Editing Decipherment (section)

== Challenges ==
Many challenges exist in the decipherment of languages, including when:<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" />

* When it is not known which language is closest to it.
* When the words in the script are not clearly segmented, like in some [[Iberian language]]s.
* When the writing system is not known. In specific, if there is little certainty towards the number of graphemes that exist in a certain writing system, it cannot be determined if that system is an alphabet, a syllabry, a logosyllabry, or something else.
* When the reading direction is not known. For example, it may not be clear if a writing system is meant to be read from left to right, or from right to left.
* When it is not known if a script uses punctuation or spaces between words.
* When the language of a script subject to decipherment efforts is not known.
* When there is a small dataset available to learn about the properties of a script. This could lead to issues such as an incomplete vocabulary being known for the script.
* When the typical order between subjects, objects, and verbs is not known.
* When it is not known whether or how certain words can change their form.
* When it is not known when multiple symbols are used to represent the same sound, syllable, word, concept, or idea (allographs).
* When it is not clear how the penmanship or the style of writing of a particular scribe relates to the style of writing of another scribe working in the same text (the same letters or words might be written in a way that looks different), in which case it is difficult to correlate information across multiple examples of the use of the writing system.
* When it is not known if certain words change their meaning depending on the context they appear in (homonyms).
* When the context of discovery of a writing is not known. This is because information about the location out of which a writing system came from can provide valuable information about its relationship to known languages.
* When adequate digital datasets for documented writing systems is not available, limiting the ability to use computational methods for decipherment.
* When sufficient hardware resources, such as [[High-performance computing|high performance computing]], is not available (which might be necessary for more energy-intensive computational methods).