# At this corpus size no statistic can decide the question; only external evidence can.

> No evidence yet: At this corpus size no statistic can decide the question; only external evidence can.

Source: https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/pictish-symbols/answers/ANS0CQHAMPM6CKX/at-this-corpus-size-no-statistic-can-decide-the-question  
Publisher: Mysteries Department  
Licence: CC BY 4.0 (credit Mysteries Department and link the page)  

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[Questions](https://mysteriesdept.com/questions)[Pictish symbol stones](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/pictish-symbols)[Can corpus statistics tell whether a small symbol corpus like the Pictish one is language?](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/pictish-symbols/questions/QST0CQHAGA07V40/can-corpus-statistics-tell-whether-a-small-symbol-corpus)Answer

Answer · Pictish symbol stones

# At this corpus size no statistic can decide the question; only external evidence can.

At this corpus size no statistic can decide the question; only external evidence can.

**No evidence yet** Answers **1** questionDeduced0

## Where it stands

**No evidence yet** Its tests haven't settled it: no evidence yet.

## What it predicts

- Bootstrapped confidence intervals for any discriminating measure span both classes at Pictish corpus size.

## What would rule it out

- A measure separates the classes with narrow intervals at corpus sizes below a thousand symbols.

## The questions it answers

[Can corpus statistics tell whether a small symbol corpus like the Pictish one is language?](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/pictish-symbols/questions/QST0CQHAGA07V40/can-corpus-statistics-tell-whether-a-small-symbol-corpus)

Part of [Are the Pictish symbols a writing system?](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/pictish-symbols/questions/QST0CQHAG263DNY/are-the-pictish-symbols-a-writing-system)

Most likelyThe published measures do not reliably separate writing from non-linguistic systems; better measures exist…

## Cite it

```
Mysteries Department. (2026). At this corpus size no statistic can decide the question; only external evidence can. [Answer ANS0CQHAMPM6CKX]. https://mysteriesdept.com/r/ANS0CQHAMPM6CKX
```

Key

**ANS** 0CQHAMPM6CKX

Kind

Answer · hypothesis

Origin

Deduced

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1

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