Talk:Undeciphered writing systems

message: I love how someone has made articles like "undiciphered writing systems" and "list of languages by first written accounts".  So kudos to anonymous authors!
However, in most of what I've read the implication is the that the recent claims about Indus Valley Script being proto-writing are unsubstantiated.  I recommend this be changed, at least to "possibly proto-writing" although this hardly represents scholarly consensus.  People said all sorts of crazy crap about Linear A and Egyptian Hieroglyphic before they were diciphered.  Usually if an idiot says it, it's likely to be nonsense.  Shucks, folks; I mean duh.
Wikipedian "Epigraphist" without a password at a library computer.
35.8.218.111 (talk) 21:13, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Praise and contention

message: I've asked for peer review for rongorongo, so I'd appreciate the input from anyone here. We've gotten rid of (most of?) the kookery, and hopefully it's now close to being a worthy article. 
Thanks, kwami (talk) 09:06, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  peer review for rongorongo 

message: It appears given the linked page that Jurchen is in fact deciphered, IE chinese -> jurchen dictionaries exist. But I can't tell for sure.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.245.107.176 (talk) 03:51, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jurchen Script Undeciphered? 

message: I have read that there is a Ba script both phonetic? and pictographic, along with a Shu script which may have been phonetic. Is there any truth to this, and can it be included? Enlil Ninlil (talk) 02:31, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: China

message: This is a great article which I rather enjoyed -- except for this one section. I had two big problems with the Fictional undeciphered writing systems section.
Firstly, none of the three examples are fictional in the ordinary meaning. They all exist! Possibly the section is meant to be entitled false writing systems?
Secondly, the three examples have two very different characters, neither of which corresponds to a writing system in the normal usage of that term:
* asemic writing is not writing, it is art that is intended to resemble writing but intentionally has no actual meaning (that, indeed, is what "asemic" means!) It is meaningless to speak of "deciphering" something which has no meaning. (Of course, we mean no semantic meaning; it might be intended to mean "think of ancient mysteries" or "this is beautiful", but the "text" itself has no meaning.)
* Until 2009, Codex Seraphinianus was the most entitled to be in this section, as it could not be completely proven that it was not an artificial language. However, since then the author has publicly stated that it is asemic writing.
* The Dorabella cipher is not a writing system per se, but a ciphered message. Furthermore, it is no longer undeciphered. Tim Roberts of Central Queensland University has presented a solution that practically all students of the puzzle have found very convincing. (The message is a simple substitution cipher that proved difficult only because it is extremely short, it contains several errors -- which is not that uncommon -- and it is a mixture of English, Italian, and one made-up word that is probably meant to be teasing Dora about her stutter.)
So we have two things here that are somewhat related to undeciphered writing systems, but are not the same. I have acted boldly by:
* re-titling the section to "Related topics";
* amending the asemic examples; and
* changing Dorabella to a link to the Category (there used to be a list article, which would have been much more informative, but bloody MoS fascists got to it.) -- 202.63.39.58 (talk) 03:50, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fictional undeciphered writing systems heavily edited 

message: Readings of is known to most of Jindai Moji.
However, as for some letters found in the remains such as Hokkaido letters, there is the letter which a reading of is not known to.
You should limit it to for example "Hokkaido letter" or "Chikushi letter" if you leave it in section.
What is not known is rather than a reading of whether ancient Japanese characters are things of what time of times.
And, because "Jindai Moji" also means "ancient characters" in Japanese,so I think it is not good that enter "Possible hoax undeciphered writing systems" personally.--Nissy-KITAQ (talk) 08:43, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: First of all, I have to mention that editing Wikipedia is not about TRUE OR FALSE (:ja:WP:VERIFY#「真実かどうか」ではなく「検証可能かどうか」) Almost all of the reliable sources I read about Jindai moji. All mentioned that their existence had been denied and they are regarded as forgeries among academic societies. It's obvious that it is not possible to write it existed, if you read Wikipedia guidelines. Just because all the reliable sources say it is forgery, putting Jindai moji in hoax list is reasonable. --Orcano (talk) 12:28, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jindai Moji 

message: INDUS SCRIPT WAS TRUE WRITING
Please find my two papers below and circulate amongst the skeptics, particularly! 
To state the obvious, the Indus script was a logo-syllabic script and a lost corpus did exist. 
http://www.scribd.com/doc/46387240/Sujay-Indus-Script-Final-Version-Final-Final 
Published in the ICFAI journal of history and culture, January 2011 
http://www.scribd.com/doc/111707419/Sujay-Indus-Reintroducing-Lost-Manuscript-Hypothesis 
Published in International journal of philosophy and journal sciences , November 2012 
I am also introducing logo-syllabic thesis B in this paper 
The paper is very self-explanatory!
does anybody still beg to differ?
Sujay Rao Mandavilli  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.242.121.167 (talk) 23:12, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  why the indus script was true writing and why a lost corpus existed in the indus valley civilization: simple proof addressed to mainstream researchers 

message: As interesting as is a list of undecyphered writing systems, a list of deciphered writing systems would be as interesting. It would allow comparison of the techniques that were used in the past to crack Egyptian, Linear B, and other old scripts.
Nicolas Perrault (what did I screw up again?) 16:42, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Why would we care what an author and radio show host said in 2007? What credentials does he have to make him an expert? To be fair to him though, he does say "Though Fradin continues to believe Morlet and the site’s Neolithic nature, few now support it, seeing that the “hard dating” techniques have provided far more recent dates."  But we need to go by what the experts say. Doug Weller (talk) 20:46, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

