Here is a handwritten note in a mystery language. Can you work out what language it is?
12 thoughts on “Language quiz”
It looks like a Greek papyrus probably 2000 years old.
Is it a fragment of a letter from Vindolanda by any chance? In which case it would be in Latin.
Complete guess but … how about sanskrit?
No, wait …. Norse?
theres a letter in the second line that looks like a hebrew lamed.
It may be an ancient middle eastern script.
I say Latin- I’ve seen something like this before somehow associated with the Romans, but I can’t remember how.
I doubt that it was Hindi. That looks more like papyrus that it’s written on, and so should be a Mediterranean language.
Yeah, definitely papyrus.
Aramaic.
d.m.f.
The writing is cursive Latin handwriting. It comes from Caesarea in Mauretania and dates back to the 2nd Century AD. The text is an acknowledgement of debt.
Latin in Roman cursive, a nightmare for any palaeography student 😉
It looks semitic: I can see letters which look like a Lamek and a peh, but it´s not a semitic script I know and I would say that it is written L-R and not R-L – look at the slant of the letters and the direction of the weight of the pen in the cross strokes. So I don´t think semitic.
but something old from the papyrus it´s written on. It´s also not greek. Stumped. Something old that is not semitic or greek.
OK I looked. Latin? Well I supose it is ancient and non-semitic
It looks like a Greek papyrus probably 2000 years old.
Is it a fragment of a letter from Vindolanda by any chance? In which case it would be in Latin.
Complete guess but … how about sanskrit?
No, wait …. Norse?
theres a letter in the second line that looks like a hebrew lamed.
It may be an ancient middle eastern script.
I say Latin- I’ve seen something like this before somehow associated with the Romans, but I can’t remember how.
I doubt that it was Hindi. That looks more like papyrus that it’s written on, and so should be a Mediterranean language.
Yeah, definitely papyrus.
Aramaic.
d.m.f.
The writing is cursive Latin handwriting. It comes from Caesarea in Mauretania and dates back to the 2nd Century AD. The text is an acknowledgement of debt.
Source: http://www.lib.umich.edu/pap/exhibits/writing/latin_cursive.html
Latin in Roman cursive, a nightmare for any palaeography student 😉
It looks semitic: I can see letters which look like a Lamek and a peh, but it´s not a semitic script I know and I would say that it is written L-R and not R-L – look at the slant of the letters and the direction of the weight of the pen in the cross strokes. So I don´t think semitic.
but something old from the papyrus it´s written on. It´s also not greek. Stumped. Something old that is not semitic or greek.
OK I looked. Latin? Well I supose it is ancient and non-semitic
James