Decipherment

Rediscovery of a language or script's meaning

In philology, decipherment is the discovery of the meaning of texts written in ancient or obscure languages or scripts.^[1]

Ancient languages

In a few cases, a multilingual artifact has been necessary to facilitate decipherment, the Rosetta Stone being the classic example. Statistical techniques provide another pathway to decipherment, as does the analysis of modern languages derived from ancient languages in which undeciphered texts are written. Archaeological and historical information is helpful in verifying hypothesized decipherments.

Decipherers

See also

• Language portal
• Linguistics portal

Deciphered scripts

• Cuneiform
• Egyptian hieroglyphs
• Kharoshthi
• Linear B
• Mayan
• Staveless Runes
• Cypriot Syllabary

Undeciphered scripts

• Rongorongo (Decipherment of rongorongo)
• Indus script
• Cretan hieroglyphs
• Byblos syllabary
• Linear A
• Linear Elamite
• Cypro-Minoan syllabary
• Espanca
• Numidian language^[a]

Undeciphered texts

• Phaistos Disc
• Rohonc Codex
• Voynich Manuscript

References

1. Although the script, Libyco-Berber, has been almost fully deciphered, the language has not.

1. Trask, R.L (2000). The Dictionary of Historical and Comparative Linguistics. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, p. 82 ("The process of determining the relation between an extinct and unknown writing system and the language it represents. Strictly, decipherment is the elucidation of the script—that is, determining the values of the written characters")
2. "Cypro-Syllabic".
3. "Anatomy of a Decipherment", http://images.library.wisc.edu/WI/EFacs/transactions/WT1966/reference/wi.wt1966.adcorre.pdf"
4. "Breaking the Code (Francois Desset, Padua) - YouTube". www.youtube.com. Archived from the original on 2021-12-11. Retrieved 2021-01-04.