Decipherment

Day 4: What is Writing?

Dr. Andrew M. Byrd

Last Time

Review

  • Finished up ciphers (aristocrats)
  • The Behistun Inscription
  • How did decoding the Zodiac Killer’s first message (Z408) help with the Behistun Inscription?

What is Going on Here?

The Old Persian Script

To Be Able to Decipher:

We need to dig into what exactly a writing system is and is not and what it can and can’t be.

To Be Able to Decipher:

And to do that we need to first figure out: what is writing?

What is Writing?

The World’s Writing Systems

What is Writing?

With your partner, discuss the following questions:

What does writing allow humans to do that speech alone cannot?

What does speech allow humans to do that writing alone cannot?

With these differences in mind, how would you define writing?

What is Writing?

Narrowly:

  • records instances of language for the future;
  • allows humans to transmit information to others not within hearing distance, both spatially and temporally

What is writing?

More broadly:

  • The representation of language with the use of visual or tactile signs

But what is language?

What is language?

  • “Language is a complex system residing in our brains which allows us to produce and interpret utterances.” (Rogers 2005:2)

What is writing?

  • The primary goal of writing is to make our utterances, which are by default audible (for spoken languages), visible

The Relationship Between Form and Meaning

  • Writing systems are made of visible forms that stand for linguistic meanings.

  • To understand how writing works — and how it can be deciphered — we need to ask a more basic question first:

How can a form come to mean anything at all?

Signifier and Signified (de Saussure)

Following the very famous linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, a sign consists of two parts:

  • Signifier: the physical form (sound, mark, shape)

  • Signified: the concept or meaning associated with it

Crucially, the relationship between them is not natural, but conventional.

Signifier and Signified (de Saussure)

Icons

An icon resembles what it represents.

  • A drawing of a house → ‘house’
  • A stick figure → ‘person’

The connection between form and meaning is based on visual similarity.

Indices

An index points to its meaning through a direct connection.

  • Smoke → ‘fire’
  • Footprints → a ‘person’ passed by

The sign does not resemble its meaning, but is physically or causally linked to it.

Symbols

A symbol has an arbitrary, learned relationship to meaning.

  • Words in spoken language
  • Most letters and characters in writing systems

Symbols must be learned — they cannot be guessed from form alone.

Iconic signs

  • Signs within a writing system may be iconic
    • the signifier bears strong resemblance to the signified
    • Signifier = letter, syllabogram, character, etc.
    • Signified = what the sign represents (word, sound, etc.)

Egyptian < pr >, from ‘house’

Symbolic Signs

  • Or symbolic
    • arbitrary relationship between the signifier and signified

Ogham alphabet

Ogham

But every writing system must represent language


pr ‘house’ & the syllable /pr/

the sounds of Old Irish

Iconic or Symbolic?

Iconic or Symbolic?

𓀀 — man (seated man) - logogram for “man”; also used as a determinative for male humans

𓁐 — woman - logogram for “woman”; determinative for female humans

𓀒 — death / corpse / mummy - semantic indicator for death, dying, burial

𓂻 — walking legs; determinative for motion, travel, action
𓇳 — sun / Ra - logogram for “sun” or the god Ra

Iconic or Symbolic?

𓅓 — m

𓇋 — i / y

𓈖 — n

𓆑 — f

The Cheyenne Indian Letter

The Cheyenne Indian Letter

  • 19th c. message from Turtle-Following-His-Wife to his son, Little Man
  • Conveys the following message: “Dad (TFHW) says to return home, enclosed is $53 for the cost of the trip”

Is this writing?

writing: the representation of language with the use of visual or tactile signs

Pictographs =/= Writing

  • The Cheyenne letter is an instance of pictographs, or picture writing
    • Signs represent an event or an idea and not direct language
    • Direct language = words, morphemes, phonemes, etc.
  • Pictograph = pictorial representation of objects, ideas and events, independent of a word or utterance that refers to that object, idea or event

Chippewa Petition

birchbark petition to Congress from seven Chippewa chiefs, 1849

Chippewa Petition

  • Sent to the United States Congress by a group of Indian tribes
  • Asked for fishing rights in certain small lakes
  • The tribes are represented by their totems:
    • Crane (leader), martens, bear, merman and catfish.

Chippewa Petition

  • Lines running from the heart and eye of each animal to the heart and eye of the crane denote that they are all of one mind
  • Line runs from the eye of the crane to the lakes, shown in the lower left-hand corner.

Winter counts

Lone Dog’s Winter Record: 1800-71

Winter counts

  • One pictograph per year, signifying the most important event

  • Traditionally written on buffalo hides

    • Pictorial calendars and histories in certain Native American tribes
      • Lone Dog – Dakota

Winter Counts

Modern pictographs

  • You already encounter pictographs every day — often without noticing them.

Modern pictographs

Your task is to identify three modern pictographs. Are they icons, indices, or symbols?