At 11:22 AM 4/3/96, Paul_Koning is rumored to have typed:
From: grafolog @ netcom.com (Jonathon Blake) @ UGATE << It's one of the status languages to study, if you are a new ager --- along with Ancient Mayan, linear B and Egyptian Hieroglyphics. >>
Well, hieroglyphics and linear b are writing systems, not languages. And Linear B is Greek (though it takes effort to read it even if you know your Homer...)
Linear B is Minoan, and knowing Greek helps in understanding what things decipher to, but it predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries so even if you knew Homer personally you would have had trouble reading it. ObCrypto: Unlike Egyptian hieroglyphics, we have yet to find a Rosetta Stone equivalent for Linear B (or Linear A, it's predecessor, although I seem to remember Linear A being more akin to ideograms) Most of what is known about Linear B was inferred using a sort of linguistic cryptanalysis, in fact there was a paper in one of the Crypto proceedings from the mid-80s which described some of the methods employed. ObMoreDeadLanguages: Does anyone know if there are Unicode character sets for Sanskrit or hieroglyphics? How exactly does one get a proposed character set approved/ratified if not? jim