Undeciphered Ancient Scripts

[@ActualLiteralKyle]

You know, I didn’t expect spend an hour listening to two guys talk calmly and concisely about undeciphered texts in history… and yet, an hour later, here I am, blown away by how interesting it was. Awesome vid!

[@dermotmccorkell663]

So refreshing to listen to 2 obviously academic thinkers discuss the currently unknown without defending some theory.

[@magusmelanie828]

Exactly! I love history, but soooo sick of these alt-history buffs - the real story of human development is plenty fascinating on its own, without embellishment

[@dermotmccorkell663]

@@magusmelanie828 I love the odd stuff. Who would have bet on gobekly tepa yet 20 some similar sights identified now. The mainstream has its rules but that should not mean you can't conceive or consider ideas out of the academic bubble.

[@dermotmccorkell663]

Cant argue my spelling is atrocious. I am shure you got the gist. If correct English is the first thing you look for I am shure you miss much. Sad.

[@daveharden5929]

Here here! I was swept away as well, as Iam with ALL WofA videos! I think it's because I'm getting an opportunity to satisfy my curiosity with logic, reasonable and intelligent discussion based on accepted facts and science. His videos are presented not to discredit and attack, but to enlighten and educate the audience.

[@enbuenora]

It's so great to hear from a linguist urging caution on various pushes to insist that this or that untranslated script / language 'must' be from this or that desired society or other language. It's probably not that all academics ignore brilliant explanation X; it's just that X hasn't really worked. We can only hope that someday some of these might get worked out.

[@almitrahopkins1873]

If you looked at the sailor’s notation that I use for scorekeeping playing dominoes, you could spend years trying to decipher it without knowing its real context. It’s nothing but straight lines, with each one representing numbers ascending by five to fifty, so it leaves the possibility of multiple combinations. When you use that as a guide to trying to decipher any other script, it becomes easy to understand why some written script will never be possible to decipher. It’s entirely possible that some are lacking enough of a pattern to decipher, but most are just lacking the context to understand it.

[@cliffgaither]

@@almitrahopkins1873 :: When he said that the text wasn't long enough to decipher ( a longer text was needed ) ... I couldn't understand how having _more text_ would help if they can't understand what they already have ... Your comment :: "It's entirely possible that some are lacking enough of _a pattern_ to decipher, but most are just lacking the context to understand it". That seems to explain what he meant by needing a longer text. ❓️

[@purplexs2506]

From the production perspective, this is a well-put together video. The 2-way chat is broken up with single-narrator elucidations, and a few pikkies to illustrate. As digestible a it is absorbing.

[@almitrahopkins1873]

@@cliffgaither in order to decipher it, you would need a knowledge of the language and a text long enough to have multiple repeating characters. Linguists could rebuild Latin from the wide selection of Romance languages. So that means with a suitably long enough text, they could decipher the writing of that language if it was unknown. The Indus Valley script has plenty of repeating characters, but no way to know the language it was written in, so it will likely never be deciphered.

[@lostpony4885]

It "literally" means, well maybe, cuz literally doesnt even mean literally anymore. i can barely decipher writings in my own time and language so caution is pretty important...

[@dgbnntt]

I'm working on the Linear A example at the beginning of the video, in conjunction with a number of experts I met on the internet. While the translation remains incomplete, so far we've got, "A great deluge ... end of megalithic era ... the Younger Dryas ... built by aliens ... conventional academics." I'll keep you informed of updates 😉😅 Jokes aside, absorbing video, thank you for sharing your erudition.

[@lincolnyaco5626]

best joke on subject, so far!

[@Cat_Woods]

Getting flashbacks to Zechariah Sitchin's "translations" from ancient Sumerian... 😄

[@dankovassilev58]

Only slavic languages are able to read the linear 1and2 .Trachians, Pelasgians, Getic,Bulgarian. Look cultura Varna

[@quintuscrinis]

Well what we have of linear B is largely shopping list type stuff and other administrative bits so that would seem unlikely.

[@BigZebraCom]

I was going to decipher all those undeciphered ancient scripts--but then things got really busy at work.

[@Lukronius]

I’m grateful to see someone who has appropriate priorities. 😊

[@jayplay8869]

Understandable

[@BigZebraCom]

@@jayplay8869 Thank you!

