Name the language

Here is text in a mystery language. Can you work out which language and alphabet it’s written in?

Mystery image

This text was sent in by Andrew A. Clark.

If you have any texts in obscure scripts or languages that could be used for my language quiz, please send them to the usual address.

This entry was posted in Language, Quiz questions.

13 Responses to Name the language

  1. Podolsky says:

    It looks like the Tibetan headless or acephalous (dbu-med) script. Anyway it obviously belongs to the Indic scripts.

  2. AR says:

    It may be Tibetan, but it also could be another Nagari script, such as Devanagari or Bengali. I think it may be Bengali or a language written with the Bengali script such as Assamese or Bishnupriya Manipuri. The long i diatric looks like that of bengali. so does the heavy use of triangles and circles. There also is a lot of the bengali anusvara (one of two nasalization diatrics), if I am not mistaken.

  3. Ben L. says:

    A number of the symbols look like (actual) Arabic numerals. I don’t, however, detect much more resemblance to Arabic.

  4. BnB says:

    I have no clue (definitely not Arabic), but it is exceedingly elegant. Someone has gorgeous penmanship.

  5. Osman says:

    I don’t know but it looks like Armenian or Georgian, not sure though.
    But it is not Turkish, for sure 🙂

  6. DMH says:

    Avestani, maybe? Looks like something I downloaded that was for learning Avestani from Persian…

  7. Ben L. says:

    Perhaps a cross between Hebrew and the Voynich cipher?

  8. jdotjdot89 says:

    It’s without a doubt not Hebrew or Arabic or any language like that, because this script goes from left to right. You can tell by the loops at the end of the signature.

  9. Nikki says:

    My first thought was that it looked like a bit like mirrored Hebrew. I have absolutely no idea what it is, but it’s really pretty.

  10. TJ says:

    I would agree with Podolsky … looks like tibetan but headless ….. especially when you look at the sharp angles

  11. Mike says:

    I agree that it looks a lot like Tibetan, but it also strongly reminds me of Balinese.

  12. Simon says:

    The language is Tibetan, as quite a few of you have guessed correctly, and the script is gyuk yig (རྒྱུག་ཡིག) or the ‘flowing script’. The text is article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

  13. BnB says:

    I’m surprised that it’s left-to-right. While the loops could indicate that, the fact that it leans to the left so much made me think it was right to left… The loops could be made the other direction, but I suppose the tail-off in the width of the line at the end of the loops should have been a clue….

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