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Vikings' Secret Code Cracked
sciencehabit writes "What may look like mere scratches is much more. A 900-year-old Viking code known as jötunvillur has been cracked. The code-cracker, runologist Jonas Nordby from the University of Oslo, deciphered the system after realizing he needed to replace the original runic character with the last sound used to pronounce it. For instance, the runic character 'k' is pronounced 'kaun,' so k becomes n. Nordby believes secret messages were created by the Vikings for entertainment. One piece of wood reads: 'Kiss me.'"
The real story is at http://www.thisiscolossal.com/...
Ok, dove through the reference-pit and found this as the apparent root story.
Please, either mod this up or edit the Slashsummary to actually link to a useful article in the chain.
Yeah so that big far bikini it soars!
(Missed first post by this much!)
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
"...other translated inscriptions turned out to be playful taunts at the person doing the decoding."
Remember to drink your ovaltine!
No, this longer piece http://www.forskning.no/artikler/2014/januar/379474 in Norwegian seems to be the source (by Ida Kvittingen). Oddly the photo credit links there.
"Eat me, I'm Danish."
Damn.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
I don't think that vikings needed the fourth step.
well, Bender did travel through time.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
That's actually an interesting idea.
Think of a series of 26 words, each starting with a different letter of the alphabet, and ending with a different letter of the alphabet. The NATO phonetic alphabet, for example, has alpha and delta, which both end with 'a', but you could modify that alphabet so every word ends with a different letter.
That would be an interesting exercise for the cunning linguist...
Interesting, but a very simple substitution cipher of which there are many.
Most substitution ciphers can be cracked by simple frequency analysis.
Note that the statistical frequency of particular letters is language specific, so you have to know the source language.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
you know how everyone comes to slashdot for the comments? Well, you also know what's killing slashdot faster than dice? The fucking "fuck beta" crowd ruining every comment thread. You guys are making the comments section even worse because instead of it just being a crappier system, now the content is 50% about how bad beta is.
Rock me I'm-a-danish.
eir eru að tala um rúnir en myndin er bara rispur á spýtu. Hvernig ýðir maður rispur á rúnir?
He's the sort of person who would sell the Red Cross to Dracula.
Let's do this for Japanese!
a - a, ka - a, sa - a, ta - a, na - a, ha - a, ma - a, ya - a, ra - a, wa - a
i - i, ki - i, shi - i, chi - i, ni - i, hi - i, mi - i, ri - i, etc...
n -> n
Decipher these words/phrases:
oaouoaiau
aiaouoaiau
oniia
aaaai
"My wife Aud left me and changed her name to Anyanka, wtf. Me sleeping wih other village wenches never bother her before. This whole village has changed, people are funky and dying. Encoding because not safe, my blacksmith hammers have ears."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Because:
Åruz -> algiz
thurisaz -> algiz
ansuz -> algiz
hagalaz -> algiz
naudiz -> algiz
iwaz -> algiz
algiz -> algiz
tiwaz -> algiz
ehwaz -> algiz
mannaz -> algiz
laguz -> algiz
ingwaz -> algiz
dagaz -> algiz
So their coded documents would have looked like
zzjgu zzzzknzz uzbzz uzzzzzzb zznzzrzzz jzzzzzrzzuzzzrfz zuiz zdzzzzf gzz zzzzzz zzzzzzzzzz zzz
"He must have fell asleep while carving it."
"Well, if he fell asleep, he wouldn't have bothered carving ZZZ, he would have just said it."
"Perhaps he was dictating."
Ah, they were using younger futhark, so that's why all the R's:
ur -> reidh
naudhr -> reidh
ar -> reidh
madhr -> reidh
yr -> reidh