[@BigZebraCom]

@@Lukronius Yes! I've just been handed the Henderson Account! It's a nightmare, let me tell you.

[@podemosurss8316]

We need NativLang to decipher them.

[@jojo-lp4rd]

terrific guest, really knowledgeable. I'm really glad there's a critical community around these ancient languages so hopeful guesses don't turn into assumed facts

[@brodyguthrie9713]

I’d like more videos with him. He’s a wealth of knowledge!

[@papadopp3870]

… or somebody’s “scripture”.

[@vibhav_m]

Would definitely love a video going in depth into the indus valley script. Covering the history of popular proposed interpretations, describing what many of them look like, any similarities to other scripts, etc.

[@lincolnyaco5626]

I 'd like to add my vote to this suggestion.

[@LS-ql4wp]

Me too

[@PathsUnwritten]

Regarding the Phaestos Disk script, a woman working at the Malia site told me last year that another example of that script was recently found at one of the digs near Malia, but that it's hadn't been published yet.

[@lincolnyaco5626]

Oh, REALLY?

[@unakanasi]

When will it be published then?

[@lawrence5117]

Thanks David and Mark. I found this to be a very interesting talk. This subject has always attracted me and I learned a lot.

[@joshuadk13]

I’m a history major and I wish this guy was teaching courses, he was so interesting!

[@anitapollard1627]

Thank you for having a talkative 😊 linguist!! Thank you Mark 🙂 i loved hearing from you! These vids with another professional in their field, make me happy... it's like getting to hang out with knowledgeable people that i would have no chance to casually listen to otherwise 😁 and you especially, Dr. David 💖. Yes, please do indepth vids on all ancient languages and on all other ancient history you know & want to share 🤗

[@dermotmccorkell663]

You are under selling yourself. If you are stimulated by such content then you are up in the top 5pct of cognitive abilities. Isn't the web wonderful. I haven't needed a trip to the library in years now. Get 2 devices going and watch and search simultaneously. Happy hunting. I still support my library

[@dermotmccorkell663]

@Janitor Queen no need to second guess yourself. It is refreshing to receive an unsolicited apology but I dont feel slighted. Discourse like this pleases me. Just talking learning no argument. Kudos to the janitor.

[@toniwilson6210]

I think JRR Tolkien would’ve enjoyed Mark tremendously. Linguistics and cryptology are always interesting. A dedicated review of the Indus Valley script would certainly be interesting.

[@marknewbrook3392]

If I had been born 2 years earlier I would have met JRRT,; I hope he would have seen me as promising! I HAVE been to see his grave in North Oxford; he & Edith are side-by-side with references to the Silmarillion. (Nearby is Henry Sweet, perhaps the model for Henry Higgins) A major hero of mine is Joseph Wright, JRRT's tutor (as played by Derek Jacobi in the 2019 biopic). Wright, from a Yorkshire mining village, was illiterate until his teens but became a philology professor in Germany and then at Oxford. My own main mentor (and a second mother to me) was one of Wright's successors, Anna Morpurgo Davies.

[@reginaldbauer5243]

Although superficially indeed similar to Egyptian symbols, Cretan Hieroglyphs are clearly distinct in both form and phonetic value. Yet the biggest difference lies in the underlying system itself. Egyptian Hieroglyphs are part of a complex writing system, where most signs have more than one possible reading, dependent on context (similarly to the Japanese Kanji characters). Signs could have both a phonetic (single consonant or syllable) value or an ideogrammatic (word) reading, but could even be utilized as phonetic complements or logograms (a written character that represents a word or phrase, like in Chinese), “reinforcing” the reading of words they were attached to. As many of these duplicities could only be interpreted by a native speaker of Old Egyptian, this system was very difficult to utilize for speakers of foreign languages. Also, the Egyptian system had over 800 different signs, which is an extremely large inventory of symbols compared to Cretan Hieroglyphs (roughly 85 or so different signs are known). Linear A signs identified ranges from 77 to 85 according to different scholars, suggesting that this was a syllabic writing system. Minoan scribes might have took the concept of writing from Egypt, creating their own signs and simplifying the system so that it became almost fully phonetic. Such a low number of individual characters is uncharacteristic of the complex writing systems of the ancient Near East, but it is fully compatible with a simple syllabary (reminiscent of the modern Japanese Hiragana or Katakana writing). Thus, some assume that Cretan Hieroglyphs, similarly to all later Aegean writing systems, were already syllabic in nature. Other scholars see Semitic influences / a relationship to Mesopotamian writings in the Minoan language, but these depend solely on Semitic loanwords, such as “sesame”, a word that appears in both Linear A and B (and also in ENGLISH). One thing is clear: After the rebuilding of the palatial complexes on Crete (with the advent of the so-called “New Palace Period”) the Hieroglyphic script fell out of regular use. A new script has taken its place, called Linear A. Linear A was used much more extensively than Cretan Hieroglyphs. Hundreds of clay tablets, inscribed vessels, statues, altar stones and even jewelery testifies its daily use. The triumph of Linear A is also striking in a geographical sense: Wherever Cretan traders went, Linear A followed. Perhaps due to the simplicity of the syllabary, it quickly spread to other regions surrounding Crete. While regularly used on many Aegean islands, sporadic finds suggest that it also reached the Greek mainland as well as the island of Cyprus and the Syrian coast.

