Traversing the Entropic Landscape: Measuring Mutual Information in the Greek Syllabic Scripts 1

Abstract Syllabic scripts have historically been described as transitional and cumbersome, and the Greek syllabic scripts have not escaped such criticism. Scholars continue to question how successfully Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary represent Ancient Greek and which script does so more effectively. The present study leverages information‐theoretic tools to conduct a systematic, quantitative comparison of these two syllabaries and offer an objective basis upon which to compare the scripts' structural properties and efficacy. I calculate each syllabary's mutual information, which quantifies the shared information and dependency between a script's graphemic and phonemic systems. The results of the investigation reveal that—contrary to traditional evaluations—the Cypriot syllabary and Linear B differ only minimally with regard to the amount of information shared between their graphemic and phonemic systems. I offer brief comments on the patterns that emerge from the disaggregation of the data. Many are easily explained by the morphophonological properties of Mycenaean and Cyprian Greek, but others require further investigation. This approach not only provides a replicable framework for comparing the Greek syllabic scripts but also opens pathways for applying the tools of information theory to broader historical linguistic and epigraphic research.