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Why has Linear A been difficult for historians to understand?

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Map of the Aegean region highlighting principal archaeological sites associated with ancient Aegean civilizations around 1250 BCE. The map shows mainland Greece, western Anatolia, and numerous islands in the Aegean Sea, with key locations such as Mycenae, Knossos, Troy, and Athens labeled. — Aegean civilizations Principal sites associated with Aegean civilizations.

Linear A remains difficult for historians and linguists to decipher primarily because the underlying language it records is unknown.1

While researchers have identified the approximate phonetic values of most syllabic signs in Linear A by comparing them to the deciphered Linear B script, this knowledge does not reveal the meaning of the texts. The language is believed to be a pre-Hellenic tongue of Minoan Crete, but its specific linguistic classification and its potential relationship to later languages, such as Eteocretan, remain unresolved.1

Because the language itself has not been identified, scholars cannot translate the inscriptions, leaving the content of these Aegean civilizations records largely inaccessible.1