[@straightfrom]

Amazing. I love the great guests on this channel. All so passionate about their subjects. It rubs off!!

[@barrymitchell8634]

I have a school report from the late 90s. Most of its legible but one of my teachers writing on there has never been deciphered.

[@micshaz]

Pfffha, and some reciepts from a doctor as well?

[@nebwachamp]

Hawk Tua... Everything I've ever written.

[@AncientAmericas]

Terrific episode and a great guest!

[@somniumisdreaming]

A fascinating discussion, a great guest and just a treat all round. Thank you both.

[@brucewayneissupermanquinn601]

Nowhere near your guys’ level of expertise, but have a Masters degree in Historical perspective, and teach High School History. This was a fantastic watch! Very fascinating!

[@cordeliafitzgerald8714]

Thank you David and Mark this was an absolute pleasure to watch.

[@6strings1pickup12]

As an expert non-decipherer of undeciphered scripts I can tell you with certainty that these scripts thus far remain undeciphered. But I do enjoy listening to Mr. Newbrook's accent! He's very easy to listen to and full of great information.

[@ulrikof.2486]

I am interested in the Vinča "script", would be nice to know whether sb has made some progress recently in interpreting these symbols (whether it was a script at all or some magic symbol inventory or only playing around).

[@nickwright9064]

Thanks

[@WorldofAntiquity]

And thank you!

[@paul6925]

He sure is polite about the amateurs “peculiar” interpretations 😂

[@paul6925]

@Janitor Queen I can't see it either!

[@user-kb8dp4ls4f]

Any academic taking potshots at amateurs is suspect. All the early languages were deciphered by amateurs. And plenty of tenured academics come up with weird and whacky explanations simply because they have to output a certain number of papers each year.

[@paul6925]

@@user-kb8dp4ls4f 1. Those early "amateurs" were the only game in town at the time. They also destroyed a lot of sites because they didn't care or know any better. Experts learn the knowledge of the field and build on it. So they deserve some respect. There used to be amateur dentists too - but I don't go to an amateur dentist these days.(unless we are looking for a deal or crazy). 2. Nothing wrong with whacky theories - but you're going to have to back them up with a lot of proof before they can revise or add to the current academic body of knowledge.

[@jorgegonzalez-larramendi5491]

Thanks!

[@rootytootymailbox2043]

Loved this one ALOT. What an interesting guest. This has given me a list things to follow up on to learn more about these scripts, languages, and the imaginary history of improbable people being in America hundreds of years ago. So much to chew on. Thank you!

[@marrrtin]

About Linear A, I'm interested in the theory that "Minoan" was the ancestor of Eteocretan, which is written with Greek letters. As in all of these cases, there's not enough extant text to prove anything conclusively. However, it does hold out the possibility there is some "Rosetta Stone" of Greek and Eteocretan still undiscovered which might help with Linear A.

[@robc1775]

I’d be interested in how AI could be implemented to help decipher these scripts! If it has access to all written words and all known languages. I bet it could find some pretty compelling links or chance similarities. What’s the state of using AI tools these days?

[@faithlesshound5621]

Well, Michael Ventris, the amateur linguist who gets most of the credit for deciphering Linear B, corresponded with an American academic whose cutting edge IT was a card index.

