"i need a hacker of a different sort...for a wedding gift in 2000, we received a piece of ikea word art that all of our linguistic friends are unable to decode or even guess the language of...
it appears to be an actual language since it has a word root, prefix, and suffix, but i have to face the possibility it's simply art made to look like language...
however, i would really like to know what is hanging on my wall!if it is written in some little-known language from the third world, and the artist knew that it would hanging in living rooms all over north america, i have a guess as to what it would say:
THESE IGNORANT WHITE PEOPLE DON'T HAVE A CLUE WHAT IS HANGING ON THEIR WALL!!!
the longer it hangs there unhacked, the more worried i become that i'm right!" - greg, surrey, bc.
dear greg
i would be concerned too about what i hang on my wall. but i'm as clueless as you.
so, please crack the code, some one?
It looks like Thai or Hindi, if that's any help.
ReplyDeletemoosh, i thought it looked thai too so i checked with a Thai friend and nope, it ain't. it ain't loatian either. :(
ReplyDeleteI'd go in another direction, and check out old scandinavian and germanic scripts.
ReplyDeleteFrom a quick google, it looks like that might be the right way to go.
Check your Tolkein tomes.... Looks a lot like Elvish. There was an alphabet in one of his books-- not in Hobbit.... I think it may have been one that was a compilation of notes, essays, story sketches, etc.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like Arabic calligraphy to me. Granted, I haven't looked at any old Scandinavian or Germanic scripts, but it looks similar enough to the basic alphabet I was looking at.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, its not Elvish (checked with the book, not old scandinavian or german either (I am german and live in Scandinavia, so I can tell)
ReplyDeleteLycka till!
no clue but this is nicely done ;)
ReplyDeleteactually, it looks a lot like mxedruli, a script used to write georgian, but something's off about it...like some letters are upside down or something. like the first character, that's a long E, but upside down. mxedruli has no short slash-type characters, like a lowercase l, though. on the other hand, some characters look like telugu (a dravidian language).
ReplyDeletemy honest opinion? created by a bored, smart linguistics student - the kind of thing i'd do. :)
jonathan wrote me and said it's not urdu or hindi either. i don't think it's arabic.
ReplyDeletei even did some da-vinci-coding and tried to read it upside down and reflected on a mirror! lol! still clueless.
It looks similar to Lepcha:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.krysstal.com/writing_lepcha.html
It's called Nirichaen, and it was invented by Pieter Rottiers:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.omniglot.com/writing/nirichaen.htm
it does look like nirichaen. i've written to Pieters. Let's see if we can finally nail this.
ReplyDeletepieter replied and nope, it's not nirichaen. back to square one. :(
ReplyDeleteHello,
ReplyDeleteIt says Owl in Hebrew "yanshof" and it looks like Owl. however I couldn't read the line at the bottom.
It's very nice!
It looks like a calligraphic Sanskrit to me. Closest to the Oriya script, either that or Telugu.
ReplyDeleteMaybe we should just ask ikea.
ReplyDeleteTibetan (cursive style script) : zhwa-mo = "hat"
ReplyDeleteWhoever has a head has a hat !
Language Log has cracked this case wide open.
ReplyDeleteI sent a link to this page to Language Log, and it has been identified as Tibetan:
ReplyDeletehttp://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004236.html
--Adam Wells
It's Tibetan headless cursive.
ReplyDeleteMore details here:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004236.html
including a translation.
It looks like they've solved your puzzle over at Language Log .
ReplyDeleteAccording to them, 'The script is the "headless" cursive style of Tibetan. The large word says zhwa mo "hat", and the accompanying text translates as something like "whoever has a head has a hat".'
"If you want to get ahead, get a hat." A well-known Tibetan motto.
Deletewow! this is great. i can finally have closure. ;P thanks adam wells for posting this dilemma on language log.
ReplyDeleteActually, to be more specific, there are several styles of the u-med ("headless") script. The script that is generally referred to as u-med has more stylistic vowel diacriticals. The vowls in this print are actually closer to the u-chen script, though the consonant forms are closer to u-med. What you have here is actually a very beautiful and somewhat artistically styled version of the drugtsa script.
ReplyDeleteFrom the first look I would have possibly guessed a variation a Gaelic...
ReplyDeletebut from further research I am going with Tibeten...
A saying about hats written in "headless" script? That's rather good!
ReplyDeleteIgnorant white people is right. "Little known language from the third world".
ReplyDeleteWe call it the developing world now.
Who's "we"? "We" found this in the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, and we think the usage of "third world" is just fine.
ReplyDeleteIts arabic
ReplyDeleteawesome work!
ReplyDeleteno clue but this is nicely done ;)
ReplyDelete