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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
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."
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.
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."