A Pre-Greek name for Odysseus

In my previous post (Odysseus, Uthuze and Utnapishtim), I finished off with the dangling idea that the name Odysseus had reached Anatolia and the Aegean by the second millenium BCE. This shouldn't be a provocative speculation given the facts and communis opinio. However, the question is exactly how the name entered Greek and how a Sumerian name Utu-zi suggested by the Babylonian rendering of the name Utnapishtim (UD.ZI^tim) might have even influenced Greek if Sumerian is said to have been a dead language by the beginning of the 2nd millenium BCE!

There are additional facts that make this topic very intriguing, such as the fact that Ὀδυσσεύς (''Odusseús'') is but one Greek reflex of the name, others being Ὀλυσσεύς (''Olusseús''), Οὐλιξεύς (''Oulikseús'') and Οὐλίξης (''Oulíksēs'') from whence Latin Ulysses. Notice the alternation of d to l? Strangely enough Robert Beekes identifies a lot of "Pre-Greek" words with this same alternation and many of the pairs seem to me to be rather convincing. As previously mentioned, the Etruscan name shows an aspirated plosive th, yet another phoneme for what is surely the same sound in the beginning.

So here's what I hypothesize to explain all this maddening variation. Let's presume that Beekes' observation of "Pre-Greek" d/l alternation is suggestive of Minoan phonology. The unetymologizable d/l pairs in Greek are afterall inexorably linked to the current awkwardness of the Minoan transliteration (cf. Paleoglot: A new value for Minoan 'd') which doesn't exhibit a natural phonology for a language. I've previously suggested an affricate /t͡ʃ/ for Minoan "d" but I'm lately honestly considering an affricate /t͡θ/, attested in Athabaskan languages, which when unaspirated may be mistaken as either a "d" or an "l", particularly in a language like Mycenaean Greek which evidently lacked this sound. This brings us to a reconstructed Minoan form *Oduze /'Ot͡θut͡se/ which is more in line with the presumed Sumerian form.

Now how might the Sumerian form enter Minoan by chance? Certainly one way would be if a Minoan scribe moderately knowledgeable in Babylonian characters read the Sumerograms UD.ZI literally as Utuzi. The use of the original Sumerian phonetic values for the Babylonian symbols when writing Babylonian long postdates the extinction of the Sumerian language.

Finally, back to the Etruscan aspirated plosive, I would suggest that there may be a correspondance between Minoan "d" /t͡θ/ and Proto-Cyprian *tʰ. (Note: I've now decided to call Proto-Etrusco-Cypriot simply Proto-Cyprian since, for one thing, it's easier to type. Lol.) From Cyprian, we get the derivative languages Etruscan, Lemnian, Rhaetic, Eteo-Cypriot and Eteo-Cretan.