OT: Can anyone identify the language of this handwriting (Eph 6:10-12)?

Someone in a group that I'm part of on Facebook posted this image looking for help identifying what language it is. He gave me permission to share the photo.

It looks like a right-to-left language, but a couple of people on that group who know Arabic have said it doesn't seem like Arabic to them.

Lots of other suggestions floating around (Urdu, Amharic, Persian/Farsi, Aramaic, etc.) but nobody is definitively sure. I'm pretty certain it's not Hebrew.

Tes, do you recognize it as Amharic? Any Urdu, Persion, or Aramaic speakers, or other right-to-left languages, that could recognize this?

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Darrell Tan

It's beautiful. The letter forms are Arabic-based, but they are written less joined together than Arabic or Urdu. And there are few "diacritic"-type lines and dots. Doesn't look like Amharic. Yes, it looks like a right-to-left script. That's as much as I can tell.

Darrell Tan

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1026984#Comment_1026984

It looks most like the diwani style letter forms

Reuben Helmuth

It looks like a right-to-left language

Or more technically an R-L script. This is an important distinction since it highlights that absolutely any language could be written in Arabic script. This is exactly what we'll be doing later this year with the African language I'm working with. We're stabilizing the orthography in Roman script and then we'll convert to Arabic script (same language, of course). I'm wondering whether your photo is an example of what I'm describing, especially in light of the fact that the reference is written in English. Just speculation, of course!

Lane McKay

If you scan with Google Translate, it says Urdu.

Ahmama

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1026986#Comment_1026986

It looks most like the diwani style letter forms

It is definitely diwani (i.e. calligraphy). Letters match this font set:

https://blogfonts.com/diwani-letter.font

while that font I link says "arabic", I wouldn't take that as an accurate identification. whomever posted it there is probably under the false assumption that all such calligraphy is arabic, but it could just as easily be urdu or other languages in the same family.

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1027047#Comment_1027047

It is definitely diwani (i.e. calligraphy).

OK, that's helpful. But what language is it then?

Ahmama

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1027051#Comment_1027051

I'm still not sure. It's quite a puzzle. Why are they writing all the letters as standalone letters? Is there an arabic family language where people do that normally instead of joining them? That might be a clue.

For example, look at this section:

I can type each of those letters on my computer if I put spaces between them (after installing the font I listed before):

But typically you would not, you would join the letters:

similarly, in standard arabic font it would look like this, separate:

together:

Ahmama

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1027002#Comment_1027002

It looks like a right-to-left language

Or more technically an R-L script. This is an important distinction since it highlights that absolutely any language could be written in Arabic script. This is exactly what we'll be doing later this year with the African language I'm working with. We're stabilizing the orthography in Roman script and then we'll convert to Arabic script (same language, of course). I'm wondering whether your photo is an example of what I'm describing, especially in light of the fact that the reference is written in English. Just speculation, of course!

Reuben might be on to something. At this point I think chances are fairly high it's just a Caesar cipher, probably from English, not a "translation".

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1027064#Comment_1027064

It looks like a right-to-left language

Or more technically an R-L script. This is an important distinction since it highlights that absolutely any language could be written in Arabic script. This is exactly what we'll be doing later this year with the African language I'm working with. We're stabilizing the orthography in Roman script and then we'll convert to Arabic script (same language, of course). I'm wondering whether your photo is an example of what I'm describing, especially in light of the fact that the reference is written in English. Just speculation, of course!

Reuben might be on to something. At this point I think chances are fairly high it's just a Caesar cipher, probably from English, not a "translation".

That's a good thought. Given that the verse reference was written in English, it might just be someone who was a native English speaker who was practicing the script. I don't know the Arabic alphabet so I wouldn't be able to work it out.

Ahmama

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1027073#Comment_1027073

It is Urdu. Sorry, a lot of the complication came from my word processor which was not handling right-left scripts correctly. After I figured this out (and switched the orders of the letters before combining them into words), I was able to make sense of it in Urdu.

Here is the subheading so you can see for confirmation. (Note: I wrote the "~" characters as "ہ" but it's the same character, unicode 06C1)

Ahmama

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1027121#Comment_1027121

Sorry, I wrote Courier where I meant Diwani. Those are the individual letters of the subheading in your scan in the Diwani script, followed by Arabic equivalents and then the Urdu I posted into Google. Technically I did take one Urdu course nearly 20 years ago, but I know next to nothing.

Ahmama

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1027122#Comment_1027122

Also, I still have my doubts if any person would actually write like that. It would be like us writing P.U.T.O.N.T.H.E.F.U.L.L.A.R.M.O.R.O.F.G.O.D. Possibly someone is using the verse to practice calligraphy and only using the first forms (dictionary forms) of the letters.

