4 ms·

Reminds me of the also unbroken Indus script. With all this computational power, I'm surprised that we haven't been able to crack ancient proto-writing.

ianai 9y ago
I wonder if anyone’s trying to decipher non human communication (dolphins, elephants).
- jjtheblunt 9y ago
  https://www.express.co.uk/news/nature/806287/dolphins-speech-whistle-click-language-swedish-start-up-company https://www.express.co.uk/news/nature/806287/dolphins-speech...
  - Jaruzel 9y ago
    They've been claiming this one for years though. However, IF they crack it, it's going to be a game changer; Unlike apes, Dolphins have a much more complex vocal language. As humans we'll be forced to re-evaluate our position on the sentient species ladder. Of course, this'll all be for nought if the Vogons get here first and all the Dolphins disappear.
    - pvaldes 9y ago
      > As humans we'll be forced to re-evaluate our position on the sentient species ladder. I bet that we will just keep trying hard to kill all of them to regain our top position.
- senatorobama 9y ago
  Cats.. dogs?
downrightmike 9y ago
I wonder if our brains have changed so much since then, that we may not be able to comprehend what the symbols originally meant.
- nurettin 9y ago
  Why would "our brains" change? Because we have tv and phones?
  - williamscales 9y ago
    Nah, because now we have agrarian civilizations as opposed to tribes of hunter gatherers.
    - Viker 9y ago
      That seems just as much of a change as phones and Internet, seen from the perspective of a brain changing... Last time I checked.. Astronauts do not struggle with farming potatoes on Mars?
    - eesmith 9y ago
      Indus script was used by the Indus Valley Civilization, an agrarian civilization.
  - downrightmike 9y ago
    We see the world differently. IE what was a 100 IQ, 100 years ago would be sub standard today because we have new ways of thinking that allow us to do better abstraction. Plus the we've changed how we see the world. Blue is a relatively new color. It is a recent distinction between what most cultures saw as green.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
mistaken 9y ago
It's also similar to the Old Hungarian alphabet. Some of the symbols seem to be the same. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Hungarian_alphabet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Hungarian_alphabet
- friendly_chap 9y ago
  That was my impression as well (I am likely biased - I'm Hungarian). What's your nationality if I may ask?
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  They look very much like early British/Norse runes too. Proto-Indo-European (PIE) origins presumably?
Mediterraneo10 9y ago
> Reminds me of the also unbroken Indus script. With all this computational power, I'm surprised that we haven't been able to crack ancient proto-writing. Attempts to crack the Indus script with the aid of computers have been made since at least the 1970s (a large Soviet team went to work on it then), but the problem is that the Indus script may not actually encode the sounds of a language. If it is essentially a set of tamgas or decorative elements, then it cannot be cracked. And even if it encodes the sounds of a language, if that language utterly died out and is unknown to scholars today, then even if we know what the sounds were, we probably wouldn’t be able to determine much of their meaning.
- sd8dgf8ds8g8dsg 9y ago
  > And even if it encodes the sounds of a language, if that language utterly died out and is unknown to scholars today, then even if we know what the sounds were, we probably wouldn’t be able to determine much of their meaning. I feel this conclusion rather weak. As an counter example, consider how the decipherment of the mayan written language was performed [1]. Another one is the hieroglyphs. Re-constructing how mayan words sounded is still on-going [2]. Also, this type of work is not really possible to "crack with computers" as some have suggested (when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail). 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_script#Decipherment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_script#Decipherment 2: https://decipherment.wordpress.com/ https://decipherment.wordpress.com/
  - empath75 9y ago
    The people that decoded the mayan language had the advantage of having several actively spoken maya languages to work from.
  - Mediterraneo10 9y ago
    > As an counter example, consider how the decipherment of the mayan written language was performed That is no counterexample. The Mayan written language was related to a number of surviving languages, making decipherment easier. > Another one is the hieroglyphs. The Egyptian hieroglyphs could not be deciphered until the discovery of the Rosetta stone, where the hieroglyphic text was accompanied by translations into Demotic Egyptian and Greek. Before that, there had been attempts for many centuries to decipher the hieroglyphs but they proved fruitless.

