Talk:Undeciphered writing systems

"Armenian Twin Script" British Museum MS 73525 f.7r and f.7v
The listing for these two manuscript pages, on the British Museum website, says, "Late 10th century-Mid 16th century, Collection of fragments." for the collection and "A leaf in an unknown script, in red, blue, and black ink, possibly liturgical in nature." This counts as being published? It should be included.

The name "Armenian Twin Script" was invented by someone using Facebook account "Lavrentiy Rogozinski" and is not apart of the published literature on this work (if there is any!). For anyone interested, he has posted documents, discussion, and text regarding his decipherment ideas on Facebook groups/pages "Ancient Near Eastern Linguistics is fun-fun silly willy!", and to a lesser extent on "Ancient Languages" and the page of "Andrew West" (with the mouse). He thinks he might have identified about 10 occurences of the names "Jesus" and "Jesus Christ" and that it's similar to Old Armenian (as well as Turkic Runes). He hopes it might be Biblical passages. If it is, or the text can be guessed at, then it might be decipherable. Anybody who wants to pick up and contribute to the decipherment effort is more than welcome.

By the way, I'm a very serious independent scholar of writing systems. I think that Rongorongo is a mneumonic system like Micmac "Hieroglyphic" and Dongba Symbols, based on my examinations of it. I also think that Voynich is a hoax and represents asemic writing with no underlying language at all. Codex Seraphinianus - I don't think it belongs in the article, it's an avowed asemic writing imitation of the Voynich. I've gone over the literature and the people who think it's real are just not trained well enough in the necessary subfields of linguistics and grammatology. It's a lot of statisticians, cryptographers, and non-linguists. I think Indus Valley Script is writing, but beyond any certainty or even reasonable guesses. It can nonetheless be studied and examined, if not deciphered, and makes a good comparison with Egyptian and Cuneiform. I find Parpola's ideas unlikely as well as unprovable.

I also once encountered in a French book of Ethiopic inscriptions, a text in Ethiopic script but of an unknown language. If someone wants to have some fun and go look it up, I'd appreciate it. The world does need a bibliography of undeciphered texts, where they are, what they might be, etc.

Calling Jiahu, Vinca, and Banpo - I don't know Dispillo - "proto-writing" is not a good reflection of published scholarly opinion. I think it's fine to give minority scholarly opinions and non-scholarly opinions, but they should be marked as such. Despite the desire to avoid "kook theories" (a derrogatory term which I don't approve of), undeciphered writing systems and symbol systems do have a popular following of, uh, less educated people who think all sorts of weird things. I find what they think interesting, and I think the article would gain ground in terms of anthropological interest if ideas like this were addressed, though you might be pressed to find something published on all the popular ideas about specific undeciphered symbols.

I really applaud the initial caveat that these all aren't "writing systems", per say, but suspected of being as such. I suggest the creation of a page about "weird writing-realted phenomena".

Voynich manuscript
I believe The Voynich manuscript should infact be on its own... More people who take a serious interest in it believe it to be real, than they do fake. I think puting it down simply as "posible hoax" could mislead people into thinking it such. Out of all possible hoaxes it has the most acceptance as real. 210.185.6.120 (talk) 05:14, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree that it doesn't make sense to single it out as a possible hoax. The Phaistos Disc page mentions the possibility that it could be a hoax too, but that doesn't mean it should be classified as "possible hoax" here. I've moved the Voynich manuscript to the Medieval and later scripts section to bring it into line with all the other scripts here, which are classified by date rather than speculation about authenticity. I've also removed the following text, since it's already covered in the Voynich article, and only seems to be here in order to justify the "possible hoax" category:
 * In terms of provenance, the earliest confirmed references to the work date only to the early 17th century. The manuscript contains an elaborate writing system that has been analyzed by many experts, but remains undeciphered and might be a hoax. On the other hand, some scholars such as Marcelo Montemurro find the manuscript's system too elaborate to be a hoax, considering the time it was written.
 * Lusanaherandraton (talk) 05:52, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Voynich seems to have been translated. See the Cheshire entry.  Keith Henson (talk) 03:16, 15 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I know exactly what all of it means each plant and why u keep getting it wrong those are the faces of the trees look at the color from the bottom to the top it looks like they are walking because that is what u are part plant. I have proof to back up my truth if u want to know the rest us natives use word of mouth. 760-953-7780 2600:6C51:677F:8FE4:8586:CAC0:4D30:1977 (talk) 18:25, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Not sure what is serious and what is satire, but no. Voynich has not benn deciphered or translated. There are such claims every few years; they invariably prove wrong. Og course, one day it may happen, but there's no need to pay much attention (in a general encyclopaedia) till reliable secondary sources report the success.
 * Nø (talk) 05:56, 22 June 2023 (UTC)


 * https://www.academia.edu/101986267/The_Medieval_Map_and_the_Mercy_Mission Read it and form your own opinion about it being translated.  Keith Henson (talk) 01:17, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

The Codex Seraphinianus
The Codex Seraphinianus script has no meaning, so why is it included on this page? --203.217.54.49 12:03, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Might as well get rid of the Vonix Manuscript as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.42.82.54 (talk) 05:35, 2 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The second is different form the first in that, with the first it is known that it has no meaning. If not, we can always ask the author.  The second has real plausability and cannot simply be discovered by means of a water board. —  r obbiemuﬃn  page  talk 11:44, 23 May 2008 (UTC)


 * How does one distinguish a "false" or asemic writing system from a hoax?


 * Is it known for certain that the text of the Codex Seraphinianus is asemic? How?


