Re: Rongorongo Link

[Jacques Guy <jguy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

sjm wrote:
 
> On Fri, Sep 15, 2000 at 01:38:20AM +0400, Roman A. Surma wrote:

> > http://www.openweb.ru/rongo/index.htm
 
> My God! You've posted ideal Jacques Guy bait!

And I bite!

> This must be a subtle
> ploy to get him more involved on the Voynich list.

I am right out of ideas, just the occasional silly
joke. The more I think about it, the more I fathom
the depths of my ignorance: how can you tell a
meaningful text, short of obvious nonsense (e.g.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaa...)? I don't know.

 
> I've not looked at Rongorongo script in ages, so I'll refrain from
> commenting on the link itself. 

I am well acquainted with  the author's theories, as
I helped him get published by the Journal of the
Polynesian Society some 15 years ago. His budding
theories made some sense back then, but since, he
has gone off the track, completely. What particularly
annoys me is that he insists on using a completely
idiosyncratic transcription system instead of 
Thomas Barthel's, which is used by everybody. He
has no excuse because I sent him photocopies of
Barthel's nomenclature of signs. Barthel's system
is explained there:

http://www.rongorongo.org/corpus/codes.html

It is as if someone was discussing the VMS using
his own transliteration system and steadfastly
refused to use *any* of the existing ones!
And had decided that (EVA) ee = a = y and therefore
systematically confused all three as "5". And worse...