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Can You Identify This Mysterious Old Writing?

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Re: Can You Identify This Mysterious Old Writing?

#41

Post by aranarquelion »

sn41 wrote: post #34

It looks like Burmese to me... [1] or Javanese [2] , or some such Brahmic script. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmese_language [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javanese_script

Agreed. At the least, it definitely appears to be an abugida (or possibly abjad), and the letter shapes are similar to many Brahmic scripts. My first thought was that it looked kind of like Tibetan cursive but wasn't quite the same, and after some searching it does seem like some older Burmese texts also look similar, and Javanese as well.

But, some of what I'm assuming are the vowel marks are throwing me off, since they don't look quite right for any of the writing systems mentioned so far, at least based on the descriptions I can find. Someone mentioned that it looks like the paper might have been photographed from the wrong side, so maybe this is part of the issue.

Re: Can You Identify This Mysterious Old Writing?

#42

Post by mynegation »

cbracketdash wrote: post #36
skosch wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice, Tai Le looks really close! I first thought it might be Deseret Cursive [1], but I don't think that's it either. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deseret_alphabet

Tai Le also has similar characters but some of them in the writing do no match the Tai Le Script alphabet. I.e. the cursive y with a dot in the middle or the character that looks like "-|"

May not be Tai Le but by now I am almost sure that it is one of the Brahmic scripts, but the list of languages using these scripts is extensive

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmic_scripts

Re: Can You Identify This Mysterious Old Writing?

#43

Post by acomjean »

cbracketdash wrote: post #30
mynegation wrote: post #5

Tai Le? [1] I honestly don’t know but I stuck some handwritten symbols into Shapecatcher [2] and this is my best guess. Other handwritten examples: https://scriptsource.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id=script... My other guesses were Georgian, Armenian, or (though unlikely) cursive variant of aboriginal syllabics. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tai_Le_script [2] https://shapecatcher.com/

I am Armenian and I can almost guarantee you it is not Armenian writing nor Armenian cursive. It almost looks like a mix between Arabic and Armenian. It may be some Middle Eastern language..

We found some old Armenian letters in my family and it was really really hard to find someone who could read and translate. I don’t speak or read it but that was our experience.

Here what they looked like. It’s hard to compare with the low Rez but seems like not a match with this old Armenian..

https://www.flickr.com/photos/acomjean/10720319325/in/album-...

Re: Can You Identify This Mysterious Old Writing?

#44

Post by sn41 »

aranarquelion wrote: post #41
sn41 wrote: post #34

It looks like Burmese to me... [1] or Javanese [2] , or some such Brahmic script. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmese_language [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javanese_script

Agreed. At the least, it definitely appears to be an abugida (or possibly abjad), and the letter shapes are similar to many Brahmic scripts. My first thought was that it looked kind of like Tibetan cursive but wasn't quite the same, and after some searching it does seem like some older Burmese texts also look similar, and Javanese as well. But, some of what I'm assuming are the vowel marks are throwing me off, since…

Yes, this was my feeling as well. It is very rare that calligraphy in a left-to-right writing system will have letters slanted left. It may have been a photograph from the other side. Rice paper being very thin, it might not be obvious which is the right side.

Re: Can You Identify This Mysterious Old Writing?

#45

Post by sterlind »

max_ wrote: post #40

This looks like the same text on the Voynich Manuscript [0] — only without the illustrations. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript

No gallows letters in this text, everything is a lot swoopier, I don't think they're related. Really wish Derek Vogt hadn't pulled his videos on Voynich and how to identify obscure writing systems.

Re: Can You Identify This Mysterious Old Writing?

#46

Post by mynegation »

Klwohu wrote: post #38
ghayes wrote: post #3

Here are the direct links to the not very high resolution photographs from the article: [0] https://media.tegna-media.com/assets/WNEP/images/323b9a63-45... [1] https://media.tegna-media.com/assets/WNEP/images/bdb99b5f-a4...

Looks like Church Slavonic.

It is not Church Slavonic, at least not in any type of Cyrillic script. Could be Glagolitic but this is extremely unlikely because (a) does not look like Glagolitsa (b) Glagolitsa mostly died out 7 centuries ago.

Re: Can You Identify This Mysterious Old Writing?

#48

Post by Lammy »

max_ wrote: post #40

This looks like the same text on the Voynich Manuscript [0] — only without the illustrations. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript

Obviously total speculation but the illustrations and chosen subjects there make me wonder if the document(s) might be Druidic of some sort, since "ancient Druids considered it profane to record their teachings in writing": https://llewellyn.com/encyclopedia/article/186

My impression of intense focus on oral tradition isn't that such groups had no form of writing but as something analogous to modern-day Sensitive Compartmentalized Information systems to prevent anyone in the out-group from learning in-group knowledge, like how the US government has "UNCLASSIFIED / CLASSIFIED / SECRET / TOP-SECRET / TOP-SECRET-COSMIC" etc. It would be hard to describe the exact physical properties of things like plants, animals, and space without writing and illustrating them, so maybe these are documents from one such group who didn't want the fruit of their scientific studies to proliferate?

Re: Can You Identify This Mysterious Old Writing?

#49

Post by Lammy »

7800 wrote: post #47
Lammy wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or written by a sinister person (not pejorative)

Left-handed for those that need clarification. :)

I am related to a left-hander who hates being a synonym for evildoing, so now it sticks out to me when people use it that way :p
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