While what you say is true and should be taken into account, I don't think there is much use at the moment in studying all kinds of different medieval dialects. We simply don't know enough yet about what kind of language(s) it could be. Professor Bax himself believes the language to be non-Indo-European, and others on his site are exploring the possibility of an Indic language.
The approach I usually take is one where modern languages can be handy. I try to determine which larger language family the word (root) belongs to.
Say that I tentatively read a label as "kolt". Modern languages teach me that I could be dealing with some Germanic word form. English cold, Dutch koud, German kalt.
This opposed to froid, frio, freddo, frigidum in Latin(ate) languages. And ṭhaṇḍuṁ, ṭhaṇḍā, ṭhaṃḍā in some Indic languages.
Of course, when a possible language family is found, the older forms have to be checked. When the parent language is known (like Latin), this makes the process a lot easier since more modern aspects can be distinguished. In many Indo-European languages, the gradual erosion of case endings is one example.
The approach I usually take is one where modern languages can be handy. I try to determine which larger language family the word (root) belongs to.
Say that I tentatively read a label as "kolt". Modern languages teach me that I could be dealing with some Germanic word form. English cold, Dutch koud, German kalt.
This opposed to froid, frio, freddo, frigidum in Latin(ate) languages. And ṭhaṇḍuṁ, ṭhaṇḍā, ṭhaṃḍā in some Indic languages.
Of course, when a possible language family is found, the older forms have to be checked. When the parent language is known (like Latin), this makes the process a lot easier since more modern aspects can be distinguished. In many Indo-European languages, the gradual erosion of case endings is one example.