[@chicoti3]

We tend to think that way but in realityAIs are incredibly limited when it comes to language. Sure it doesn't seem to have any problems with more simple languages like English, but when you get to more complex languages like Ancient Greek, Japanese, Classical Japanese, etc the AI just cannot keep up. So unfortunately that's not an option.

[@masterdecats6418]

@@chicoti3 Wouldn’t AI be less about reading the text and more about pattern recognition?

[@chicoti3]

@@masterdecats6418 I don't understand what you mean. Pattern recognition is just the basic functioning principle of an AI.

[@fhainalex282]

@@chicoti3 they decypher mammals via ai - why not human?

[@Sefarst86]

This is a great video. I had never heard of most of these.

[@bipolarminddroppings]

Dr Miano, I would love it if you could get Irving Finkle on to talk about cuneiform, that man is both fascinating in his own right and an expert in Mesopotamian language.

[@golddragonette7795]

Esp as its used for multiple languages in different ways! Irving Finkle is an absolute treasure

[@CharlesOffdensen]

17:05 It might be neither Dravidian, nor Indo-European. There are language isolates in India and the region that have survived to this day. Like Nihali (which may be invented as an argot), Burushaski (which may not be isolated actually), and Kusunda. There were probably a lot more, that disappeared.

[@danf7411]

Their are likely many unique undocumented languages stilled used in Asia and many in india

[@CharlesOffdensen]

@portable-cimbora I don't know much. Apparently there was a massacre in the 19. century by neighboring people like Kalto. But this is only a possibility, the language may not be an argot, it could just be used as one due to it being isolated and not spoken by many people.

[@mahipalcharan6690]

Anybody able to Studyieng to This Script kzbin.info/www/bejne/pIqZfpKJas-ejqs 👈👈

[@marknewbrook3392]

Thanks! Of course yes, and indeed the entire Munda family (which MIGHT be related to Mon-Khmer). (I once met a native speaker of Burushaski in Birmingham, England - quite by chance!)

[@lincolnyaco5626]

One of the most RIVETING episodes by the good doctor! I enjoyed this more than anything I've seen in the past couple years! Both of the scholars struck me as wry, informed, animated, and vastly entertaining. Thank you so much.

[@LeortisBooks]

Love this channel. You seem like you’d be a great teacher

[@pjqziggy]

Another fascinating guest. Well done big fella!

[@oddjam]

This is a brilliant interview/video. Thanks for bringing this to us. Will be buying this book

[@theonlygoodlookinghabsburg2081]

As a Moroccan who has absolutely zero interest in Moroccan cuisine or any cuisine for that matter, I have to say that this personal bias of mine didn't prevent me from being proud of my national cuisine for attracting the attention of Mr.Miano.

[@danuta4232]

Thank you for your work in this area. I am not a linguist, but my son has a major in it. I love the conversation around science fiction and amateur alternate translations. I would love more on that. While it is great that Stargate featured an archeologist and linguist, I expect it would take considerably longer than a dinner party to figure out the Early Egyptian dialect/language that Daniel Jackson managed to become expert in just in time to save the day. And that isn’t considering the code sorting he needed to do to work out the language of the Ancients. I would love to know more about how linguists work to resolve these ancient manuscripts and how long it actually takes. I mean, even with a Rosetta Stone, it took a great deal of time to figure out Egyptian.

[@jonathancardy9941]

Surely the test for a decipherment is whether it can be used to read new finds in that text that were not available to the people proposing the decipherment. I suspect that underwater archaeology is going to find us a lot more samples of linear A etc, and it would be interesting to see what an artificial intelligence program could do with these.

[@nicholashurst780]

AI recognize patterns. They need a base of information to work from. If you don't know what language it represents or have a set of the same text in different languages/scripts there isn't any way for it to find the pattern. AI learn by having humans look at it producing several possible answers and the human telling it which are better. If we don't know what the answer is we can't help it improve. AI is a lot more limited than a lot of people realize when we in the general public only see the AI that's had years of being told by humans which answer is closest to correct and having it brute force a new set of answers derived from our previous selection of what was closest to right

[@jonathancardy9941]

@@nicholashurst780 OK, but AI can spot patterns that humans have missed. It isn't a magic bullet, but it might make a useful contribution.

