The Languages Of Tyria: One left undiscovered!

[Konig Des Todes]

Perhaps a clue into how to translate this:

They were written in asuran script but used an archaic dialect popular before the subterranean asura had been forced to the surface more than 250 years earlier. It was a half-mathematical, half-structured sentence, and the syntax would make a human scribe take to the bottle.

The main reason, I think, that we haven't gotten anywhere is because we're thinking the entire thing works the same.

[Gmr Leon]

Thought you would catch that. What exactly would a half-mathematical, half-structured statement look like, anyway? Does it mean actual numbers 5, 0, 4 in symbol form or spelled out four, five, six, or does it mean partially acting as a logical statement, e.g. if one equals two, then one plus one equals four? Quite interesting, to say the least.

[Konig Des Todes]

Another way it could be done would be to use mathematical logical signs in replacement for letters/words/phrases.

Such as n instead of and and u instead of or.

[Harjubal od Uo]

I think it could even go further than that. Since asuran religion is basically a form of numerology, there could be all sorts of numerological associations with common concepts that, not being very familiar with asuran culture, would be completely opaque to us.

Four could be associated with death or fear, while seven could be associated with happiness or relief, for example. Twenty-two could be that feeling of satisfaction when you've completed a krewe's project.

So, "22-4=7" could mean a celebration for having successfully completed some new defensive weapon project and we'd be completely in the dark.

Edit: When I think about it, it could even be more complicated if, to be grammatically correct, you'd have to balance the equation. So instead of being able to just say 22-4=7, you'd have to add certain content-neutral operations which, nonetheless, have grammatical significance, like "(22-4)/grammatical2.6=7" or something even more impenetrable.

[Kalidri]

It's Asuran txt speak, that definitely makes this human scholar take to the bottle whenever she sees it :)

edit: The other thing is that I wonder if those repeating 'words' are simply the syntactical equivalent of "begin" and "end" and what is important and meaningful lies between them - much as a cartouche outlines an important name in Egyptian hieroglyphs.