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The Volkswagen Foundation is funding a project to analyse an unknown Central American writing system and attempt to assign it to a language / Approximately one million euros in funding over three years
A research project at the University of Cologne has been successful as part of the Volkswagen Foundation’s “Pioneering Research - Exploring the Unknown Unknown” funding programme. The research project “Exploring an unknown language in an unknown writing system: The Isthmus script” will receive up to almost one million euros in total funding over three years. The project is headed by Dr Svenja Bonmann, Akademische Rätin (lecturer) at the Department of Linguistics, Section of Historical-Comparative Linguistics at the University of Cologne’s Faculty of Arts and Humanities.
“After Dr Bonmann and her colleagues have successfully deciphered the previously unknown Kushan script from Central Asia, it is great news that she has now received a funding commitment from the Volkswagen Foundation to attempt to decipher another script. I congratulate her on this success,” says Professor Dr Joybrato Mukherjee, Rector of the University of Cologne.
The Isthmus script is one of the oldest Central American writing systems known to date, and was in use between 400 BC and 600 AD. It has still not been deciphered and it remains controversial whether this is even possible. The project will analyse three indigenous Central American language groups: Mixe-Zoque, Otomanguean and Huastec. The hypothesis is that an earlier version of one of these three language groups is expressed by the Isthmus script. In the research project, these three languages will be systematically analysed, both phonologically and morphologically, using the methodology of historical-comparative linguistics in order to be able to compare reconstructed language material from the three indigenous language groups with sequences in the Isthmus script and thus test the working hypothesis. In the course of the project, the team will therefore carry out research work on the historical phonology and morphology of Mixe-Zoque, Otomanguean and Huastec, and analyse Isthmus inscriptions.
“The particular difficulty of the research project is that the number of inscriptions containing the Isthmus script is very small. In addition, no bilingual inscriptions have been found that might help with the decipherment. The risk that the writing system cannot be deciphered is high,” says Dr Bonmann. Overall, there has not yet been any historical-comparative linguistic work on these three indigenous Central American language groups that is replicable, objective and falsifiable. Dr Bonmann’s research project is therefore considered a pioneering project.
The Volkswagen Foundation’s "Pioneering Research - Exploring the Unknown Unknown” initiative funds radically explorative research projects that break new scientific ground and are highly relevant for basic research. The funded initiatives have considerable potential for fundamental academic breakthroughs, but also harbour an increased risk of failure.
Dr Svenja Bonmann
Institute of Linguistics, University of Cologne
+49 221 470 4112
svenja.bonmann@uni-koeln.de
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