[@tagsoftware]

@@nicholashurst780 What you said is largely true. However, for certain classes of problems there is something called "unsupervised learning". You also may want to take a look at "Generative Adversarial Networks" and more importantly "Large Language Models". The latter could theoretically be of use in deciphering unknown scripts.

[@wheatgrowssweet]

This is one of my favorite topics. I would love a deep dive video on any one of these scripts!

[@veraxiana9993]

This is my first introduction to mark as a person and i already absolutely love him, great talk!

[@worldwatcher1969]

What an adorable man Mark is! I hope you have him back soon! He is so knowledgeable and charming and tells great anecdotes!

[@helenamcginty4920]

I have lived in Spain for nearly 13 years having moved from the UK and find Spanish hand writing quite difficult to read. Children here learn to write cursive script from the start while way back in my 1950s uk childhood we printed first then learned to join the letters. I actually also find my own handwriting difficult to decipher or even recognise as mine. My handwriting has, of course, disintegrated since now I rarely practice it.

[@Wallyworld30]

25:05 The Zapotec Script is the prettiest script I've ever seen. The characters look so great they could have an animated Cartoon based on those drawings. Even if we can't understand their meaning the artists that drew them was an amazing talent. It also has a style that is so unique compared to Western and Eastern texts.

[@MohamedRamadan-qi4hl]

It could be a highly stylized version of the script that are made to look pretty

[@newman653]

I really enjoy these vids where you talk to an expert in the relevant topic of discussion . Cheers.

[@TimBee100]

Half dozen eggs. Quart of milk. That's all I could get out of the Minoan script.

[@unrealuknow864]

The rest says, " and don't forget to pick up the kids from boat building school.'

[@develentsai3215]

Yes, Dragon egg and Medusa's milk😂😂😂

[@develentsai3215]

Yes, Dragon egg and Medusa's milk😂😂😂

[@tobiasglendenning7966]

I love learning new writing systems, firstly because it feels I can write secretly, secondly because it is the easiest part of learning a language (when the translation is known) and help understand an unknown language even when you don't know the language

[@krisb6643]

Thank you for giving a platform to another wonderful expert... fascinating as always!

[@CChissel]

I loved this, such an interesting conversation and Mark is wonderful. I would love another video on any of these scripts, along with Mark as well!

[@olorin4317]

Cool interview. I think it would be interesting to know more about proto-Elamite and Indus Valley languages.

[@johnbeeck2540]

Rapidly approaching 100K Subs!!!! Very well deserved!

[@WorldofAntiquity]

Thank you very much!

[@moshecallen]

Many years ago now, I only took a Bachelor's in Classical Philology before switching fields. Yet when I was in Classics, a common hypothesis (obviously unprovable) was that (allowing for the usual phonological differences between similar sounds in different languages) most likely Linear A symbols and Linear B symbols do in fact have the same phonological values when the same. IIRC it was a syllabary but I also thought some symbols were not common between the two. So, by this hypothesis, we are able to read the sounds of Linear A without understanding or identifying the language. The usual supplementary hypothesis was then that this hypothetical language we called Minoan could be an isolate, could be a last remaining member of a wider language family, or any other possibility consistent with known facts. The sounds and patterns of the language if the first hypothesis is correct do not resemble any language family we know and we don't have any parallel texts.

[@johndoes7569]

As a pseudo-linguist myself ( I just know a couple of indo-european and japonic languages, but not at a native level) I would love to see something about the Indus Valley Script ( even if I know that my Sanskrit studies have nothing to do with it) or Linear A. Or maybe the Tărtăria Tablets found in my country, Romania. 15 years ago I was knee deep in ancient scripts. Now i don't have so much time with my Japanese studies.

[@jorgegonzalez-larramendi5491]

i left my kanji for devanagari more of a monk than a bushi i guess now yamagushi those are interesting ! hare krishna

[@johndoes7569]

@@jorgegonzalez-larramendi5491 😂 There are monks even in Japan. Yeah, devanagari is much more easy than kanji ....until you enter in vedic, brahmanic or clasic sanskrit with a bit of pali as a prakrit and maybe Hindi/Urdu, Bengali , Marathi etc to understand the evolution of sanskrit even better . If you are crazy like me, try a bit of dravidian languages like Tamil , Malayalam or Telugu to fell the Indian spirit. पुनर्दर्शनाय //ॐ

[@kshithijkaran7657]

Would love a detailed video on the Indus Valley language and script!