ianai 9y ago

I wonder if anyone’s trying to decipher non human communication (dolphins, elephants).

jjtheblunt 9y ago
https://www.express.co.uk/news/nature/806287/dolphins-speech-whistle-click-language-swedish-start-up-company https://www.express.co.uk/news/nature/806287/dolphins-speech...
- Jaruzel 9y ago
  They've been claiming this one for years though. However, IF they crack it, it's going to be a game changer; Unlike apes, Dolphins have a much more complex vocal language. As humans we'll be forced to re-evaluate our position on the sentient species ladder. Of course, this'll all be for nought if the Vogons get here first and all the Dolphins disappear.
  - pvaldes 9y ago
    > As humans we'll be forced to re-evaluate our position on the sentient species ladder. I bet that we will just keep trying hard to kill all of them to regain our top position.
senatorobama 9y ago
Cats.. dogs?

downrightmike 9y ago

I wonder if our brains have changed so much since then, that we may not be able to comprehend what the symbols originally meant.

nurettin 9y ago
Why would "our brains" change? Because we have tv and phones?
- williamscales 9y ago
  Nah, because now we have agrarian civilizations as opposed to tribes of hunter gatherers.
  - Viker 9y ago
    That seems just as much of a change as phones and Internet, seen from the perspective of a brain changing... Last time I checked.. Astronauts do not struggle with farming potatoes on Mars?
  - eesmith 9y ago
    Indus script was used by the Indus Valley Civilization, an agrarian civilization.
- downrightmike 9y ago
  We see the world differently. IE what was a 100 IQ, 100 years ago would be sub standard today because we have new ways of thinking that allow us to do better abstraction. Plus the we've changed how we see the world. Blue is a relatively new color. It is a recent distinction between what most cultures saw as green.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

mistaken 9y ago

It's also similar to the Old Hungarian alphabet. Some of the symbols seem to be the same. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Hungarian_alphabet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Hungarian_alphabet

friendly_chap 9y ago
That was my impression as well (I am likely biased - I'm Hungarian). What's your nationality if I may ask?
pbhjpbhj 9y ago
They look very much like early British/Norse runes too. Proto-Indo-European (PIE) origins presumably?

Mediterraneo10 9y ago

> Reminds me of the also unbroken Indus script. With all this computational power, I'm surprised that we haven't been able to crack ancient proto-writing. Attempts to crack the Indus script with the aid of computers have been made since at least the 1970s (a large Soviet team went to work on it then), but the problem is that the Indus script may not actually encode the sounds of a language. If it is essentially a set of tamgas or decorative elements, then it cannot be cracked. And even if it encodes the sounds of a language, if that language utterly died out and is unknown to scholars today, then even if we know what the sounds were, we probably wouldn’t be able to determine much of their meaning.

sd8dgf8ds8g8dsg 9y ago
> And even if it encodes the sounds of a language, if that language utterly died out and is unknown to scholars today, then even if we know what the sounds were, we probably wouldn’t be able to determine much of their meaning. I feel this conclusion rather weak. As an counter example, consider how the decipherment of the mayan written language was performed [1]. Another one is the hieroglyphs. Re-constructing how mayan words sounded is still on-going [2]. Also, this type of work is not really possible to "crack with computers" as some have suggested (when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail). 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_script#Decipherment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_script#Decipherment 2: https://decipherment.wordpress.com/ https://decipherment.wordpress.com/
- empath75 9y ago
  The people that decoded the mayan language had the advantage of having several actively spoken maya languages to work from.
- Mediterraneo10 9y ago
  > As an counter example, consider how the decipherment of the mayan written language was performed That is no counterexample. The Mayan written language was related to a number of surviving languages, making decipherment easier. > Another one is the hieroglyphs. The Egyptian hieroglyphs could not be deciphered until the discovery of the Rosetta stone, where the hieroglyphic text was accompanied by translations into Demotic Egyptian and Greek. Before that, there had been attempts for many centuries to decipher the hieroglyphs but they proved fruitless.