[Article] Lindemann and Bowern (2020) is available

[Emma May Smith]

Very clear argument which addresses (and potentially settles) a number of outstanding issues. The conclusion of poor phonemic distinction doesn't surprise me but is welcome when so well argued. The size of the core script hints at either a very tiny inventory or lack of distinction. I think we've had several debates on this forum where Book Pahlavi has been mentioned as an example of what's actually plausible. Arabic rasm is another (and may be worth adding in to future analyses, as it can easily recreated using a modern text with a recoded transliteration).

I suppose the question is whether markers of phonemic distinction survive? Was the reader expected to bring all the missing linguistic knowledge needed to successfully interpret the manuscript, or are there other guides still in the text? We know, for example, that words beginning [ch] often appear beginning [dch] or [ych] at the start of a line. Maybe this distinction represents a "tell" of which value [ch] has in each case. There may be other examples, but I feel it's outside the scope of this thread. I'm very intrigued to consider what remnants of distinction can be found by the interaction between glyphs.