Re: what makes a con-script a Con-Script?

On Tuesday, September 28, 2004, at 07:11 , Philippe Caquant wrote:

>  --- Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> skrev:
[snip]
>> Nope - it does not confirm that you have writing.
>> Symbols are certainly
>> repeated on the Phaistos Disk and certain groupings
>> have been noted, i.e.
>> some symbols do come back in a similar context. But
>> as more than one
>> person has plausibly shown, the disk might be a
>> board for a game, and not
>> writing at all.
>
> OK, but the original question was about distinguishing
> between something meaningful and something totally
> natural or at random.
The original question was *NOT* about distinguishing between something
meaningful and something totally natural or at random.

Before criticizing - which you seem to delight in doing - please check
sources. The original question posed by Rodlox was:
"if you had five or fewer tablet (each the size of your palm), which had
symbols etched in them...how would you know that it was a written
language?...as opposed to random slashes in the
rock...or something else?

just wondering."

"A written language" means - wait for it! - W-R-I-T-I-N-G.

> A game is meaningful, even if it's not "writing".
I did *not* say a game is not meaningful. Believe it or not, in my 65+
years on this planet I have actually noticed that games are meaningful.
That is why they have rules. Duh!

Nor do I understand why you put "writing" in quotes. A game is "something
else" than writing. Rodlox specifically asked "or something else".

> But the question is not so simple,
{sigh - strikes head against wall}
Good grief!! Let us recapitulate, shall we?
1. Rodlox asked the question which I quoted above.
2. _You_ replied with a _simple_ suggestion on how to determine if the
marks were writing.
3. _I_ pointed out that your criteria apply to the Phaistos Disk but that
did not mean that everyone considers the symbols on the disk are writing,
i.e. *it is not so simple*

I KNOW IT IS FAR FROM SIMPLE. I once spent many years in research that
involved considering such fragments. Nowhere in my reply did I imply it
was simple - quite the contrary.

I suspect you will not believe it - but I was actually trying to be
*helpful* in my reply to Rodlox.

Please could you check your sources before writing and actually read what
I and others write. It would make life pleasanter.

Ray
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http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
ray.brown@freeuk.com
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Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods
as of the reason."      [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]

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