8 ms·
Can You Identify This Mysterious Old Writing?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ghayes 6y agoHere are the direct links to the not very high resolution photographs from the article: [0] https://media.tegna-media.com/assets/WNEP/images/323b9a63-4592-43f1-b0eb-a062422a04cf/323b9a63-4592-43f1-b0eb-a062422a04cf_1920x1080.jpeg https://media.tegna-media.com/assets/WNEP/images/323b9a63-45... [1] https://media.tegna-media.com/assets/WNEP/images/bdb99b5f-a462-4925-9e82-8e1a7453287f/bdb99b5f-a462-4925-9e82-8e1a7453287f_1920x1080.jpeg https://media.tegna-media.com/assets/WNEP/images/bdb99b5f-a4...
- unnamed76ri 6y agoThanks. The news station certainly isn’t helping anything with the quality of those photos.
- BlueGh0st 6y agoDo these photos and the way they were shown in the news not look upside down to anyone else?
- Lammy 6y agoOr written by a sinister person (not pejorative)
- 7800 6y agoLeft-handed for those that need clarification. :)
- Lammy 6y agoI am related to a left-hander who hates being a synonym for evildoing, so now it sticks out to me when people use it that way :p
- thaumasiotes 6y ago...when do people use it that way? "Sinister" in English has just the one meaning; the sense of "left" is restricted to Latin. And even there, "left" is a pretty different concept from "left-handed". On a different note, French for left is "gauche".
- DanBC 6y agoA few different English dictionaries include "on the left" as a current definition for sinister. From American Heritage Dictionary 4th Ed. (En-En) > sinister > sin·is·ter (sĭnʹĭ-stər) > adj. > 4. On the left side; left. > From Merriam-Webster's Collegiate 11 (En-En) > sinister > a. : of, relating to, or situated to the left or on the left side of something; especially : being or relating to the side of a heraldic shield at the left of the person bearing it
- thaumasiotes 6y ago> of, relating to, or situated to the left or on the left side of something; especially : being or relating to the side of a heraldic shield at the left of the person bearing it The bar sinister? Calling that a sense of the English word would commit you to saying that "vert" is English for "green", "gules" is English for "red", "or" is English for "gold", etc.
- Lammy 6y agoNobody uses it that way — they use it to mean evil/wicked/malevolent, but then said relation will usually gibe "why yes they are very left-handed" so I have stopped using it that way lol
- jacobolus 6y ago
- qrbLPHiKpiux 6y agoTrolling has been happening since the beginning of time.
- jozen 6y agoPersonally I get the feeling that they took a picture from the wrong side. Rice paper is very thin but I could be wrong, just my intuition.
- mc32 6y agoAgree. It merits being looks from the other side. The angle of writing seems to indicate the writing was on the other side, but looking at the document it should be clear which side has more ink.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- statstutor 6y agoIn both cases, the left-hand side looks upside-down but the right-hand side looks right-way-up, as if the writer has rotated the page to always write on the right-hand page. Seems likely they are right-handed, then (or, this comes from right-handed practices).
- lotrjohn 6y agoHigher resolution version: [0]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/23/One_Ring_inscription.svg/640px-One_Ring_inscription.svg.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/23/On...
- 13of40 6y agoLooks a bit like this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palaung_language#/media/File%3AManuscripts_in_the_Yunnan_Nationalities_Museum_-_DSC03945.JPG https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palaung_language#/media/File...
- Klwohu 6y agoLooks like Church Slavonic.
- mynegation 6y agoIt is not Church Slavonic, at least not in any type of Cyrillic script. Could be Glagolitic but this is extremely unlikely because (a) does not look like Glagolitsa (b) Glagolitsa mostly died out 7 centuries ago.
- aaron695 6y agoStrangely the second page on both photos is upside down. mynegation's, Tai Le call seems best, and 13of40 example of Palaung which uses Tai Le is currently closest IMO.
- moocowtruck 6y agomy apologies, this is the local news station where I live and they, like most things around here are behind the times hehe, it wouldn't dawn on them to get a really comprehensive and high rest images of something like this! Hell we've made shows like colbert multiple times to be made fun of :D
- mynegation 6y agoTai Le? [1] I honestly don’t know but I stuck some handwritten symbols into Shapecatcher [2] and this is my best guess. Other handwritten examples: https://scriptsource.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id=script_detail_use&key=Tale&sort_writing_system_entries_gen=wrSys_displayCode https://scriptsource.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id=script... My other guesses were Georgian, Armenian, or (though unlikely) cursive variant of aboriginal syllabics. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tai_Le_script https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tai_Le_script [2] https://shapecatcher.com/ https://shapecatcher.com/
- skosch 6y agoNice, Tai Le looks really close! I first thought it might be Deseret Cursive [1], but I don't think that's it either. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deseret_alphabet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deseret_alphabet
- cbracketdash 6y agoTai Le also has similar characters but some of them in the writing do no match the Tai Le Script alphabet. I.e. the cursive y with a dot in the middle or the character that looks like "-|"
- mynegation 6y agoMay not be Tai Le but by now I am almost sure that it is one of the Brahmic scripts, but the list of languages using these scripts is extensive https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmic_scripts https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmic_scripts
- shakezula 6y agoWhoa I grew up Mormon and have never once heard of this script. Super interesting. There is so much Church history that they don’t teach because it’s weird in contemporary light, and this is a great example of that.
