From: Paul_Koning/US/3Com%3COM@smtp1.isd.3com.com
Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 07:18:09 +0800
To: mccoy@communities.com
Subject: Re: Navajo code-talkers
Message-ID: <9604041824.AA1177@smtp1.chipcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


>Linear B is Minoan, and knowing Greek helps in understanding what things
>decipher to, but it predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries so
>even if you knew Homer personally you would have had trouble reading it.

Well, I know the writing system is different, and knowing the greek 
alphabet is no help at all, but that in itself is of no significance.  What is
of significance is that the syllabic writing system forces the words into
somewhat peculiar forms (exactly as in Japanese transliterations of
English words).  Furthermore the language is several centuries older
than Homer, so you have to deal with assorted archaisms.  Then again,
if you know even a little of ancient greek linguistics, it gets easier.
My greek is all high school level and yet I can figure out some of
the Minoan stuff.

>ObCrypto:  Unlike Egyptian hieroglyphics, we have yet to find a Rosetta
>Stone equivalent for Linear B (or Linear A, it's predecessor, although I
>seem to remember Linear A being more akin to ideograms)  Most of what is
>known about Linear B was inferred using a sort of linguistic cryptanalysis,
>in fact there was a paper in one of the Crypto proceedings from the mid-80s
>which described some of the methods employed.

There's a book on the subject: Chadwick, "The decypherment of
Linear B".  Neat.  The particularly fascinating part about it is that
no Rosetta stone was needed -- and indeed if one were found now
it would merely serve to confirm the decypherment, not really to add
anything to it.

Linear A looks a whole lot like Linear B but as far as I know has not
yet been decyphered and is believed to be a completely different
language (I think the guess is some Semitic language but absent
a decypherment that remains speculation).  I don't think it is any more
ideographic.  There is a third writing system from the same area
that has a hieroglyphic look to it (pictures) and is also undecyphered
as far as I know.  I think Chadwick has details, if not look in the
recently published "The world's writing systems" by Daniels & Bright, 
Oxford U. Press, 1995, ISBN 0-19-507993-0.  Great book!

>ObMoreDeadLanguages: Does anyone know if there are Unicode character sets
>for Sanskrit or hieroglyphics?  How exactly does one get a proposed
>character set approved/ratified if not?

Well, Sanskrit is usually written with Devanagiri, same as Hindi, so that's
all covered.  If you want to write it with Siddham characters, there are
proposals for that but I don't think they have gone all that far.  I have
also seen discussions about hieroglyphics, again not beyond the
proposal stage as far as I can recall.

Talk to Rick McGowan (Rick_McGowan  @ NeXT.Com), he's the
driving force behind efforts to put all the obscure, obsolete, and
archaic scripts into Unicode.  I know he has a proposal for
Linear B, complete with encodings of each character...

 paul

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