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kindred_asura t1_j0tqant wrote

Reply to comment by KhyberPass49 in Ancient Grammatical Puzzle That Has Baffled Scientists for 2,500 Years Solved by Cambridge University Student by Superb_Boss289

never heard of that, that's crazy.

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Iwantmyflag t1_j0tsf9v wrote

More like pretty common. The Alphabet you are using right now was originally developed for Phoenician, a Semitic language, adapted by the Greeks for Greek, not related. Also adapted to Etruscan, not related. From there adapted to Latin, not related to either of those and then once more to English, which is related to Latin but not that closely. Cyrillic is an adaptation of the Greek variant for Slavic languages and of course also not related to Phoenician.

And let's not even talk about cuneiform.

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Vaelos t1_j0u40rv wrote

What about cuneiform? 🤔

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SaiyaJedi t1_j0uihdn wrote

It was later adopted by the Akkadians, whose language was not related to Sumerian.

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Iwantmyflag t1_j0wzug6 wrote

That's only the beginning. Over about 3000 years Sumerian cuneiform was used (at least) by the Sumerians of course, a language not related to any other as far as we can tell. Then Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian, those 3 are semitic languages.

Also used for Elamite, another contemporary language not related to anything.

Hittite, an indoeuropean language. Again completely different from all the others.

Urartian, which I can't recall right now what it is related to but it's not semitic

and finally, heavily adapted, Old Persian, another indoeuropean language.

And it's not trivial to just use Cuneiform for a different language as the "letters" don't fit the sounds. For example it's a pain to map cuneiform symbols to Hittite sounds and uncertainties remain in transcribing and translating the texts.

What's more, we can only read, translate and even to an extent speak those millenia old languages because the writing was used so long and was still used for languages where we have modern descendants and/or texts in different scripts and alphabets like the Rosetta stone or the Darius inscriptions.

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crostrom t1_j0ujnv8 wrote

This is reading like a Monty Python skit

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Iwantmyflag t1_j0x37ef wrote

Over about 3000 years Sumerian cuneiform was used (at least)

  • by the Sumerians of course, a language not related to any other as far as we can tell.

  • Then Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian, those 3 are semitic languages.

  • Also used for Elamite, another contemporary language not related to anything.

Hittite, an indoeuropean language. Again completely different from all the others.

Urartian, which I can't recall right now what it is related to but it's not semitic

and finally, heavily adapted, Old Persian, another indoeuropean language.

Also Eblaite, Hurrian, Luwian which are related to the ones already mentioned and a few more where we have very little texts remaining.

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Allidoischill420 t1_j0uqnxb wrote

How do you gain knowledge on language like you have

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Iwantmyflag t1_j0wwnio wrote

Well...you start with Latin and ancient Greek in school, then you study linguistics and history with a focus on old languages. And you keep reading and reading whenever you come across something you don't understand. It also helps to be curious.

There's probably easier ways today like just reading Wikipedia. Not everyone has to suffer through deciphering Hittite cuneiform ;)

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