Re: inercultural artefact

[Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

    > [Rafal:] An off-topic question: do you know if Balbin mentioned
    > Sendivogius at all?
    
No, sorry I don't; what I know of such mattrers is through other people's reports,
especially Rene's.

    > Browsing through my copy of Diringer's _Alphabet_ (Polish 1972 edition),
    > I noted a number of languages/scripts which I find suspect
    
Thanks for the list!  I knew about some of those scripts, but some are new to me.

    > 1. Syriac languages in Asia:
    >    a. Nestorians.

Yes, the Nestorians in China are possible link.  
But I believe they used a Syriac script.

    >    b. Assirians or Chaldeans - in Kurdistan and Iraq.
    >    c. Jacobites and Melchites - in Near East and Egypt.
    > 
    > 2. Mandeans - in Mesopotamia ... the alphabet is quite
    >  different from other aramaic scripts and is considered
    >  to be sacred
    > 

These are new to me!

Mandean is different yes, but not too much.  
(EVA "o" and "a" are the only matches I can see to Voynichese.)
See http://www.proel.org/alfabetos/mandaico.html
(BTW this site is a must for exotic scripts!)
    
    > 3. Manicheans - .. the origin on manichean script is uncertain ...

Here are two images of Manichean:
http://www.gengo.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~hkum/images/bact_b02.jpg
http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/didact/idg/iran/parth/m781irv.htm


Looking up Manichean I stumbled upon Bactrian -- an Iranian
language with a unique script derived from the Greek alphabet, which
apparently became extinct in 800 CE and was redicovered only in the
last few decades:
http://www.gengo.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~hkum/images/bact_007.jpg
http://www.gengo.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~hkum/images/bact_b19.jpg
http://www.gengo.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~hkum/images/bact_b09.jpg
http://www.gengo.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~hkum/bactrian.html

    > 4. Yezidis - ... they have
    >   a cryptographic writing used only for one of the scriptures
    >   (published in Anthropos VI, 1911). Some think it is a 19th c.
    >   forgery.

The alphabet is indeed strange.
and the "cryptography" seems to be just a
sort of Caesar cipher built into the alphabet.
See http://www.proel.org/alfabetos/yezidi.html
http://www.gurdjieff-legacy.org/40articles/yezidism.htm

      » Père Anastase visited the Sinjar in 1904 and bargained with
      » the current "librarian" to pay so much per page for a traced
      » copy of the Jelwa and a lump sum for the whole of the
      » Meshaf Resh, which was written on a parchment scroll. The
      » script used in the texts turned out to be a coded transposition
      » of the Persian-Arabic alphabet(21) which was used to
      » transcribe in Kurdish a text translated from an Arabic
      » original. The translation of this text appeared in German in
      » 1913. Typical of the problems of authenticity involved, it was
      » contested by an ambitious scholar, a former Chaldean, who
      » was later determined to have forged documents he himself
      » claimed to have discovered, having baked the pages in an
      » oven. 
      » 
      » Were the texts forgeries, created to satisfy the emergence of a
      » consumer market for such books? Most likely not. ...
      » 
      » The Jelwa
      » 
      » "I was, am present now, and shall have no end. I exercise
      » dominion over all creatures and manage the affairs of all who
      » are under my possession,"(23) begins the Kitab el-Jelwa (The
      » Book of Revelation, The Book ofine being, reveals his role not
      » only as ruler over all creatures in the world, "the beasts of
      » the earth, the birds of heaven, and the fish of the sea are
      » all under the control of my hands," but also over other divine
      » beings. ...

    > 5. Kok turk runes - used for Old Turkish (38 characters)

I presume these as the same as the "Gokturk runes", which look like
Norse runes. (In fact there is a page out there claiming that the
oldest Norse runic inscriptions, still undeciphered, can be read in
old Turkish. "Ego judicium meum hic suspendo...")

    > 6. Old Hungarian or Seklerian - in Transylvania, used by Seklers,
    >            an ethnic group known as "border guards"; oldest
    >            documents known from 1501; some think it was
    >            cryptographic

I have seen the "old hungarian runes" (which look like Norse and Turkic
runes); but I suppose that Skelerian is something else, right?

    > 7. Uygurs - nestorians, and finally moslems; in the 13th c.
    >            their alphabet was used as the official script of
    >            the Chenghis Khan's empire.

I may have seen this one, I am not sure...

    > 8. Mongolian - in 1310 it was used for mongolian translations
    >             of buddhist scriptures and became the basis of
    >             later Mongolian.

I saw this one, it didn't ring a bell...

All the best,

--stolfi