Re: Phaistos disk

On Wednesday, July 17, 2002, at 12:08 , John Cowan wrote:

> Ray Brown scripsit:
{snip}
> But I did discover John's board game!   A guy called Peter Aleff argues
> for this on the web-site:
> http://www.recoveredscience.com/phaistoscontents.htm
>
>> Hey, excellent, especially the possible connection (which might just as
>> well be independent invention as actual diffusion/inheritance) between
>> the disk and the Royal Game of Goose.
Glad you liked it.

{snip}
>> Mr Aleff argues his case [boardgame] well enough - and I find it more
>> convincing than
>> the calendars - but I also find it as unproven as the other
>> interpretations.
>
> Certainly.  Since the disk is and remains unique, interpretations are
> not subject to proof.
I think it's the uniqueness of the symbols that are the problem, at least
if one assumes we
have writing.  If another similar disk were found complete with gaming
counters as that would
be pretty strong evidence for the board game idea.

The usual method of 'linguistic' interpretation is:
- identify what each symbol represents (an arbitrary guess is allowed if
the symbol is not
immediately obvious);
- assume the symbol denotes the sound of the first syllable of the word in
the language you
suspect the disk is written in (make any necessary 'adjustments' if the
first syllable doesn't
exactly match the CV pattern);
- then rewrite the symbols as strings of CV syllables.
- read the strings off in your chosen language, assuming similar spelling
conventions to
Linear B.

Et voila!  You have deciphered it!!!

Slight problem:  you get a decipherment (often more than 1) with [almost]
whatever natlang or
conlang you assume the disk is written in.   A nice party game - and if
you dress it up
with technical jargon like grapheme & morpheme you can actual fool people
into taking you
seriously.

Hey - we've got two games, both with variants, for the price of one:
- the royal goose type of game (different version on each side);
- the decipherment game (suitable for conlangs as well as natlangs).

What a disk!

Ray.