QuestionsPictish symbol stonesCan corpus statistics tell whether a small symbol corpus like the Pictish one is language?Answer
Answer · Pictish symbol stones
A calibrated entropy decision tree can classify small symbol corpora by type, and it shows the Pictish…
A calibrated entropy decision tree can classify small symbol corpora by type, and it shows the Pictish symbols are writing.
Where it stands
DisputedOne piece of evidence for, none against. It needs two reviews to be accepted.
What it predicts
- The method classifies held-out known writing systems and non-linguistic systems correctly at Pictish corpus size.
What would rule it out
- The method misclassifies known non-linguistic systems as writing.
Evidence 1 for · none against
The questions it answers
Most likelyThe published measures do not reliably separate writing from non-linguistic systems; better measures exist…
Cite it
Mysteries Department. (2026). A calibrated entropy decision tree can classify small symbol corpora by type, and it shows the Pictish… [Answer ANS0CQHAKFJ689W]. https://mysteriesdept.com/r/ANS0CQHAKFJ689W
@misc{mysteriesdept_ans0cqhakfj689w,
title = {A calibrated entropy decision tree can classify small symbol corpora by type, and it shows the Pictish…},
author = {{Mysteries Department}},
year = {2026},
note = {Answer, catalog key ANS0CQHAKFJ689W},
url = {https://mysteriesdept.com/r/ANS0CQHAKFJ689W}
}