budd@boring.uucp (Tim Budd) (02/20/86)
[--] >> Comparing complex instructions to hieroglyphics is what I like. >On the other hand, how do Heiroglyphics compare to a phonetic alphabet? I may be wrong (I usually am) but I seem to recall that the great insight that permitted the rosetta stone to be used to interpret Heiroglyphics (at least the Egyptian variety) was that they really were phonetic after all. After all, knowing that *&#! stands for ``Caesar'' won't help you read #&!*, unless you can match sounds and symbols somehow. Admittedly, the symbol used usually had some relationship to the sound conveyed, but it was the sound that was important, not the object being symbolised. If I were back in Tucson I could recheck my references, but I'm not. Can anyone confirm or deny this? (and of course this doesn't belong in net.arch, but if I posted it anyplace else people would really think it odd).