text: Now I am completely confused. You are saying that we should use a 1927 article as the last word? But this discussion doesn't belong here, but at Talk:Glozel where I've already been posting, so I'm going there now with another source. Doug Weller (talk) 08:48, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of Deciphered writing systems 

message: The person who deleted Glozel script as a fraud is advised that thermoluminescence dating of Glozel artifacts has verified their antiquity.
"Thermoluminescence dating of 27 artefacts revealed three distinct periods: the first between 300 BC and 300 AD (Celtic and Roman Gaul, as the earliest report on Glozel had indicated), the second medieval (13th century), and the third, rather remarkably, recent, suggesting these could potentially be frauds mixed with genuine artefacts. And though carbon-dating of bone fragments have ranged from the 13th to the 20th century, one human femur was actually dated to the 5th century." from Phil Coppens' article 'Glozel: Fraud or Find of the Century?' 76.191.150.36 (talk) 19:51, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Why would we care what an author and radio show host said in 2007? What credentials does he have to make him an expert? To be fair to him though, he does say "Though Fradin continues to believe Morlet and the site’s Neolithic nature, few now support it, seeing that the “hard dating” techniques have provided far more recent dates."  But we need to go by what the experts say. Doug Weller (talk) 20:46, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

text: Now I am completely confused. You are saying that we should use a 1927 article as the last word? But this discussion doesn't belong here, but at Talk:Glozel where I've already been posting, so I'm going there now with another source. Doug Weller (talk) 08:48, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Glozel script

message: As it is mentioned in newspapers/on the British Library blog  would the inscription on the sword fall within the scope of this article? Jackiespeel (talk) 20:38, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think so. It could be a code, or it could be a phrase (maybe Latin) represented by the first letter of each word - that wasn't uncommon. Doug Weller (talk) 15:50, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Partly 'flagging up something in the news for consideration.' (And 'as I came across it, others will, and will come here.')
Should there be 'a sentence or two' to the effect that such 'acronyms/initialisations' do occur (but are rarely/only occasionally significant enough to be listed here)? Jackiespeel (talk) 09:42, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  River Witham sword 

message: the article linked to has Wadi el-Hol inscriptions.  Is Wadi el-Ħôl  necessary?  It certainly doesn't help me, as someone who does not read Arabic, to pronounce it at all.--Richardson mcphillips (talk) 22:09, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proto-Sinaitic writing 

message: Phaistos Disk has been removed from this list, as it is already contained under 'Cretan Hieroglyphs.' It is not an unique object. 117.213.110.6 (talk) 03:41, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bronze Age 

message: The Sitovo inscription has three citations, not one of which is a peer-reviewed article; it should be removed. The first article is a blog-type thing from a website which has since been taken down, the second 'article' is not peer-reviewed, goes against just about every convention of historical or reconstructive linguistics, and actually claims this inscription to be 4500 years old (yet attempts to translate it using Old Bulgarian (!) and Modern Slovenian (!!!)), so it's in the wrong section anyway. The second article shows up on Google Scholar as having been published in a journal that doesn't actually exist, and the professor mentioned as a mentor in the article is on the chemistry faculty (!) of Ljubljana University. The third citation is also a blog-style webpage that cites an article by Orel (who is a good scientist) but that article was never published and I don't even know how the author of that page got ahold of the article after Orel's death... Regardless, the article has been forthcoming since 1991 and I dare say at this point it may not actually come out (and thus also can't be used as a source). I hesitate to even call this inscription an inscription (there's a reason there's no good picture of the inscription on its own page). The fact that this is the only undeciphered writing in its section that even has citations should say something. It's almost as if someone really wants people to believe that it is, in fact, an inscription. The Sitovo inscription should be removed as an example of undeciphered writing until at least a single peer-reviewed source (from a journal that actually exists) can be cited.
Vindafarna (talk) 01:01, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: @Vindafarna there is this but my issue is that there  is no justification to call it a "writing system", something that is true for other entries. Doug Weller talk 15:15, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sitovo Inscription issues 

message: While the article heads a critique off at the pass that it is —I still think it's wholly irresponsible and unencyclopedic to conflate likely proto-writing and non-writing with writing. Remsense诉 04:33, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the main problem is the title. As they are undeciphered and often sparsely attested, it may be difficult to classify each "system" as writing, proto-writing, representational symbols, artistic decoration, or hoax. Thus, any attempt to e.g split up this article into articles covering the various classes separately would lead to several rather futile disputes about where certain "systems" belong. One sweeping article for them all is not so bad, I think, but a title (and not just a lead!) that better reflects the doubts one may have about the various entries would be good. "Undeciphered writing systems or similar collections of symbols that may or may not be a form of writing or proto-writing" would not do as a title, obviously, but perhaps someone can come up with a more elegant suggestion? "Writing-like" is not a word (AFAIK), but something like that? Nø (talk) 10:26, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: How about just "Undeciphered symbols"? Remsense诉 21:42, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps too brief - "Undeciphered writing-like symbol sets" would be fairly accurate, I think, but is quite ugly. Nø (talk) 18:46, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV/SYNTH, even if admitted 

message: It lists The Starving of Saqqara as a language and not a statue with an unknown language on it. Can someone change that please? 2601:447:D17C:3340:2541:F905:6793:379C (talk) 22:58, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: In genereal, the list items start with a wikilink to an article, and in most cases, that article is on either a script or an inscription (which are two different concepts), but in some cases, it is on an inscribed object. I agree this is slightly inelegant, but I think other solutions would be worse (unless it can all be solved by using pipes - I am not sure). -- The Phaistos disc is one of the several other inscribed objects on the list. Nø (talk) 09:36, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Starving of Saqqara