Another Ancient Language Discovered

Seems like almost every day something new and exciting has been discovered about our own past and i just happened to stumble across this article claiming that yet another new ancient language (from Scotland) had been discovered as well so i thought it might be at least interesting to some here.

Hope you find it as interesting as i have.

The ancestors of modern Scottish people left behind mysterious, carved stones that new research has just determined contain the written language of the Picts, an Iron Age society that existed in Scotland from 300 to 843.

The highly stylized rock engravings, found on what are known as the Pictish Stones, had once been thought to be rock art or tied to heraldry. The new study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A, instead concludes that the engravings represent the long lost language of the Picts, a confederation of Celtic tribes that lived in modern-day eastern and northern Scotland.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/ebeb9446e06a.jpg[/atsimg]
Riders and horn blowers appear next to hunting dogs on what is called the Hilton of Cadboll stone

The resulting data was compared with that for numerous written languages, such as Egyptian hieroglyphs, Chinese texts and written Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, Ancient Irish, Old Irish and Old Welsh. While the Pictish Stone engravings did not match any of these, they displayed characteristics of writing based on a spoken language.

Lee explained that writing comes in two basic forms: lexigraphic writing that is based on speech and semasiography, which is not based on speech.

"Lexigraphic writing contains symbols that represent parts of speech, such as words, or sounds like syllables or letters, and tends to be written in a linear or directional manner mimicking the flow of speech," he said. "In semasiography, the symbols do not represent speech -- such as the cartoon symbols used to show you how to build a flat pack piece of furniture -- and generally do not come in a linear manner."

Although Lee and his team have not yet deciphered the Pictish language, some of the symbols provide intriguing clues. One symbol looks like a dog's head, for example, while others look like horses, trumpets, mirrors, combs, stags, weapons and crosses.

(Link)

Any thoughts?

That's wild -- I studied the picts and got this flash of a board game from my youth which I've never remembered before!!

www.boardgamegeek.com...

Conquest of the Empire -- 1984 -- it had these fake coins with scripts on them....

reply to post by Rising Against


S & F

That's very interesting.
I'm going to do my own research on that.

Thanks

reply to post by SLAYER69


Well thank you very much and i did another quick search and here is a few more links i found.

(link)
(link)
(link)
(link)

Hope they prove helpful.

Very nice.

Once excavating and research will be rendered highly affordable by technology, everyone of us may stumble on artifacts or monuments that could change our perception of history and our origins. That age is starting , I'm glad I'll live long enough to see it spreading.

nice find, op!

Well IMO we have a hell of alot to find and we haven't even scratched the surface of what is out there so we're always going to be finding things each and every day.

But yes hopefully in the future it would e great to see it increase especially as technology aids us.

reply to post by Rising Against


Excellent post! I am always excited when they find new things out about ancient peoples. It seems when I was taught ancient history in school, they skimmed through much of it like there was not much there to learn to begin with.

I look forward to reading all of the links and when they do decipher it.

reply to post by kidflash2008


Sadly i think it's more of a question of "If" they decipher it rather than "when"

Hopeful that it's possible though but if memory serves me right then they are expecting it to be extremely difficult if possible at all.

Never know though.

Hi,


this has already been posted here.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

It kind of slipped down there without it getting much notice!

g

reply to post by grantbeed


Ah my bad, I never saw that other thread.

I'll alert a MOD as well now.

As indicated...

Ongoing discussion...

Thread closed.