Using mathematical analysis, scholars at the University of Exeter have discovered that the symbols used in Pictish inscriptions are likely to represent a language, according to this article.
The team compared the Pictish symbols, which date from the 4th-9th centuries AD with more than hundreds of texts in known ancient and modern languages. They compared short and longer sequences of characters and concluded that the Pictish symbols seem to represent a language with a small vocabulary, however the meaning of the texts remains a mystery.
There are plans to apply these techniques to other undeciphered scripts such as the Indus Valley script.
