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I’m actually curious about the linguistics of something like a telegraph for ancient Egypt - I’m not particularly familiar with the Egyptian writing system from

I’m actually curious about the linguistics of something like a telegraph for ancient Egypt - I’m not particularly familiar with the Egyptian writing system from that era, but a strongly pictographic language, and one in which they seemed to regularly intersperse actual pictures and do things like manipulate symbol size to convey information doesn’t seem to immediately suggest translation to an encoding like Morse like phonetic written languages do. In other words, if the ancient Egyptians had found themselves with the technology to create something like a telegraph, I wonder what they would have done with it - what possibilities suggest themselves given the visual representation of the Egyptian language. (I could actually see something like the Incan quipu being a much easier translation, if we’re talking premodern “written” languages)

andrehacker 2y ago
- Make a list of the most common (spoken) words - Sort them by usage frequency (most used words on top) - Associate a unique sequence of 0 and 1 (dot and dash) - Use shorter sequences for common words, longer ones for the words below - As you don't transit letters but words the transfer rate is much higher than in "modern" telegraph systems - profit ?
- dekhn 2y ago
  So basically a prefix-free code with a symbol table of words.
retrac 2y ago
Getting off topic here but, the Ancient Egyptian writing system was only marginally pictographic. The fully-developed system is essentially phonetic, using about ~40 symbols to represent sounds, and a couple hundred pictograms (often interchanged with the full spelling). Closest analogy is probably the Japanese writing system, but with many fewer kanji. Carved hieroglyphs were highly formalized and ceremonial in nature, but ultimately, the quail chick means "u" and a foot means "b". (We inherit the letter "b" from the shape of that foot hieroglyph.) Have a look at the handwritten form, as would be used for papyrus books or official letters: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/A_page_from_the_Ebers_Papyrus%2C_written_circa_1500_B.C._Wellcome_M0008455.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/A_page_f...
- roughly 2y ago
  Interesting, I didn’t know that!
jf 2y ago
I highly recommend that you read the book “Hieroglyphs: A Very Short Introduction” which I expect you will enjoy as much as I did: https://academic.oup.com/book/470 https://academic.oup.com/book/470 In short: Hieroglyphics were phonetic, but they eluded translation for centuries because only a small number of people could read and write them, and (importantly) the directions that the pictographs faced determined the direction that you’d read in. My favorite fact from this book is that the hieroglyphic word for “cat” is the combination of the sounds for “me” and “ew”
- roughly 2y ago
  The Very Short Introduction series is fantastic - they really do a great job of distilling the core of a subject to give a lay person the conceptual framework to appreciate the topic. I’ve enjoyed every one I’ve read. > My favorite fact from this book is that the hieroglyphic word for “cat” is the combination of the sounds for “me” and “ew” Chinese is similar - the word for “cat” is “mao”!
contingencies 2y ago
The Information Super-Nile. I like it. Perhaps elements of language used in cognitive expressions would begin to mirror through metaphor geographical terms used for proximity of major Nile features to the capital. Messages would become rafts. System operational periods, seasons. Fog of war would become a stagnant pond, or stilled flow. Riparian plants, ever-present information service providers such as scribes and couriers. Riparian birds with fleeting habits, commercial traders waiting to pounce in to action based on on news from afar.
dekhn 2y ago
The pyramids were original covered in polished white limestone casement, which was highly reflective and visible hundreds of miles away. I wonder if you could exploit this to send pictograms by selectively covering parts of the casement with dark covers.

andrehacker 2y ago

- Make a list of the most common (spoken) words - Sort them by usage frequency (most used words on top) - Associate a unique sequence of 0 and 1 (dot and dash) - Use shorter sequences for common words, longer ones for the words below - As you don't transit letters but words the transfer rate is much higher than in "modern" telegraph systems - profit ?

dekhn 2y ago
So basically a prefix-free code with a symbol table of words.

retrac 2y ago

Getting off topic here but, the Ancient Egyptian writing system was only marginally pictographic. The fully-developed system is essentially phonetic, using about ~40 symbols to represent sounds, and a couple hundred pictograms (often interchanged with the full spelling). Closest analogy is probably the Japanese writing system, but with many fewer kanji. Carved hieroglyphs were highly formalized and ceremonial in nature, but ultimately, the quail chick means "u" and a foot means "b". (We inherit the letter "b" from the shape of that foot hieroglyph.) Have a look at the handwritten form, as would be used for papyrus books or official letters: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/A_page_from_the_Ebers_Papyrus%2C_written_circa_1500_B.C._Wellcome_M0008455.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/A_page_f...

roughly 2y ago
Interesting, I didn’t know that!

jf 2y ago

I highly recommend that you read the book “Hieroglyphs: A Very Short Introduction” which I expect you will enjoy as much as I did: https://academic.oup.com/book/470 https://academic.oup.com/book/470 In short: Hieroglyphics were phonetic, but they eluded translation for centuries because only a small number of people could read and write them, and (importantly) the directions that the pictographs faced determined the direction that you’d read in. My favorite fact from this book is that the hieroglyphic word for “cat” is the combination of the sounds for “me” and “ew”

roughly 2y ago
The Very Short Introduction series is fantastic - they really do a great job of distilling the core of a subject to give a lay person the conceptual framework to appreciate the topic. I’ve enjoyed every one I’ve read. > My favorite fact from this book is that the hieroglyphic word for “cat” is the combination of the sounds for “me” and “ew” Chinese is similar - the word for “cat” is “mao”!

contingencies 2y ago

The Information Super-Nile. I like it. Perhaps elements of language used in cognitive expressions would begin to mirror through metaphor geographical terms used for proximity of major Nile features to the capital. Messages would become rafts. System operational periods, seasons. Fog of war would become a stagnant pond, or stilled flow. Riparian plants, ever-present information service providers such as scribes and couriers. Riparian birds with fleeting habits, commercial traders waiting to pounce in to action based on on news from afar.

dekhn 2y ago

The pyramids were original covered in polished white limestone casement, which was highly reflective and visible hundreds of miles away. I wonder if you could exploit this to send pictograms by selectively covering parts of the casement with dark covers.