My Decipherment of the Phaistos Disk, with Complete Proof

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Jacques Guy

Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 7:17 pm

Guest

Rather than debunking Faucouneau, ultimately a _negative_
attitude (bad!), I shall be _positive_ (good!). Here, then,
is my very own decipherment of the Phaistos Disk.

However, first.... Many are the times here when I have been
made to eat humble quiche and, for my decipherment to be
accepted, I must mend the errors of my ways. And I shall.

It started with Etruscan. I had (mea culpa, mea maxima
culpa) written something about the decipherment of Etruscan,
when it was pointed out to me that

"Technically speaking, Etruscan never needed deciphering,
since its alphabet is perfectly clear."

Nevertheless, I was a devil (errare humanum est,
perseverare...) and I wrote again, in a sarcastic tone (mea
culpa, mea culpa [1]):

"At any rate, this is all academic, since we [know] now that
Etruscan has been deciphered, technically speaking, even
though no-one understands what they wrote"

and I continued (horresco referens [2]):

"Just like me. I can read a Greek newspaper aloud, and the
Greeks around me understand what I say. I know no Greek,
beyond "ego eimai gallos" and "ho thanatos pauei to toon
anthropoon bion". But bingo! I have deciphered Greek!
Ancient, modern, and in-between. (I also know the Phoenician
alphabet, so I have deciphered all those Phoenician
inscriptions I will never understand). And I fluently
decipher Russian, and Ukrainian, and Serbian, and
Bulgarian."

The errors of my ways were promptly pointed out in no
uncertain terms:

"Quit being a jackass. Or are you using linguistic
terminology in your own personal, private way again?

Greek didn't need deciphering. Cyrillic didn't need
deciphering."

How true! Although I still have hopes to be a fluent speaker
of Russian some day perhaps, I doubt that I will ever be of
Cyrillic.

But why didn't Cyrillic need deciphering? Presumably for the
same reason as Etruscan:

"Etruscan never needed deciphering, since its alphabet is
perfectly clear"

(It was always perfectly clear that 'O' was 'th' for
instance--the stimulus was weak but the innateness was
willing).

I was also admonished that "Devanagari didn't need
deciphering" either. That is nice because Devanagari has
even more different letters ('symbols' if you prefer) than
the Phaistos Disk has pretty pictures.

So, as soon as its alphabet (a.k.a. the set of its symbols)
is perfectly clear, the Phaistos Disk will no longer need
deciphering.

Ergo, all we need is to make it clear.

We also know that "Romanization tables by definition cannot
be 'in error.'"

That's nice. As soon as we have worked out a Romanization
table for the Phaistos Disk, we'll be right, because by
definition no Romanization table can be in error.

How do we do that? What are Romanization tables?

"They simply state what characters are to be used in one
script to represent characters in another script."

We are getting there already. Take the first group of signs
on face A of the Disk: punk with a mohawk, six-shooter's drum,
nasty-looking baton, Johnnie Walker, carpenter's square.
Five of them. We only need five characters out of the Roman
script, and we'll have the beginning of a Romanization table
which, by definition, cannot be in error.

But, before forging ahead, note that we can use two Roman
characters for one Phaistos Disk one, just like when
Romanizing Japanese (shichi) or Cyrillic (khorosho). Even
three, even four (eshche raz). That's nice. Otherwise we
could have run out. Or ended up with some unpronounceable
garbage like vskhlipnut' or even worse.

So this, for instance, would do:

punk with a mohawk = pa
six-shooter's drum = pi
nasty-looking baton = po
....
and so on.

By definition, it cannot be in error.

At this stage I was going to rush into the publication of
my own decipherment... when I remembered: "no language
but a native speaker's". Wew! Just in time!

So here is the beginning of my Romanization of the
Phaistos Disk:

pipi caca zizi panpan cucu, tata toto caca, mimi coco titi,
mimi mimi tutu, pipi caca gogo toto gaga...

(If posting binaries was not a no-no, I could easily
demonstrate that my Romanization is not in error)

Consider now:

"Technically speaking, Etruscan never needed deciphering,
since its alphabet is perfectly clear."

Therefore, mutatis mutandis [3], the Phaistos Disk needed
deciphering only until its alphabet was made perfectly clear.

My Romanization makes it perfectly clear. Not only does
it make it clear, but, being produced by a Romanization
table, it cannot be in error.

Not only have I deciphered the Phaistos Disk (since
it no longer needs deciphering), not only have I brought
the proof that I cannot be in error, but my decipherment
is in a language of which I am a native speaker.

You can't argue with that.

[1] "mea culpa, mea culpa": borrowed into Latin from the
French "m'encule pas, m'encule pas". The sister expression,
"mea culpa, mea maxima culpa" is a corruption of "m'encule
pas, Maxime, m'encule pas".

[2] "horresco referens": a famous Rumanian playwright partial
to champagne.

[3] "mutatis mutandis": from the Italian "with a new change
of underwear".

Peter T. Daniels

Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 7:44 pm

Guest

Perhaps even Mr. Andrew Robinson won't be so quick to cite the author of
that posting as an "authority" on the interpretation of rongorongo.

The CVCV romanization of P.D. is just fine, so long as the same CVCV is
used for each occurrence of each character.

But since the assignment is arbitrary, it won't help in interpreting
whatever the underlying language might be.

Unlike, of course, the case with Etruscan, where every word can be
pronounced with complete accuracy at the phonemic level.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@att.net

Brian M. Scott

Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2004 3:10 am

Guest

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 10:38:19 -0800 Jacques Guy
<jguy@alphalink.com.au> wrote in
<news:400D759B.2553@alphalink.com.au> in sci.lang:

[...]