 * And I don't believe that it is known for certain that the text of the Voynich Manuscript is asemic, though some believe it may be. If this is not the case, then a reference is needed here.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.43.249 (talk) 23:57, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Praise and contention
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)

peer review for rongorongo
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)

Jurchen Script Undeciphered?
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)

China
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)

Fictional undeciphered writing systems heavily edited
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)

Jindai Moji
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)
 * First of all, I have to mention that editing Wikipedia is not about TRUE OR FALSE (ja:WP:VERIFY) 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)S

Jindai Moji are used in a ceremony of Shinto. Even if Jindai Moji are not ancient letters, Jindai Moji are religiously important letters.I think that it is not good to say it "hoax" in common-sense terms. --Nissy-KITAQ (talk) 16:23, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

why the indus script was true writing and why a lost corpus existed in the indus valley civilization: simple proof addressed to mainstream researchers
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)

List of Deciphered writing systems
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)

Glozel script
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)


 * 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)

Then I refer you to the article 'L'Affaire Glozel,' published in the unimpeachable journal Antiquity, links to which can be found in English on the Bad Archeology website. 76.191.150.36 (talk) 22:05, 14 July 2015 (UTC)


 * 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)

River Witham sword
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)
 * 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)
 * 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)

Proto-Sinaitic writing
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)

Bronze Age
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)

Sitovo Inscription issues
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)


 * @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)

Linear Elamite (properly) deciphered
So it looks like Linear Elamite has finally been (properly) deciphered. Like many of the other scripts on this list, there have been decipherment claims every few years or so about Linear Elamite, but it looks like it's been legitimately deciphered at this point. I propose removing it from this article. The article with the decipherment is cited below.

Desset, F. et al. (2022). The Decipherment of Linear Elamite Writing. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie. 112 (1): 11-60.

Vindafarna (talk) 23:53, 19 August 2022 (UTC)


 * So, Linear Elamite was removed from the article in these two edits:
 * However, according to the article Linear Elamite, the deciperment is controversial - not fringe, but not generally accepted, either. Before the removal, we said "possibly deciphered", and I think that was OK. In other words, unless the skepticism mentioned in Linear Elamite is much abated, the removal may be premature? Nø (talk) 07:05, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

POV/SYNTH, even if admitted
While the article heads a critique off at the pass that it is he term "writing systems" is used here loosely to refer to groups of glyphs which appear to have representational symbolic meaning, but which may include "systems" that are largely artistic in nature and are thus not examples of actual writing—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)


 * 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)
 * How about just "Undeciphered symbols"? Remsense  诉  21:42, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
 * 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)
 * I'm still deeply troubled by this article but I'm not sure what to do about it—@Nø how's Undeciphered sign systems? Remsense  诉  10:07, 29 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I've been reading up a bit on the meaning (according to wikipedia) of words like writing, symbol, glyph, grapheme, sign and character. According to Sign (semiotics),
 * "a sign is anything that communicates a meaning that is not the sign itself to the interpreter of the sign. The meaning can be intentional, as when a word is uttered with a specific meaning, or unintentional, as when a symptom is taken as a sign of a particular medical condition. Signs can communicate through any of the senses, visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, or taste."
 * The part I have italicized fits the bill, but the rest less so. In principle, a set of symbols that medical science is currently unable to translate into a specific disease could be called an "undeciphered sign system". It's not easy to come up with one word or very short descriprtion that encompasses both proto-writing, Linear A, and the Voynich manuscript. - and at the same time excludes everything that is clearly irrelevant. I think "writing or writing-like systems" is close, though unelegant. But yes, "Undeciphered sign systems" could be a sensible title for this article. Nø (talk) 11:16, 29 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I'll take a peek back into my general semiotics literature to double-check that this is the best term. Remsense  诉  11:44, 29 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree wholeheartedly with what you're saying here. The biggest issue in this article (and a huge issue in modern linguistics) is the nationalism associated with specific languages/writing systems, etc. E.g., lots of nations really want their writing systems to have been the first to say "hey look, we invented writing." In order for something to be a writing 'system' a corpus is required; one-offs don't work. Things like Linear Elamite and the (Issyk-)Kushan scripts (which were deciphered in 2022 and 2023, respectively) are good examples of writing systems. They had corpora, and those corpora, especially bilinguals, allowed them to be deciphered. Effectively, anything on here pre-3300 BC is somewhat dubious and nobody in mainstream linguistics or archaeology has recognised or accepted writing systems to have been developed before then, especially when there is only one 'attestation' on a plank of wood found in a bog vel sim. I think there is a legitimate place for this article, but that for inclusion on this page, it has to be a system and have a corpus. I think with enough culling, this page could be quite good.
 * Vindafarna (talk) 19:00, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

The Starving of Saqqara
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)


 * 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)

Dispilio tablet
This article links to Dispilio tablet. That article seems to have serious problems regarding sourcing and notability. Though not a formal AfD (yet), I have here to delete that aricle. Please chime in there if you have an opinion (or help improve the article)! Nø (talk) 12:13, 28 June 2024 (UTC)


 * The Dispilio tablet definitely shouldn't be on this page as it's almost certainly not a writing 'system'. It almost certainly isn't linguistic in nature (unless the radiocarbon dating is ~5,000 years off...). I think that the tablet may have archaeological significance (if it can be demonstrated that it's not a forgery) but certainly not linguistic significance. I think you're going to come up against some resistance, though, if you want to delete the article entirely. But, as Doug Weller responded to my 'Sitovo Inscription Issues' post above (as well as my most recent comment on the 'POV/SYNTH, even if admitted'), there's really no justification to call many of the things on this page writing systems.
 * Vindafarna (talk) 22:55, 12 July 2024 (UTC)