Undeciphered writing system

An undeciphered writing system is a written form of language that is currently not understood. In this context, a writing system is used to mean a series of glyphs; these glyphs may represent writing in a language. However, this is not known until they are deciphered.

The symbols on the Phaistos disc are still unknown.

Not being able to decipher a text can have several reasons:

• The language may be a language isolate (there are few or no similar languages that still exist)
• There may be very few texts in the given language
• What is considered a text in a language really is not: it may just be decorations, but the symbols have no semantic meaning.

There is also the concept of false writing systems: these are constructed sets of symbols that are meant to represent a writing system, but that do not.

Examples

• Vinča script, from 7th or 8th century BC Europe
• Dispilio Tablet, from Western Macedonia, Greece, 6th century BC
• Phaistos disc, from 2nd century BC Crete.
• Southwest Paleohispanic script, found on the Iberian peninsula, about 700 BC
• Sitovo inscription from Bulgaria
• Cascajal Block, Olmec civilization, about 9th century
• Numidian language - the script has been almost entirely deciphered, but the language is unknown.
• Rongorongo, inscriptions from Easter Island
• The Voynich manuscript, 15th century
• Singapore Stone
• Newton Stone, considered to be a forgery, by many