I am delighted to learn that our good friend, Kevin Graham, has taken on educting himself a bit about ciphers, and has advanced far enough in his studies to be able to tell the difference between cipher, encipher, and decipher. This is akin in math to learning the difference between a set and subsets, or in logic the difference between the whole and its parts.
Ah, the typical wade maneuvering where he disengages the discussion by turning his back to the person who was stupid enough to think he was genuine in his original approach, and then addresses some imaginary audience while he explains my education and knowledge in a condescending manner, all for the sole purpose of avoiding refutation of course. Notice there will be no engaging the refutations I provided. Typical Wade Englund.
This little bit of knowledge that he has gained has evidently emboldened him to proclaim: "To decipher, which basically means 'to make out the meaning of something' only pertains to ciphers when used within that context, but in the context of languages it is pretty much synonymous with 'translating.'"
"Little bit" of knowledge compared to...? You act like you're an expert on ciphers when all you did was rush to wikipedia as soon as you figured out that was what Will was going to be pushing for. Stop pretending you're an expert on ciphers wade, all you have demonstrated is an inability to be reasonable on this subject as you conflate ciphers and languages as it suits your apologetic. For you there can be no distinction.
I trust that as Kevin continues his studies, he will realize that ciphers are essentially languages
You insist ciphers and languages are synonymous illustrates precisely why you cannot be taken seriously.
and that in the context of ciphers, the term "decipher" is also synoymous with "translating". Had he read my paper linked to earlier, he would have already discovered this.
Your "paper" is probably just a word document you rambled through after mining wikipedia for a week, and it is only accessible to those with MADB usernames. And why would anyone think you know a damn thing about ciphers? You see only what is apologetically expedient for you.
As he also learns more about the Rosetta Stone, he will realize that the stone wasn't a translation key nor did it immediately provide a means for translation--certainly not in the sense that most languages are translated.
Irrelevant. Just another red herring to avoid dealing with refutation. You insisted that because I conceded the GAEL was used for translation, that this meant it could have only been used to translate the Book of Abraham! All this sidewho nonsense about an irrelevant Rosetta Stone is just your way of dealing with such refutations.
Rather, the stone made it possible for men to, after years of studying the stone, figure out the meaning of the heiroglyphs.
No crap Sherlock. How does this reveal a cipher key in the KEP?
The Egyptian lanuage that was used on the stone couldn't be translated (in the sense that Kevin is using the term) until after the characters had been deciphered or decoded.
And?
In short, the Rosetta Stone did have the context of a cipher.
The "context of a cipher"? What the hell does that mean? It was used to translate an ancient language, period. Your problem is that you see absolutely no distinction. For you, all ciphers are languages when you need them to be, and languages are ciphers when it is apologetically convenient.
In fact, as previously mentioned, the most common idiomatic use of the term "Rosetta Stone" is: to "represent a crucial key to the process of decryption of encoded information, especially when a small but representative sample is recognised as the clue to understanding a larger whole."
So what? I have already explained, four times no less, how I used the term. I'm hardly compelled to use it metaphorically just because others do.
Kevin was astute enough to realize that in order to decipher, there needs to be a cipher key.
And you're dumb enough to keep repeating established points as if you were the one who came up with them.
And, as it turns out, the Rosetta Stone provided just such a key--and this via the other two of three texts on the stone: "the upper one is in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle one in Egyptian demotic script, and the lower text in ancient Greek."(ibid).
Is this supposed to be news to us, or do you just like listening to yourself?
By comparing the two Egyptian text to the Greek, and using what little was known of the demotic, men were able to eventually decode the meaning of the heiroglyphs, and from that later create an alphabet and grammar that was then used to translate other Egyptian texts. Again, the Rosetta Stone was very much a cipher context.
But English is not a cipher, it is a language. Will's argument is that the KEP represents an attempt to encipher English translation into a cipher using graphemes from a hodgepodge of Egyptian/Arabic/Masonic symbols. There is no evidence for this and you still lack a cipher key.
Unfortunately, though, Kevin's cipher education only got so far as to inform him about the most simple and basic form of ciphers--i.e. the substitution cipher.
Which was enough to prove my point and make a fool out of you. You have established no "cipher key" from within the KEP. Nowhere does it exist. Nowhere.
And, in spite of his relative ignorance on the matter, he dogmatically exclaimed: "The KEP provides nothing that could reasonably be understood as a 'cipher key'....Moreover, Ciphers do not have an 'alphabet' let alone a 'grammar,' nor do they typically involve 'sounds.'"
It is based in fact, not ignorance. Your problem is that you refuse to understand the differences between ciphers and languages. This is typical of those who refused to be educated.
The hubris of this declaration is as unwarranted as it is mistaken. If Kevin would take a moment to read my paper (which I linked to earlier), he may discover that not only do I show how the KEP have characters in common with noted ciphers
We've already established that Masonic ciphers were used in the counting document, so what? What you haaven't shown is that they were intended to encipher anything.
but they also have the same form as certain ciphers (including alphabets and grammars), but they function like a cipher--including through the use of sounds.
Irrelevant, since you have failed to demonstrate how a cipher key exists within the KEP.
Now, regarding the sounds, it may prove instructive to recall that in the several years leading up to the production of the KEP, there were a few occasions when the "pure language" was SPOKEN
Because it was a language not a cipher! Your problem is that you see no distinction between the two.
, and even interpreted (deciphered). Could that have been the source for some of the KEP sounds? I don't know, but it is something to look into.
Well then you're crap out of luck because I doubt anyone has written an article on wikipedia for you yet.
Since you're so interested in google-type research, maybe you should pay special attention to what dictionaary.com has to say about the distinctions between a cipher and a language:
Cipher:
1. zero.
2. any of the arabic numerals or figures.
3. Arabic numerical notation collectively.
4. something of no value or importance.
5. a person of no influence; nonentity.
6. a secret method of writing, as by transposition or substitution of letters, specially formed symbols, or the like. Compare cryptography.
7. writing done by such a method; a coded message.
8. the key to a secret method of writing.
9. a combination of letters, as the initials of a name, in one design; monogram.
"Language" is conspicuously absent from the long list of valid definitions. That is because "Language" is something altogether different:
1. a body of words and the systems for their use common to a people who are of the same community or nation, the same geographical area, or the same cultural tradition: the two languages of Belgium; a Bantu language; the french language; the Yiddish language.
2. communication by voice in the distinctively human manner, using arbitrary sounds in conventional ways with conventional meanings; speech.
3. the system of linguistic signs or symbols considered in the abstract ( opposed to speech).
4. any set or system of such symbols as used in a more or less uniform fashion by a number of people, who are thus enabled to communicate intelligibly with one another.
5. any system of formalized symbols, signs, sounds, gestures, or the like used or conceived as a means of communicating thought, emotion, etc.: the language of mathematics; sign language.
6. the means of communication used by animals: the language of birds.
7. communication of meaning in any way; medium that is expressive, significant, etc.: the language of flowers; the language of art.
8. linguistics; the study of language.
9. the speech or phraseology peculiar to a class, profession, etc.; lexis; jargon.
10. a particular manner of verbal expression: flowery language.
11. choice of words or style of writing; diction: the language of poetry.
12. Computers . a set of characters and symbols and syntactic rules for their combination and use, by means of which a computer can be given directions: The language of many commercial application programs is COBOL.
13. a nation or people considered in terms of their speech.
14. Archaic . faculty or power of speech.