- 6y ago
- imgabe 6y agoWow, crazy to see my hometown news station on Hacker News. I wonder if it could be Russian cursive[1]. It looks like it's maybe slanted the wrong way though. https://external-preview.redd.it/_7TECX4LqBnawfANogqhrLPd9vbC5CAFgaTyKQTomQE.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=0bc5bd659e4169aad9e88df1bf8decf1d987fdfb https://external-preview.redd.it/_7TECX4LqBnawfANogqhrLPd9vb...
- vzaliva 6y agono, it is not Russian cursive
- mynegation 6y agoIt is not Russian. Source: native Russian speaker with a knowledge of Russian scripting systems dating back at least 1000 years.
- emmelaich 6y agoMy impression was Russian/Georgian or similar too, but slanted wrong. Perhaps mirrored?
- mynegation 6y agoNot Russian, under any mirroring, slant, or rotation. Cannot be sure about Georgian - it uses completely different glyphs.
- skrebbel 6y ago> Russian/Georgian Looks a bit French/Korean to me.
- Galanwe 6y agoHonestly, with the quality of the pictures, it could be written in cursive French and I wouldn't be able to tell (I'm native French) They have to post high resolution images.
- niblettc 6y agoThe language is that of Mordor, which I will not utter here.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y agoToo pretty for that. High Elvish in a different alphabet?
- the_af 6y agoThe inscription within the One Ring to which the OP's quote refers was written using Tengwar, which is a script devised by the Elves and therefore "looks pretty" ;)
- type_enthusiast 6y agoTLDR: And in the darkness, be sure to drink your Ovaltine!
- calibas 6y agoGujarati? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gujarati_script https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gujarati_script
- pragnesh 6y agoit is not gujarati language.
- wrycoder 6y agoIt reminds me of Leonardo da Vinci’s mirror writing.
- squarefoot 6y ago" Access Denied You don't have permission to access "http://www.wnep.com/mobile/article/news/local/wayne-county/can-you-identify-this-mysterious-old-writing/523-c317eaf7-5810-4cce-ab5f-3c669ef0ab2b http://www.wnep.com/mobile/article/news/local/wayne-county/c..." on this server. Reference #18.475f7a5c.1614399207.477243f "
- sodality2 6y agohttps://archive.vn/Zpq3X https://archive.vn/Zpq3X if you want to read it
- whereistimbo 6y agokaya carakan sih (javanese script)
- mynegation 6y agoLooks plausible. Do you know the language and read what it says? If yes, that would be conclusive.
- whereistimbo 6y agoNo. I'm just passing by.
- meepmorp 6y agoMy guess too.
- bakul 6y agocould be the Balinese script as it seems (to me) to be less loopy than the Javanese script. Both are abugidas and their alphabets seem to be organized just like Devanagari and scripts for other Sanskrit derived languages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balinese_script https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balinese_script https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javanese_script https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javanese_script https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abugida https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abugida
- mindcrime 6y agoMaybe someone at Miskatonic University could help?
- meepmorp 6y agoJavanese
- evanelias 6y agoIt could be an imaginary language. There are certainly stranger examples, like the Codex Seraphinianus: https://www.openculture.com/2017/09/an-introduction-to-the-codex-seraphinianus-the-strangest-book-ever-published.html https://www.openculture.com/2017/09/an-introduction-to-the-c...
- bredren 6y agoThis reminds me of Deseret, the made up language by Brigham Young. It was part of early efforts to make learning Mormonism “easier” for immigrants. The alphabet failed to take on. Original copies of what was printed are rare. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deseret_alphabet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deseret_alphabet https://www.schilbantiquarian.com/product/1868-1ed-deseret-alphabet-book-mormon-brigham-young-lds-saints-mormonism-utah/ https://www.schilbantiquarian.com/product/1868-1ed-deseret-a...
- skrebbel 6y agoDeseret isn't a language, it's a script for the English language. (Which, if I may be so rude, is an excellent idea because the English writing system is absolutely bonkers)
- JasonFruit 6y agoOkay, spelling is bats, sure, but what's wrong with the writing system? It seems to me to be about in the middle of the pack.