[@successmeditations110]

How about a video on each subject? It would make a fascinating series.

[@AndYourLittleDog]

My ancestry is Greek/Cypriot so always a treat when you talk about the history of those regions.

[@thesausagecontinuim1971]

a genuine history channel at last YAY!!

[@davidgomez-wt7pn]

Excellent video! I will come back to this one for more ideas and inspiration.

[@tagsoftware]

Excellent guest and excellent interview, my compliments. If you ever do a follow up interview, perhaps some more can be discussed about the methods and (hard- and software) tools employed by skeptical linguists in their deciphering attempts and in the attempts to verify and falsify various interpretations of scripts.

[@dermotmccorkell663]

Have to say I loved this video. Really made me think. Thanks to both you guys.

[@Omanjack]

Great discussion for a layman, i especially enjoyed that you managed to both talk on legitimate scholarship and have some fun with the "alternative scholars".

[@sgpwriter]

Fascinating. Would love Mark's opinion on Danubian symbols and the theory it might be a proto script.

[@SunnyE_Mechwarrior]

One thing I always wondered... We do know Linear B was derived from Linear A and we know Linear B was Mycenaean Greek. I assume they tried to read Linear A using the phonetic sounds of Linear B and got nothing. I still think that the way to start.. for historical example...look how Semitic people working in the mines in Sinai, they took Egyptian hieroglyphs and created a short hand which we have examples we call this script Abjad which seeded writing alphabet to all the Semitic peoples like the Hebrews, Phoenician to name a few... (they wrote a lot of their writing with only consonants) and it was Phoenician traders who brought this alphabet to the greek island who converted some of those consonants they didn't need to a vowel But the point was B or BET did not change from language to language even the vowel that greek they derived from those aleph became A or the waw became a U. When people see writing they general take what they see useful and change things a little to suit them. So when they phonetically read linear A it wasn't greek, does it have to be greek? Could it not be a language isolates? anyways i am just rambling

[@youtubeaccount2429]

Congratulations on the sponsor! Moving on up in the world.

[@noreligion2]

Thank You David!! Awesome!!! Keep up the Wonderful work!!!

[@kisseykissey2714]

I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this video! I love learning about old languages.

[@pizzagogo6151]

Nice presentation thanks. Really hope we find much more examples from the Indus Valley civilisations, if it could ever be deciphered ( or determined if it’s even a written script!) for me I think it could reveal incredibly important aspects of origin of ancient india maybe Sanskrit or non-Indo Europe ) languages. hugely interested in Elamite as well, but I guess due as much to political situation in these places sadly can’t see any incentive for many excavations in these locations however 😔

[@davidleomorley889]

I learn so much from watching your source filled, educational videos. Your comedy skills and storytelling skills are great too! Thank you for what you do!

[@jeddaniels2283]

Bless shitspreading. What a guy.

[@davidleomorley889]

@@jeddaniels2283 What part of his presentation was "shit"? Please educate us.

[@jeddaniels2283]

@@davidleomorley889 Clearly a comment has been deleted on the thread. Or indeed an comment misplaced. Anyhow I'm a long time subscriber of this channel. "It is what it is"

[@SuperMrHiggins]

Agreed. edit: Regarding the original post.

[@SobekLOTFC]

It's Morbin'Time! Great job, Dr Miano! 👏

[@skipinkoreaable]

Thank you for this straight to the point, excellent interview. It is highly informative.

[@stevett225]

Love this type of analytical discussion …. More please 🙏

[@Faelani38]

Very fascinating and I definitely passed the vid on to my son who is trying to lean Old English on his own. He is only 17 too but has been trying to learn it since he was 15. He wants to be a historic linguist. He even has decided on a school. :D I most definitely encourage him. Getting him in touch with Mark would be very beneficial to him. I think talking with someone who understands would be very awesome. He talks to me but I only understand to a certain degree as it is not my forte. Mine is artifacts and ruins.

[@TheMoonRulesNo1]

This was a fascinating discussion. Thank you!

[@Thunderous333]

I do truly hope we will be able to read these texts one day. Imagine the knowledge to be gained.

[@rschultz9492]

This was NOT too long. It eas fantastic and i hope for more like it. Wonderful. On many levels.

