Solon!’ — are Greeks truly ancient or relative newcomers in a seafaring land?” – dr_dshiv
- “The title is super‑clickbaity, as no Indo‑Europeanist working today believes in a single Pre‑Greek language; this was the idée fixe of the scholar Robert Beekes … Within the field 'Pre‑Greek!' has become something of an inside joke.” – TFNA
- Others pointed out that Greek culture emerged from a mix of influences rather than a pure, timeless lineage.