- sn41 6y agoIt looks like Burmese to me... [1] or Javanese [2] , or some such Brahmic script. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmese_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmese_language [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javanese_script https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javanese_script
- aranarquelion 6y agoAgreed. At the least, it definitely appears to be an abugida (or possibly abjad), and the letter shapes are similar to many Brahmic scripts. My first thought was that it looked kind of like Tibetan cursive but wasn't quite the same, and after some searching it does seem like some older Burmese texts also look similar, and Javanese as well. But, some of what I'm assuming are the vowel marks are throwing me off, since they don't look quite right for any of the writing systems mentioned so far, at least based on the descriptions I can find. Someone mentioned that it looks like the paper might have been photographed from the wrong side, so maybe this is part of the issue.
- sn41 6y agoYes, this was my feeling as well. It is very rare that calligraphy in a left-to-right writing system will have letters slanted left. It may have been a photograph from the other side. Rice paper being very thin, it might not be obvious which is the right side.
- max_ 6y agoThis looks like the same text on the Voynich Manuscript [0] — only without the illustrations. [0]:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript
- sterlind 6y agoNo gallows letters in this text, everything is a lot swoopier, I don't think they're related. Really wish Derek Vogt hadn't pulled his videos on Voynich and how to identify obscure writing systems.
- dane-pgp 6y agoI too miss those videos, as his analysis was the most compelling I've seen. For those who never saw them, there is a good summary of them here: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/27/open-thread-85-25/#comment-551200 https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/27/open-thread-85-25/#com...
- Lammy 6y agoObviously total speculation but the illustrations and chosen subjects there make me wonder if the document(s) might be Druidic of some sort, since "ancient Druids considered it profane to record their teachings in writing": https://llewellyn.com/encyclopedia/article/186 https://llewellyn.com/encyclopedia/article/186 My impression of intense focus on oral tradition isn't that such groups had no form of writing but as something analogous to modern-day Sensitive Compartmentalized Information systems to prevent anyone in the out-group from learning in-group knowledge, like how the US government has "UNCLASSIFIED / CLASSIFIED / SECRET / TOP-SECRET / TOP-SECRET-COSMIC" etc. It would be hard to describe the exact physical properties of things like plants, animals, and space without writing and illustrating them, so maybe these are documents from one such group who didn't want the fruit of their scientific studies to proliferate?
- retrac 6y agoVoynich, whatever it is, is internally consistent in its glyphs. There's only a small overlap between the glyphs (at least what I can make out as distinct glyphs... always tricky when you don't know what you're looking at) in this sample compared to Voynich. Probably just coincidental, like how they all have a glyph that looks like Latin lowercase 'b'.
- wrp 6y agoIt looks like cursive Yiddish.
- amitport 6y agoIt's not cursive Yiddish
- kingofpandora 6y agoI thought the responses here might be interesting but they boil down to "I've seen the Cyrillic script once, so I'm going to suggest that."
- nielsbot 6y agoHumans are pattern recognizers... what did you expect?
- kingofpandora 6y agoIt's doesn't look like Cyrillic, or Georgian, or Armenian, or Hebrew, or almost any of the ideas proposed by people who have seen those scripts once or twice in passing.
- imedadel 6y agoI would've said the Hebrew script, however, the diacritics are unusual.
- SonOfLilit 6y agoNative Hebrew speaker here; this looks nothing at all like Hebrew, except for some characters having prominent ascenders and descenders that look drawn right to left.
- Quequau 6y agoUnfortunately, all I get when I navigate to the URL is "Access Denied". It's a pity because at the rate we're going we'll have guessed most the known scripts pretty soon. My own guess, sight unseen, is "Bird-worm seal script"... purely because that was the answer the last time I saw this question.
- Kaibeezy 6y agoIt’s geo locked. I had to VPN via US server.
- aritmo 6y agoIf only there were some really good quality photographs. These are taken with an old mobile phone. And all cursive writings looks alike from far away.
- Kaibeezy 6y ago(11:38 GMT) I'm filing a guess of a tourist copy of the stories of Amir Hamzah, in early 20th century handwritten Javanese. I believe the image needs to be rotated/flipped so the hole in the paper is in the top left quadrant. Will post a reference when I settle on one.
- mynegation 6y agoCan you read it? Definitely let them know - there is a news station email in the article.
- mahesh_rm 6y agoIndeed, it looks similar: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stories_of_Amir_Hamzah,_in_handwritten_Javanese_script.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stories_of_Amir_Hamz...
- Kaibeezy 6y agoAt a minimum, the word at the right end of the 5th line of this document is also seen 8 lines directly below the black hole in the subject document, which is indeed photographed from the wrong side of the paper.
- lukeinator42 6y agoAs others have mentioned it might be the case that the paper has been photographed from the back side. Here are the images flipped horizontally: https://imgur.com/gallery/gv9HG1t https://imgur.com/gallery/gv9HG1t
- simonblack 6y agoThai ??
- kazinator 6y agoI've instantly identified this as a dnial-of-service attack on gullible pseudo-intellectuals.