This course is an introduction to linguistics decipherment. We will survey cases of successful – and unsuccessful – decipherment, beginning with Ancient Egyptian and covering such languages as Old Persian, Akkadian, Ugaritic, Mycenean Greek and Mayan. Throughout the focus will be on the methodologies employed, and on the conditions that need to be present for decipherment to be possible.
Tuesdays and Thursdays 11:00am-12:20pm