Ahmama

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1027125#Comment_1027125

Correction: my word processor is not having trouble. Re-examing the text now that I solved the mystery, they are writing every word backwards. Seems quite possible whoever wrote this was using some sort of computer assistance. The header is more like T.U.P.N.O.E.H.T.L.L.U.F.R.O.M.R.A.F.O.D.O.G. No wonder it took so long to figure this out. Good riddance!

So in summary:

- it's Urdu

- the *SENTENCES* are written right to left, but the *LETTERS* within the words are written left to right

- only one letter form is used no matter where the letter occurs within the word, even though most letters in these languages have 3-4 forms depending on where they occur

- it's very unlikely anyone could look at this and read it easily, even native Urdu speakers

- fun puzzle

Veli Voipio

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1027126#Comment_1027126

- fun puzzle

Congratulations!

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1027126#Comment_1027126

So in summary:

- it's Urdu

- the *SENTENCES* are written right to left, but the *LETTERS* within the words are written left to right

- only one letter form is used no matter where the letter occurs within the word, even though most letters in these languages have 3-4 forms depending on where they occur

- it's very unlikely anyone could look at this and read it easily, even native Urdu speakers

- fun puzzle

Wow! Congrats on your sleuthing skills, and thanks for taking the time to figure it out. I'll report back to the Facebook group where I saw this puzzle posted.

Darrell Tan

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1027126#Comment_1027126

Brilliant!

David Thomas

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1027125#Comment_1027125

Also, I still have my doubts if any person would actually write like that. It would be like us writing P.U.T.O.N.T.H.E.F.U.L.L.A.R.M.O.R.O.F.G.O.D. Possibly someone is using the verse to practice calligraphy and only using the first forms (dictionary forms) of the letters.

This reminds me of a story my seminary Greek professor told about a person who transliterated the Greek alphabet over the English translation of John 3:16 and had the verse TATTOOed over his entire back.

οὕτως γὰρ ἠγάπησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν κόσμον, ὥστε τὸν υἱὸν ⸆ τὸν μονογενῆ ἔδωκεν, ἵνα πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων εἰς αὐτὸν μὴ ἀπόληται ἀλλʼ ἔχῃ ζωὴν αἰώνιον.

was permanently put on his skin as

φορ Γοδ σο λοςεδ τηε ωορλδ τηατ ηε γαςε ηισ ονλψ βεγοττεν σον…

And this young man was surprised that a Greek professor couldn't read the "verse" on his back [:D]

Ahmama

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1027436#Comment_1027436

This reminds me of a story my seminary Greek professor told about a person who transliterated the Greek alphabet over the English translation of John 3:16 and had the verse TATTOOed over his entire back.

οὕτως γὰρ ἠγάπησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν κόσμον, ὥστε τὸν υἱὸν ⸆ τὸν μονογενῆ ἔδωκεν, ἵνα πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων εἰς αὐτὸν μὴ ἀπόληται ἀλλʼ ἔχῃ ζωὴν αἰώνιον. was permanently put on his skin as φορ Γοδ σο λοςεδ τηε ωορλδ τηατ ηε γαςε ηισ ονλψ βεγοττεν σον… And this young man was surprised that a Greek professor couldn't read the "verse" on his back

Haha, yes, that's a good one. Being fluent in Japanese, it's really quite amazing some of the things people will permanently tattoo on themselves without understanding.

Dan Francis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1027444#Comment_1027444

Being fluent in Japanese, it's really quite amazing some of the things people will permanently tattoo on themselves without understanding.

Reminds me of the time on the Big Bang Theory Sheldon asks Penny why should has the world soup on her calf (don't remember the placement) and she says no no it's the word courage, to witch Sheldon responses I suppose it is courageous to show such devotion to soup to have it tattooed on yourself.

Caveat emptor, if you can't read it you may not get what you pay for. "I think i would love that adorable little chocolate ice cream on my arm" (I honestly did think that was what the "pooh" emoji was first time i saw it).

-dan

Veli Voipio

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1027531#Comment_1027531

I remember that the first word processors tended to mess up right-to-left texts in many creative ways.

Some early Greek texts were written so that alternative lines went left-to-right and right-to-left, but how was it with the words in the lines?

Also I've heard that while one mother was teaching her elder son to read the younger one also learnt, but because the younger one was looking at the book on the other side of the desk, he learnt to read upside down.

Mojtaba Belghadr

Hi, سلام.

Im Iranian and my native language is Persian. Yes, of course! It's a Right-to-Left script, and it is Persian! 🙂👍.

But

1_ it's just a kind of beautiful-writing in persian which we call it as Khosh-nevisi خوشنویسی . ( The name of the font was written here is Davat , in Microsoft Word Office software, I think ) .

2_ As you all know in our script, like Arabic, most of letters such as (س ،ی ،ب، ل، ت، م، گ، ...) Must stick to other letters to make a word , like ;

ک+ک+ر+ا+ن+م = کیکیرانم . But it have been written separately .

and after all, it's Just a random letters without making any word or sentences 😅

ک ی ک ی ر ا ن م , not a word, nonsense