Re: New Written Language of Ancient Scotland Discovered

[Yusuf B Gursey]

On Mar 31, 3:43 pm, Jack Linthicum <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net>
wrote:
> Unlocking the mysteries of the Picts
>
> Published Date: 31 March 2010
>
> Archaeologists and historians have long been baffled by the mysterious
> symbols left behind by the Picts, an ancient Scottish race believed to
> have left no written records of themselves.  While the Picts are
> mentioned by their contemporary Romans, Anglo-Saxons and Irish, all
> they left to posterity were mysterious elaborate figures carved into
> stones.  Nobody has yet been able to decipher these symbols, with some
> arguing that they are nothing more than decorative or heraldic
> images.
>
> However, now a team based in the UK have used an advanced mathematical
> technique to show that the Pictish symbols are almost certainly
> writing, leading linguists and archaeologists one step closer to
> unlocking the mysteries of the Picts.  The research, published in
> Proceedings of the Royal Society: A, uses Shannon entropy – a measure
> of randomness or uncertainty – to analyse the ancient symbols.
>
> The symbols used in written language exhibit certain distinctive
> patterns of Shannon entropy which distinguish them from decorative or
> heraldic usage.  While this type of approach has been used to analyse
> writing before, previous investigators have struggled to analyse
> symbols where examples are relatively few and far between.  Given that
> there are only around 250 Pictish symbol stones in existence, nobody
> has been able to use this method to decipher the mysterious symbols
> until now.  In this case the investigators used a novel technique to
> estimate the completeness of the existing set of characters, which
> allowed them to spot the distinctive patterns characteristic of
> written language in the symbol stones.
>
> This new method opens up the possibility that other ancient
> inscriptions could be similarly analysed, paving the way to vastly
> improved interpretation of many ancient languages that were previously
> thought undecipherable.  Furthermore, the authors point out that
> similar techniques could be used to analyse animal noises, leading to
> the possibility of an enhanced understanding of animal communication.
>
> http://royalsociety.org/Unlocking-the-mysteries-of-the-Picts/
>
>     New Written Language of Ancient Scotland Discovered
>
>     Once thought to be rock art, carved depictions of soldiers, horses
> and other figures are in fact part of a written language dating back
> to the Iron Age.
>
>     By Jennifer Viegas | Wed Mar 31, 2010 07:00 AM ET
>
> Pictish Carving
>
> Riders and horn blowers appear next to hunting dogs on what is called
> the Hilton of Cadboll stone, pictured here.
> Rob Knell and Rob Lee
>
> THE GIST:
>
>     * A new written language, belonging to the early Pict society of
> Scotland, has just been identified.
>     * Stylized rock engravings have been found on hundreds of Pictish
> Stones.
>     * If the writing can be deciphered, it would provide a unique
> insight into early Scottish history.
>
> The ancestors of modern Scottish people left behind mysterious, carved
> stones that new research has just determined contain the written
> language of the Picts, an Iron Age society that existed in Scotland
> from 300 to 843.
>
> The highly stylized rock engravings, found on what are known as the
> Pictish Stones, had once been thought to be rock art or tied to
> heraldry. The new study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal
> Society A, instead concludes that the engravings represent the long
> lost language of the Picts, a confederation of Celtic tribes that
> lived in modern-day eastern and northern Scotland.
>
> "We know that the Picts had a spoken language to complement the
> writing of the symbols, as Bede (a monk and historian who died in 735)
> writes that there are four languages in Britain in this time: British,
> Pictish, Scottish and English," lead author Rob Lee told Discovery
> News.
> rome wall
> WATCH VIDEO: Hadrian's wall protected the Roman provinces of Southern
> England from Scottish invasions.
>
> Related Links:
>
>     * Scotland's First People Left Behind Toolkit
>     * HowStuffWorks: Scotland
>     * Druid Grave Unearthed in UK
>
> "We know that the three other languages were -- and are -- complex
> spoken languages, so there is every indication that Pictish was also a
> complex spoken language," added Lee, a professor in the School of
> Biosciences at the University of Exeter.
>
> He and colleagues Philip Jonathan and Pauline Ziman analyzed the
> engravings, found on the few hundred known Pictish Stones. The
> researchers used a mathematical process known as Shannon entropy to
> study the order, direction, randomness and other characteristics of
> each engraving.
>
> The resulting data was compared with that for numerous written
> languages, such as Egyptian hieroglyphs, Chinese texts and written
> Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, Ancient Irish, Old Irish and Old Welsh.
> While the Pictish Stone engravings did not match any of these, they
> displayed characteristics of writing based on a spoken language.
>
> Lee explained that writing comes in two basic forms: lexigraphic
> writing that is based on speech and semasiography, which is not based
> on speech.
>
> "Lexigraphic writing contains symbols that represent parts of speech,
> such as words, or sounds like syllables or letters, and tends to be
> written in a linear or directional manner mimicking the flow of
> speech," he said. "In semasiography, the symbols do not represent
> speech -- such as the cartoon symbols used to show you how to build a
> flat pack piece of furniture -- and generally do not come in a linear
> manner."
>
> Although Lee and his team have not yet deciphered the Pictish
> language, some of the symbols provide intriguing clues. One symbol
> looks like a dog's head, for example, while others look like horses,
> trumpets, mirrors, combs, stags, weapons and crosses.
>
> The later Pictish Stones also contain images, like Celtic knots,
> similar to those found in the Book of Kells and other early works from
> nearby regions. These more decorative looking images frame what Lee
> and his team believe is the written Pictish language.
>
> "It is unclear at the moment whether the imagery, such as the knots,
> form any part of the communication," Lee said. He believes the stones
> also contain semasiographic symbols, such as a picture of riders and
> horn blowers next to hunting dogs on what is called the Hilton of
> Cadboll stone. Yet another stone shows what appears to be a battle
> scene.
>
> Paul Bouissac, a University of Toronto professor who is one of the
> world's leading experts on signs and symbols, told Discovery News that
> he agrees "it is more than plausible that the Pictish symbols are
> examples of a script, in the sense that they encoded some information,
> which also had a spoken form."
>
> What is known about a writing system, however, "does not amount to
> deciphering this putative script," Bouissac added.
>
> "We will have to wait for the discovery of what would be the Pictish
> equivalent of the Rosetta Stone, which made possible the cracking of
> the Egyptian hieroglyphic code," he said. "This may or may not ever
> happen."
>
> Pictures and a video at
>
> http://news.discovery.com/archaeology/ancient-scotland-written-language.html

what does Peter T. Daniels think about this?

[Peter T. Daniels]

> >http://news.discovery.com/archaeology/ancient-scotland-written-langua...
>
> what does Peter T. Daniels think about this?-

You could find out by looking at Trond's thread on the topic.