Germany-Enigma Japan-Purple Britain-Type X US-SIGABA
Purple: Midway/Yamamoto
improper Enigma use
repeated msg keys, cillies, plugboard/rotor restrictions
otherwise not broken ?
much later: Enigma broken
science: reasoning history socialogy psychology: human behaviour
cipher machines: slow human language translators: fast
WWI US (France): Choctaw
WWII US (Pacific): Navajo code talkers
Philip Johnston → James Jones
precision? 2 man whisper demo
language? Navajo (28 Americans) Sioux Chippewa Pima-Papago
large pop'n, literate, fluently bilingual
distinct fr Eur/Asia, not studied by roving German students
cryptosystem
word ↔ word 274 word military lexicon spell: letter ↔ word
submarine QZ ↔ iron fish quiver zinc ↔ besh-lo ca-yeilth besh-do-gliz
US Naval Intel: gutturalnasaltongue-twisting
7 Aug 1942: 1st use
end 1942: rqst 83 add'l code talkers
Na-Dené: verb form = f(subj, obj = f(category), adverb, personal/hearsay)
enhancements
lexicon: + 234 words
homophones: e t a o i n + 2 s h r d l u + 1
a ↔ ant, apple, axe ↔ wol-la-chee, be-la-sana, tse-nihl
Iwo Jima: 800 Navajo msgs
lost languages/scripts of Egypt
? 3000 BC hieroglyphic fr Grk: sacred carving
? 3000 BC hieratic fr Grk: priestly writing
600 BC demotic fr Grk: popular
Egypt
~100 AD Coptic (late Egyptian)
Greek alphabet + Egyptian language => Coptic script 24 Greek characters + 6 demotic characters (non-Greek sounds), Egyptian pronunciation
demotic outlawed by Christian church (Constantine: 272-337)
10xx AD Arabic (Egyptian/Coptic linguistic link mostly broken, but e.g. survived in Coptic Christian church liturgy)
16xx: Egyptian obelisks erected in Rome
hieroglyph = semagram (meaningful symbol) ?
1652 German Jesuit priest Athanasius Kircher Oedipus aegyptiacus
1798 Napolean historiansscientistsdraughtsmen → Egypt
Rosetta → Cairo → Alexandria → London
3 scripts: heiroglyphic, demotic, classical Greek
Thomas Young 1773 - 1829
polymath Grk Lat Fr Ital Heb Chald Syr Sam Arab Pers Turk Eth
Cambridge medicine, eye, cartouche
1814 summer: foreign name would have to be phonetic Ptolemy ? Berenika ?
rest of text ? ( respect for Kircher ? )
1819 Encyclopedia Brittanica
Jean-Francois Champollion 1790-1832
1807 → Collège de France, Paris → Egypt under the pharaohs
Grk Lat Heb Eth San Zend Pahlevi Arab Syr Chal Pers Chin
1808 “Lenoir has published … ” (fainted)
1809 prof Grenoble (fainted)
1815 Grenoble Fac Arts closed
1822 following Young's ideas, more cartouches
Ptolemaios ↔ P t o l m e s
Cleopatra ↔ C l e o p a t r a two diff't t glyphs
?????? ↔ a l ? s e ? t r ? a l k s e n t r s scrbs lkd t mt vwls
1822 Sept 14 pre-GrecoRoman cartouches
still phonetic
rebus … in Coptic (late Egyptian) ! je tiens l'affaire
1828 → Egypt
1832 stroke
Singh: hiero decipher
Babylon cuneiform
Kok-Turki
India Brahmi
1600-1100 BC Mycenaean age
1200 BC Trojan war
1100-750 BC Greek dark ages
800 BC Homer Ilyiad, Odyssey
750-480 BC Greek archaic
500-323 BC Greek classical
490 Marathon, 323 death Alexander
1872 Heinrich Schliemann Troy
wanted Myceneaean writing
from Athen antiquities to Cretan seals to Crete
1900 Knossos excavations: fire-baked tablets
2000-1650 BC drawings/semagrams
1750-1450 BC linear A
1450-1375 BC linear B
left to right (ragged right margins)
syllabic (90 symbols)
linear B language
some symbols similar to Cypriot-Greek (600-200 BC)
but few linear B words end in C-G se symbol
so linear B not likely to be (Cypriot-)Greek
frescoes of young men jumping bulls: Minotaur
palace with 1500 rooms: King Minos?
Evans conviction: linear B a Minoan age lost Cretan language
scientists who suggested Minoans spoke Greek were ostracized
linear B tablets found in Pylos (Greek mainland)
evidence that linear B is Greek?
1941 death Evans
breakthrough? linear B looks inflective, like Akkadian
cases of Akkadian noun sadanu
sadani sa da ni
sadanu sa da nu
sadu sa du
conjectured cases of two Linear B nouns
A B
1 25 26 37 57 70 52 41 57
2 " " " 36 " " " 36
3 " " 05 " " 12
for each noun, common 5-letter stem
for each case, common end
case 1,2: 3-letter end
case 3: 1-letter end
each syllable: consonant-vowel
conclusion
3-letter end of 25-26-37-57 = end of 70-52-41-57, so syllables 37,41 share vowel
1-letter end of 25-26-05 = end of 70-52-12, so syllables 05,12 share vowel
5-letter stem of 25-26-37-57 = stem of 25-26-05, so syllables 37,05 share consonant
5-letter stem of 70-52-41-57 = stem of 70-52-12, so syllables 41,12 share consonant
1950 Kober death
continued Kober's approach
some high-initial-frequency symbols: single vowel ?
high frequency words: town name ?
town with initial vowel? Amnisos ?
08-73-30-12 a - mi - ni- so so know 08,73,30,12
70-52-12 ?o - ?o - so ? Knossos ?
70-52-12 ko - no - so so know 08,73,30,12,70,52
69-53-12 ?? - ?i - so ? Tulissos ?
69-53-12 tu - li - so so know 08,73,30,12,70,52,69
jigsaw
05 in same column as 12,52,70
so 05 vowel o
05 in same row as 69
so 05 consonant t
so 05 = to !
similarly, 31 = sa !
word often at bottom of list 05 - 31 = to - sa
experts had guessed lists were inventories, 05-31 was total
total in old Greek can be “so much”, tossos or tosa
eureka: linear B is old Greek?
frivolous digression ? start reading other words
BBC listener John Chadwick
expert in archaic Greek, Greek philology (language evolution)
1953 ChadwickVentris Evidence for Greek Dialect in the Mycenaean Archives/
linear B conclusions
Greek
Linear A might have been written in lost Minoan language
around 1450 Greek Mycenaea conquers Crete?
Linear B similar writing to Linear A, but different language
1956 death Ventris