25-10-2024, 01:10 AM
While the following was an argument why the characters m and g are not likely to be abbreviations, to which I tend to agree, it also presents a far wider issue.
Indeed, the most obvious positional preferences (that are not on a word level) are those of Eva-m and g, and of Eva-f and p. It is not too difficult to come up with various possible equivalences that might explain these. This does not mean that we *know*, just that we can think of possible explanations.
However, the more subtle feature that has been described under the heading 'rightward and downward' is far more difficult. None of the proposed translation solutions (ever!) goes anywhere to explain this.
Some options that I can think of are:
- The entire text is meaningless.
- Only (say) the leftmost part of the text is meaningful and the rest is filler
- The encoding scheme allows for some degree of freedom by the encoder
In all three cases, the gradual changes would just be the result of 'natural human drift', for lack of a better term.
What these three options have in common is that they would also explain another major problem with the text: the lack of repeated sequences (of words).
I think in general that any explanation for 'rightward and downward' will also explain this lack of repeating sequences.
The other direction is not necessarily true.
Some amount of errors or spelling freedom will destroy the repeated sequences, but would not easily cause the 'rightward and downward' problem.
Note that more possibilities than the above three undoubtedly exist.
(20-10-2024, 07:41 PM)pfeaster wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(2) Many glyphs have stronger or weaker "positional preferences"; [m] and [g] are just a bit more conspicuous about it than some others. Explaining these two cases as abbreviations wouldn't resolve the broader "positional preference" problem.
Indeed, the most obvious positional preferences (that are not on a word level) are those of Eva-m and g, and of Eva-f and p. It is not too difficult to come up with various possible equivalences that might explain these. This does not mean that we *know*, just that we can think of possible explanations.
However, the more subtle feature that has been described under the heading 'rightward and downward' is far more difficult. None of the proposed translation solutions (ever!) goes anywhere to explain this.
Some options that I can think of are:
- The entire text is meaningless.
- Only (say) the leftmost part of the text is meaningful and the rest is filler
- The encoding scheme allows for some degree of freedom by the encoder
In all three cases, the gradual changes would just be the result of 'natural human drift', for lack of a better term.
What these three options have in common is that they would also explain another major problem with the text: the lack of repeated sequences (of words).
I think in general that any explanation for 'rightward and downward' will also explain this lack of repeating sequences.
The other direction is not necessarily true.
Some amount of errors or spelling freedom will destroy the repeated sequences, but would not easily cause the 'rightward and downward' problem.
Note that more possibilities than the above three undoubtedly exist.