CDR: Re: Treatment of subjugated people (and bagpipes)
There are ancient inscriptions in Wales that no one has been able to read in modern times. Deciphering an unknown langauge, not related to known languages, when it is written in an unknown script is a feat of linguistics that transcends mere cryptanalysis and has, so far, rarely or never been done.
However, one cannot discount the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics the Rosetta Stone. I imagine it would be extremely difficult to decipher a language that very structurally different from what is known. It is interesting to speculate about artificial grammars. Most human and computer languages (with interesting exceptions, such as the Hopi Indians' concept of time -- others can describe computer exceptions) follow the verb, noun, preposition-based method of signification. I don't know whether any work has been done on constructing a seriously structurally different artificial grammar. Jorges Luis Borges has an interesting riff on the idea. If anyone's interested, I'll dig out the details.
"Poor Man's Crypto", possibly even better than digital crypto, may consist in creating an artificial language together, and then using it whenever you don't want to be eavesdropped on.
As in thieves' cant. Or Irish. Speaking Irish was such a crime that schoolchildren wore a 'tally-stick' around their necks. Each Irish word meant a notch on the stick. A certain number of notches meant punishment, probably not gentle. Those who imposed this system were Irish, not English. In France, the Africans have an argot called verlins (an anagram of l'invers - the inverse) where syllables within words are transposed, or words are spoken backwards. Not very popular with the Corps Republican Securite. All the best Tiarnan
On Mon, 4 Sep 2000 ocorrain@esatclear.ie wrote:
However, one cannot discount the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics the Rosetta Stone.
Or the Linear A ordeal.
I imagine it would be extremely difficult to decipher a language that very structurally different from what is known.
Indeed. With Linear A, the connection to ancient Greek was what solved the puzzle. OTOH, hieroglyphs and similar ideographic writing systems do have some figurative characteristics which can help in their interpretation. Not so with syllabary/alphabet based ones, in which you would prefer at least a cursory understanding of the spoken form before going for an interpretation.
It is interesting to speculate about artificial grammars. Most human and computer languages (with interesting exceptions, such as the Hopi Indians' concept of time -- others can describe computer exceptions)
Such exceptions always arouse my curiosity. Any online sources?
I don't know whether any work has been done on constructing a seriously structurally different artificial grammar. Jorges Luis Borges has an interesting riff on the idea. If anyone's interested, I'll dig out the details.
Aye. Hit me. Sampo Syreeni <decoy@iki.fi>, aka decoy, student/math/Helsinki university
OTOH, hieroglyphs and similar ideographic writing systems do have some figurative characteristics which can help in their interpretation. Not so with syllabary/alphabet based ones, in which you would prefer at least a cursory understanding of the spoken form before going for an interpretation.
Chinese is interesting in this connexion. As far as I understand it, the 'language' is made up of different spoken forms, all of which are covered by the same writing system, are mutually incomprehensible when spoken. I don't know if there are other examples of this in human languages. Computer languages do provide examples - treading on thin ice here in such company: one could instance a piece of C code that is compiled for several different systems. In this case, the machine code for each system would bear little relationship to that for another system. I'll not go on in this vein, for fear of a pratfall.
It is interesting to speculate about artificial grammars. Most human and computer languages (with interesting exceptions, such as the Hopi Indians' concept of time -- others can describe computer exceptions)
Such exceptions always arouse my curiosity. Any online sources?
Don't know about online sources. As far as I remember, the Hopi used two tenses, one to describe the present, the other to describe dream time, taking in the past (memory regarded as a sort of dream, which Fraud would have loved had he known about it), and the future, as well as any loose ends involving magical or fabricated events, legendary time, etc.
I don't know whether any work has been done on constructing a seriously structurally different artificial grammar. Jorges Luis Borges has an interesting riff on the idea. If anyone's interested, I'll dig out the details.
"Tln, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius -- A reference to an imaginary country leads the author deeper into a different linguistical reality." is how the story's described on http://www.themodernworld.com/borges As far as I remember, the author discovers a reference to the country in an old and eccentric printing of an encyclopedia. The language described in the story has no verbs or nouns, using a compound form of both. To stray into another dangerous analogy with computer languages, one *might* say that object-orientated languages, by encapsulating data and methods, do something similar, but I'm not standing by this, because it's not my area of expertise. Noam Chomsky argues that the deep structures of languages are fundamentally similar: that the difference between Chinese and Old Irish is a matter of vocabulary, rather than means of signification. All the best Tiarnan
On Tue, 5 Sep 2000 ocorrain@esatclear.ie wrote:
OTOH, hieroglyphs and similar ideographic writing systems do have some figurative characteristics which can help in their interpretation. Not so with syllabary/alphabet based ones, in which you would prefer at least a cursory understanding of the spoken form before going for an interpretation.
Chinese is interesting in this connexion. As far as I understand it, the 'language' is made up of different spoken forms, all of which are covered by the same writing system, are mutually incomprehensible when spoken. I don't know if there are other examples of this in human languages. Computer languages
There are a number of languages normally called Chinese that use the same characters. They are more or less mutually comprehensible when written but not when spoken. (Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, Fukien, etc) It takes some self-discipline to write Chinese that can be understood by speakers of other dialects. Vietnamese used to fall into this category before the French took over; they now use a phonetic alphabet, the usual alphabet used by European languages with additional marks that make it phonetic. Japanese, Korean, and possibly others use a mixture of the Chinese characters and phonetic symbols. In Japanese at least the phonetic symbols form two syllabaries. A syllabary is like an alphabet, but instead of representing sounds a symbol represents a syllable. So the Japanese syllabaries begin "kah, kee, koo, kay, koh, ..." -- Jim Dixon VBCnet GB Ltd http://www.vbc.net tel +44 117 929 1316 fax +44 117 927 2015
ocorrain@esatclear.ie wrote:
Chinese is interesting in this connexion. As far as I understand it, the 'language' is made up of different spoken forms, all of which are covered by the same writing system, are mutually incomprehensible when spoken. I don't know if there are other examples of this in human languages.
there are similiar examples, mostly with ancient languages - if they still exist (roman/italian or ancient/modern greek/hebrew) they are often virtually identical in written form, but very different when spoken. of course, there's also the question of how much we really know about the ancient pronounciation.
Such exceptions always arouse my curiosity. Any online sources?
Don't know about online sources. As far as I remember, the Hopi used two tenses, one to describe the present, the other to describe dream time, taking in the past (memory regarded as a sort of dream, which Fraud would have loved had he known about it), and the future, as well as any loose ends involving magical or fabricated events, legendary time, etc.
the most interesting point about the hopi grammar is, that it takes the observer into the picture. AFAIK, there can be no confusion in hopi about whether something happened to you, or you imagined it happening, or you saw it happening to someone else, or someone else saw it happening to a third person. in english these are all "he killed (me, for real)" "he killed (me, in my dream)" "he killed (someone else)" "he killed (fred told me)"
participants (4)
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Jim Dixon -
ocorrain＠esatclear.ie -
Sampo A Syreeni -
Tom Vogt