4 ms·

Do we know if it is actually a script encoding a language? I'm an amateur but the first things that pop into my mind are: Can we tell statistically if it looks

by err4nt 3y ago

Do we know if it is actually a script encoding a language? I'm an amateur but the first things that pop into my mind are: Can we tell statistically if it looks like it's encoding a language? And could each character represent as much as a complete word or even more than one word (like a line in a song, or an event in a narrative)

contingencies 3y ago
Perhaps they're barking (sic) up the wrong tree. The every-other-line-is-180 degrees thing could be explained by two people (such as a parent and child, a couple, or two chiefs or priests) sitting facing one another and working on the workpiece together. It could therefore have ritual semantics rather than merely literary. A test might be to look for alternative micro-stylistic signatures on alternate lines which could suggest dual authors. The quote "According to oral tradition, knowledge of rongorongo was restricted to a class of priests known as tangata rongorongo" might support this thesis. LibGen's latest paper on the subject dates from 2020 and summarizes: "among the many published proposals, the only one for which there is more than a modicum of scholarly agreement is the 'Lunar Calendar' on tablet 'Mamari' (Barthel 1958; cf. Guy 1990)."
- Evidlo 3y ago
  I'm sure linguists are smart enough to recognize handwriting by two different people.
- bambax 3y ago
  When I read > These are arranged in horizontal lines, but every other line is written upside-down, a style known as reverse boustrophedon. This means that anyone reading the texts would have had to turn them through 180 degrees at the end of each line. I thought that "turning 180° at the end of each line" was not the most likely explanation, but rather that it was meant to be read by two people standing face to face, in a kind of dialogue or maybe echo/repetition. If that's correct it would be a stage script or used of some kind of ritual. (But it doesn't need to have different authors or scriptors; the same writer could carve each line one after the other.)
  - DonaldFisk 3y ago
    Quite a few known ancient scripts, including sometimes Greek, were written and read boustrophedonically, i.e. the following line starts below the end of the previous line. This appears to be the case with Rongorongo and it's reasonable to assume the same is true for it. Of course, we can't be sure because, unlike Greek, we can't read it.
    - ithkuil 3y ago
      Yes ancient Greek was mirrored (boustrophedon). This is rotated (reverse boustrophedon)
- beardyw 3y ago
  To me it seems entirely natural. If you had a continuous line of text on something pliable you could either loop it back and forth, or chop it up and put the pieces in a pile. Whilst we do the latter, to do the former is perfectly understandable.
jheriko 3y ago
frequency analysis is probably a natural first step here.

by err4nt 3y ago

contingencies 3y ago

Perhaps they're barking (sic) up the wrong tree. The every-other-line-is-180 degrees thing could be explained by two people (such as a parent and child, a couple, or two chiefs or priests) sitting facing one another and working on the workpiece together. It could therefore have ritual semantics rather than merely literary. A test might be to look for alternative micro-stylistic signatures on alternate lines which could suggest dual authors. The quote "According to oral tradition, knowledge of rongorongo was restricted to a class of priests known as tangata rongorongo" might support this thesis. LibGen's latest paper on the subject dates from 2020 and summarizes: "among the many published proposals, the only one for which there is more than a modicum of scholarly agreement is the 'Lunar Calendar' on tablet 'Mamari' (Barthel 1958; cf. Guy 1990)."

Evidlo 3y ago
I'm sure linguists are smart enough to recognize handwriting by two different people.
bambax 3y ago
When I read > These are arranged in horizontal lines, but every other line is written upside-down, a style known as reverse boustrophedon. This means that anyone reading the texts would have had to turn them through 180 degrees at the end of each line. I thought that "turning 180° at the end of each line" was not the most likely explanation, but rather that it was meant to be read by two people standing face to face, in a kind of dialogue or maybe echo/repetition. If that's correct it would be a stage script or used of some kind of ritual. (But it doesn't need to have different authors or scriptors; the same writer could carve each line one after the other.)
- DonaldFisk 3y ago
  Quite a few known ancient scripts, including sometimes Greek, were written and read boustrophedonically, i.e. the following line starts below the end of the previous line. This appears to be the case with Rongorongo and it's reasonable to assume the same is true for it. Of course, we can't be sure because, unlike Greek, we can't read it.
  - ithkuil 3y ago
    Yes ancient Greek was mirrored (boustrophedon). This is rotated (reverse boustrophedon)
beardyw 3y ago
To me it seems entirely natural. If you had a continuous line of text on something pliable you could either loop it back and forth, or chop it up and put the pieces in a pile. Whilst we do the latter, to do the former is perfectly understandable.

jheriko 3y ago

frequency analysis is probably a natural first step here.