Quote:

[2] "horresco referens": a famous Rumanian playwright partial
to champagne.

That's Horrescu, of course.

[...]

Brian

André Keshav

Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2004 5:39 am

Guest

"Jacques Guy" <jguy@alphalink.com.au>

Quote:

So here is the beginning of my Romanization of the
Phaistos Disk:

pipi caca zizi panpan cucu, tata toto caca, mimi coco titi,
mimi mimi tutu, pipi caca gogo toto gaga...

However, there may be just a lot of faux amis.

grapheus

Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2004 7:55 am

Guest

"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message news:<400C79DC.641@worldnet.att.net>...

Quote:

Has now the sci.lang. Group become the clowny.lang Group ?..
Do you really think, Peter, that the post of Guy-qui-fait-le Jacques,
as the Frenchies say, was worth an answer ?..

grapheus

Yves Euld?de

Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2004 10:50 am

Guest

Jacques Guy <jguy@alphalink.com.au> wrote in message...

Quote:

[...]
[1] "mea culpa, mea culpa": borrowed into Latin from the
French "m'encule pas, m'encule pas". The sister expression,
"mea culpa, mea maxima culpa" is a corruption of "m'encule
pas, Maxime, m'encule pas".
Sorry but you're mistaken: it comes from the French indeed,

but from the saying "[le] méat [urinaire] coule pas" =>
"méat coul' pas, méat coul' pas", i.e. eigentlich handelt's
sich um eine allusion aux gens qui ont des problèmes de
prostate. Kein Zusammenhang mit the other entrance, faut pas
mélanger (wie ich Sprachen mix up zum Beispiel).

Ma biche.

André Keshav

Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2004 10:56 am

Guest

"Jacques Guy" <jguy@alphalink.com.au>

Quote:

Given the appearance of the third sign (the "nasty-looking
baton") perhaps I should have transliterated it "bobo". But
it could also be a cat's penis. So "zizi" could be
correct. Well... it _is_ correct by definition, since,
remember, it all is out of a Romanization table. There
is no escaping that fundamental truth. (But Obelix might
have had something to say about that).

They were somewhat ingenuous in their way of expressing things then.

Jacques Guy

Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2004 11:17 am

Guest

André Keshav wrote:

Quote:

"Jacques Guy" <jguy@alphalink.com.au

So here is the beginning of my Romanization of the
Phaistos Disk:

pipi caca zizi panpan cucu, tata toto caca, mimi coco titi,
mimi mimi tutu, pipi caca gogo toto gaga...

However, there may be just a lot of faux amis.

António Pedro Marques

Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2004 12:28 am

Guest

Jacques Guy wrote:

Quote:

Not only have I deciphered the Phaistos Disk (since it no longer
needs deciphering), not only have I brought the proof that I cannot
be in error, but my decipherment is in a language of which I am a
native speaker.

Wow thanks a lot! Now all we need is to know 1) what the accursed text
means and 2) how the deuce it should be pronounced.

Jacques Guy

Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2004 2:16 am

Guest

António Pedro Marques wrote:

Quote:

Wow thanks a lot!

You are WELCOME !!!

Quote:

Now all we need is to know 1) what the accursed text
means and 2) how the deuce it should be pronounced.

Let us start with 2). If you remember my seminal
post, it starts:

pipi caca zizi panpan cucu, tata toto caca...

The pronunciation is (approximately):

[pipi kaka zizi pãpã kyky tata toto kaka]

Now we turn to 1). The meaning is clear. It is,
literally... but here I shall avoid English and
turn to French, because English is not my
native language, therefore my command of
it leaves too much to be desired, where
was I? Oh yes, so I shall give its literal
meaning in my very own personal native language
which, perhaps you have guessed, is French.
Voici: "pipi caca zizi panpan cucu (aussi
épelé tantôt "cucul", tantôt "cul-cul") tata
toto caca..." If I may be so bold as to
presume some (oh, so pitifully inadequate!)
command of English, that would be, in English:

"wee-wee pooh dickie-bird slappity-slap bum
auntie Tommy pooh..."

This is clearly a text of deep psychoanalytical
import. Piece of serendipitous luck here: I
shall shortly repair to Frogland for my sister's
80th birthday. Wonderful opportunity to bring
this to the attention of whatsernameagain...
Kristeva, yes, Julia? Sounds like it. Julia
Kristeva then. I believe she has (still) a
chair of linguistics in some Paris University.
She is at once an outstanding linguist and
a famed psychoANAList (Larry Trask will be
glad to tell you all about her). What was I
saying again? Ah yes, elle a une chaire de
linguistique. Tant mieux si c'est une chaire
percée: she'll immediately grasp the import
of "caca" and "pipi".

Oh, I've just deciphered Etruscan, too, this
morning. As soon as I can find my notes,
I'll let you know. I only remember that
my decipherment had 1,999,999,999,999,999,999
chances out of 2,000,000,000,000,000,000
of BEING RIGHT !!! EN DEPIT DES IGNARROGANTS !!!

André Keshav

Posted: Sat Jan 24, 2004 5:41 am

Guest

"Jacques Guy" <jguy@alphalink.com.au>

Quote:

[2] "horresco referens": a famous Rumanian playwright partial
to champagne.

I thought it related to those who hate giving references, or those who give
horrible references perhaps.

Jacques Guy

Posted: Sat Jan 24, 2004 8:30 am

Guest

André Keshav wrote:

Quote:

"Jacques Guy" <jguy@alphalink.com.au

[2] "horresco referens": a famous Rumanian playwright partial
to champagne.

I thought it related to those who hate giving references, or those who give
horrible references perhaps.

Horresco is fond of the bubbly stuff, so every
year il fait les caves de Reims, et une fois
qu'il a fait Reims, il refait Reims.

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