Deciphering

In philology, decipherment is the discovery of the meaning of texts written in ancient or obscure languages or scripts. Decipherment in cryptography refers to decryption. The term is used sardonically in everyday language to describe attempts to read poor handwriting. In genetics, decipherment is the successful attempt to understand DNA, which is viewed metaphorically as a text containing word-like units.Snustad, D. Peter, et al. (2016). ''Principles of Genetics''. Wiley, p.302 Throughout science the term decipherment is synonymous with the understanding of biological and chemical phenomena.

Ancient languages

In a few cases, a multilingual artifact has been necessary to facilitate decipherment, the Rosetta Stone being the classic example. Statistical techniques provide another pathway to decipherment, as does the analysis of modern languages derived from ancient languages in which undeciphered texts are written. Archaeological and historical information is helpful in verifying hypothesized decipherments.

Decipherers

See also

Deciphered scripts

* Cuneiform
* Egyptian hieroglyphs
* Kharoshthi script, Kharoshthi
* Linear B script, Linear B
* Maya script, Mayan
* Staveless Runes
* Cypriot syllabary, Cypriot Syllabary

Undeciphered scripts

* Rongorongo
* Indus script
* Cretan hieroglyphs
* Byblos syllabary
* Linear A
* Linear Elamite
* Cypro-Minoan syllabary
* Espanca script, Espanca
* Numidian language

Undeciphered texts

* Phaistos Disc
* Rohonc Codex
* Voynich Manuscript

References

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Cryptography
Writing systems
Genetics terms
Philology