[@AMcAFaves]

That was a great video! Ideally I'd like to see you examine all the ancient scripts one by one in future videos. 🙂 Also, an idea might be to look at the evolution of different families of scripts to show how different, later scripts developed from the influence of earlier ones.

[@Its_Shaun_the_Sheep]

Absolutely brilliant show of ancient world scripts/tablets. Loved it! Mark is very knowledgeable and i would like to know what he may have worked on in Australia while he was here.

[@Paintopia_VR]

Great chat!

[@loke6664]

I would have liked him talk a bit of the Danube script too, it probably isn't a language but it could be. Anyways, a very interesting topic. I still hope someone figures out Linear A, any information about the Minoans would be great since we know so little about them. Did they even have kings and if so, what was their names? What was their religion? What did they call themselves? Was Minos a real person? and so on... I do think we have some chance at least of cracking that one, someone at least figured out their numeric system and that is certainly a good first step and the genetic study that showed they were very closely related (but not identical) to the Mycenae Greeks points to them at least speaking an Indo European language, probably at least related to the Mycenae Greek language also helps. Those are recent finds, before 2019 we had no clue if they were at all related to the Greeks or even Indo European and that makes decoding their language way harder.

[@JMM33RanMA]

A very interesting, video for me because I have a kind of minor in linguistics [I have worked in ESL/EFL]. What strikes me about the Byblos syllabary is that in addition to letters of Latin and Greek alphabets, there are things that resemble Korean letters, Chinese characters and even runes. That might suggest forgery by a world traveler, or merely that there are a limited number of simple symbols possible in a given medium. It could actually represent the work of an ancient scribe trying out various forms; and if this is the case, there might be a possibility to use proximity and frequency as a clue to meaning.

[@jacquelinefaulknall8513]

Incredibly interesting interview. Thanks very much.

[@brettmuir5679]

Good show old chap. Please do more. Please delve into cuneiform and its' varieties and specifically how the Hittite hieroglyphs coincide with cuneiform. Cheers Oh wait. One other thing. Can either of you surmise how Noam Chomsky blossomed from a professor of linguistics into an international sensation of political analysis? There must have been a lever in his brain. I never heard him talk like the two of you. Chomsky is an agitator while listening to you both is soothing. Thanks again Cheerio

[@mogenscamre3762]

Enlightening and amusing - good work!

[@jonasdornelles7094]

Amazing content! Thanks for this!

[@bettschwere]

ooooh yes finally some linguistics! this is my personal favorite little niche of study. never did finish my degree (i unfortunately came to the realization that working in academia was not for me) but i always have and always will love and do my best to keep up with the field.

[@ancientbuilds3764]

Cool. You can add Tartessian to that list. (Still have not seen the vid yet). We located a solid gold ring a while back (Gold came from the Rio Tinto) with tartessian script on it. What was awesome was that it appeared to have numerals. 6 verticals with a strikethrough. The size of the ring indicated that it belonged to a child, possibly female. What is odd are the 6 verticals, not 5. This has us puzzled. If they are numerals it would be the first example ever found. Possibly Duodecimal? We thought it might be a birthday gift, but that's beer talk. The lady who located it was very petite, and the ring only got half way up her pinkies distal. No remains were found in the area, which is not surprising as it is so damp. (Marshland) I havent been in touch with the guys in a while so I am not sure what date they came up with if any.

[@ancientbuilds3764]

Sweet! You included it! The symbols on the ring are deffo Tartessian. It's the "apparent" numbers that stump us. As I am privy to what is highly likely to be the actual settlement itselfs location, (Approx: 175 hectares) I can say it was found on the opposite side of Lacus Ligustinus. Just not on which side or where. CSIC are fully aware of this. The process of getting the permissions is highly tedious. We are pretty sure it was destroyed during an EWE (Extreme Wave Event) in about 550BC. We know where to examine as the rear walls breached in two places. Plenty of organic matter came out. We can GPR it, but it's pretty much a swamp under the sand. Also extremely high levels of methane. This makes digs a nightmare. It is also Europe's most important bird sanctuary. In short, it's the worst place to find something like that. The connection with the Atlantis fable also does not help. If we do eventually get down there, it should be pretty amazing. And sobering. I worked with CSIC on EWE's in the region. It is insanity to build towns on this coastline. At one stage the entire area was abandoned for about 800 years. (Pre-Tartessian) Have a close look at Sanlucar. That 30m drop in ground level was not caused by the river, but rather by something incoming. The EWE comes down the curved coast from the Huelva direction and bottlenecks there. The last real big one was in about 100AD, shortly after Caesar left Gadir, or Cadiz. (He was at the temple of Herakles to pay his respects) This caused 1/3 of Isla de Leon to subsume, and led to the loss of the temple. You can read about this in Luitenant Colonel Thomas James 18th century book, "The History of the Herculean Straits, Now Called the Straits of Gibraltar". I recommend it. Aside from this topic it's a facinating book.

