On Thu, Feb 13, 2020 at 09:15:18PM +0000, Richard Wordingham via Unicode wrote: > On Thu, 13 Feb 2020 20:15:07 +0000 > Shawn Steele via Unicode <unicode@unicode.org> wrote: > > > I confess that even though I know nothing about Hieroglyphs, that I > > find it fascinating that such a thoroughly dead script might still be > > living in some way, even if it's only a little bit. > > Plenty of people have learnt how to write their name in hieroglyphs. > However, it is rare enough that my initials suffice to label my milk at > work. > > What's more striking is the implication that people are still > exchanging messages in Middle Egyptian.
I don't think non-Egyptologist recipients are even aware what language that is, or even that it's actual meaningful message rather than an hieroglyph- looking doodle. It's like maker's marks done by/for illiterate people (such as most artisans in the past) -- as long as it's a distinct symbol, it does its job. For example, I end my work emails with "ᛗᛖᛟᚹ" and everyone so far assumed it's either my initials or at most some greeting. 喵! -- ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ Latin: meow 4 characters, 4 columns, 4 bytes ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Greek: μεου 4 characters, 4 columns, 8 bytes ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋ Runes: ᛗᛖᛟᚹ 4 characters, 4 columns, 12 bytes ⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀ Chinese: 喵 1 character, 2 columns, 3 bytes <-- best!