john jenkins said:

>Meanwhile, it *does* bring up an interesting problem in script analysis --
>trying to determine what visual features of a writing system are truly its
>essential characteristics and which are just artifacts of the way the
>sample happened to be written.

the problem is of course absolutely basic in attempts to analyse
*undeciphered* scripts. in harappan or rapanui or proto-elamite or even in
mayan, which curlecues are significant, and which aren't? cheers; bill
--
William Bright
Professor Emeritus of Linguistics & Anthropology, UCLA
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