[@mannettabraunstein9283]

Very informative interview. Suggest that photos of the texts and inscribed objects being discussed be kept on view while the conversation continues.

[@stevelacher8092]

I watched this for a second time, but you can only like it once. Thank you

[@RobRoss]

It’s amazing that even though this Linear A script is thousands of years old, I can recognize modern “characters” we use today, like Y, and X, and an asterisk. 🤩

[@SimonMester]

As a Hungarian, I don't know the specifics of the case mentioned, however one thing to note is that while modern hungarian (based on the latin alphabet) is written left to right, old hungarian runic script (used by our nomadic ancestors) is written right to left. Of course they look completely different. Edit: Neeever mind, it came up later. Yes the origins of the language are shrouded in much mystery. Especially when you see some small tribes like the Manshi, forming sentences that readable by hungarians, which is quite stunning. I think there are tons of overlap with Turkish for root words, but not much more complex stuff, suggesting we coexisted a long time ago, then went our separate ways. Heck, there is some village I think in Africa, that is strangely inhabited some hungarian descendants, that still keep heritage symbols and language. The entire language and it's history is just an enigma.

[@MichaelMarko]

I wonder about undeciphered writing examples, especially when there is only a single or a very few pieces. Could it be possible that at least some of those represent experiment? Something like someone saw how writing was done and then decided to just devise a system either for herself or for her city but it never became widely used before the culture fell apart so there are only a small number of documents or even just one which itself might only be the sample meant to sell the idea.

[@pietersleijpen3662]

Experiments, or code. I saw a video on that botanical book, and one of the more accepted theories is that it is just code, especially since alchemist in that time were known to write in their own codes. Granted, if the written word is already rare, there is less need for code, but still...

[@johannageisel5390]

Yes, that was my idea too. Local scripts that fell into oblivion soon after. I also wouldn't be surprised if writing had been invented several times independently from each other and then forgotten again.

[@robo9804]

Wow Mark is fantastic! Really knowledgeable, but he also speaks in such a way as to deliver ideas in a very well structured, direct and considered way. Really impressive!

[@marthacoomber3188]

The first script shown is my grandma’s recipe for ginger beer. Looks same same. Glad I could help😁

[@rilosvideos877]

Maybe in the soon future modern AI may help us with deciphering undeciphered scripts. AI is getting so powerful and can learn from a lot of different scripts - so this is well in my expectations. Of course it will need some clues as we do - but i can also run on try and error much faster than we could.

[@RonaldKolegraffMD]

@@rilosvideos877 I was looking for this kind of comment and would suggest a subject for a future video. Can, will, how could AI contribute or assist in deciphering some of these ancient scripts?

[@persiapersian]

Thank you for mentioning linear Elamite which is deciphered (96% can read). There will be a very important conference about the linear Elamite in Cambridge.

[@0The0Web0]

Enjoyed this a lot, great guest! 👍

[@PoliticalFuturism]

Excellent video as usual Dr. Miano! Personally, I would love to see an in-depth video on the Mayan script and language. What do they tell us about that civilization? It's a subject I'm certainly unfamiliar with except in a cursory way, and I have a feeling the same may be true of other viewers. That would be really cool

[@GhoulsGold]

Another awesome guest! I absolutely love your videos. 🍻

[@mannettabraunstein9283]

I have been working on deciphering Maya, Mixtec and Zapotec writing systems since 1978 with Linda Schele, David Stewart, Martin Jensen, et al.

[@TheArindam786]

Great episode, learned many things

[@caiogiordano8845]

obrigado! Gostei da entrevista.

[@jjw56]

Once again, thank you Dr Milano. Great video and perhaps do a deep dive in the Nubian script

[@Kestas_X]

Thank you David, for reminding me how to be excited about history and archeology.