peter daniels wrote:

>As Emmett Bennett says, *every* decipherment of Phaistos is correct
>(since there's absolutely nothing to control the results against). (He
>refused to contribute to WWS if there was going to be a picture of the
>Phaistos disk. I hadn't been planning to include one.)

yes; in this connection see bennett's wonderfully restrained, you might
even say tongue-in-cheek, review (in WL&L 1:261-64, 1998) of steven roger
fischer, *evidence for hellenic dialect in the phaistos disk*.

fischer, by the way, was much more restrained about claiming decipherment
in his book *rongorongo* (OUP, 1997), concerning the rapanui or easter
island script. but unfortunately fischer has been less modest in some of
his statements to the media regarding his achievements in the way of
decipherment.

and further by the way, i shouldn't try to hide the fact that my
interventions in this controversy are partly self-serving, insofar as i
sometimes call attention to works which i'm partly responsible for
publishing, in this case bennett's review and fischer's book. so i even
have a tiny financial interest. however, i also have the motive of making
information available to people who might find it useful, such as your
goodselves. all best; bill
--
William Bright
Professor Emeritus of Linguistics & Anthropology, UCLA
Professor Adjoint of Linguistics, University of Colorado, Boulder
Editor, Written Language and Literacy
Editor, Native American Placenames of the United States
1625 Mariposa Avenue, Boulder, CO 80302
Tel. 303-444-4274
FAX 303-413-0017
Email william.bright@..., williamobright@...

William Bright's website: http://www.ncidc.org/bright