A UC Santa Cruz professor unearthed the oldest alphabet yet

Post by CamperBob2 » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 11:33 PM UTC

CoastalCoder wrote: post #12

gunian wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the LOTR, Eru Ilúvatar created the world with a specific hierarchy. In the Abrahamic religions everything happens for a reason In Buddhism suffering is enlightenment or something like that about some path In the world of the rich kids Leibniz and Darwin it be what it be So if all history is written by a few it is the will of the universe fighting that would be like fighting the very nature of reality itself. This…

There's a certain poetry to the parent comment, but I don't understand what it's meant to convey.

Post by sandworm101 » Sat, Jan 18, 2025, 1:35 AM UTC

mmooss wrote: post #51

sandworm101 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is happening today. Chambers inside Egypt's great pyramid were detected in 2016 using muon imaging. It was a slow process but radically less damaging than the alternatives such as drilling test holes. More commonly, ground penetrating radar is regularly used to avoid digging test or exploratory trenches across sites. As resolution increases, fewer and fewer trenches need be dug. Scans are often used years prior to…

I've heard of that application, but will it detect faint writing, which experts weren't intially sure was writing, on a 4 cm long piece of rock? I don't that's happening any time soon.

Post by jltsiren » Sat, Jan 18, 2025, 7:21 AM UTC

Ferret7446 wrote: post #50

adrian_b wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a modern distinction. Until recently the term "alphabet" was used for any writing system where the symbols correspond approximately with phonemes, regardless whether both consonants and vowels are written as in all alphabets derived from or inspired by the Greek alphabet, or only the consonants are written, like in other writing systems derived from the old Semitic alphabet, without passing through the Greek…

And we live in the modern world, so we should use the modern definitions? For reference, "abjad" was introduced in 1990, so it's 35 years old. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect people to start using 35 year old terms to accurately describe academic subjects.

Post by DiogenesKynikos » Sat, Jan 18, 2025, 6:08 PM UTC

PittleyDunkin wrote: post #21

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #10

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By that standard, many alphabets, including the Phoenician and Arabic alphabets, aren't "real" alphabets.

Yes, exactly. Linear A was the first alphabet, and greek gave "alphabet" its name. I almost get the sense that people are interpreting abjad as "lesser-than" an alphabet. It's just a distinction, it's not a value judgement.

Post by ahazred8ta » Fri, Jan 24, 2025, 1:33 AM UTC

airstrike wrote: post #23

adrian_b wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article does not provide the slightest clue about why the researchers believe that this is an alphabetic script, taking into account that they say that it does not resemble other known scripts. Usually it is assumed that a script is alphabetic instead of being syllabic when the total number of distinct symbols is small, but this is not foolproof, because there are languages with a relatively small number of disti…

Wait, you're the same person that made the super insightful comment about the origins of life and RNA yesterday... I'm honestly amazed at how you know so much about everything