1) How do people translate ancient languages which no one in the world speaks like Rosetta, Egyptian, etc
2) if we came across some text from an alien civilization, by text I mean any visual patterns made by the aliens which they used for sharing information among each other, how will we deciper it? How much alien text will we need to completely deciper it?
Thanks
In: Engineering
1. Reference to a known language is used to decipher an unknown language. A classic of this is the breaking of the Maya written language, which hinged on a collection of details that independently told us little but together allowed for the language to be deciphered. These included a Catholic priest who unwittingly collected evidence the Maya language is phonetic, and modern scholars who thought to compare and cross reference with modern Maya speakers. All combined, these allowed the Maya script to be cracked and we could read their monuments.
2. Patterns alone aren’t enough. If you have no cross reference and nothing to compare, you’re kind of out of luck. Examples of this would be the the Indus Valley Script and Olmec Script. Both of these writings have nothing thus far we can compare or reference them against, so they’re just signs and symbols that look like writing but we have no ability to decipher.
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