Space and Astronomy Atlas
Things this atlas does not know. Each entry is a question that specialists
have posed and not settled, recorded with what would actually resolve it and which
expertise the answer needs.
These are kept deliberately, rather than quietly omitted. An atlas that shows
only what it is sure of implies a confidence it has not earned, and the gaps are often where
the interesting work is. Several sit exactly where two fields fail to meet: identifying the
hyssop of the Hebrew Bible needs a botanist and a philologist of Biblical Hebrew, and neither
one settles it alone.
Grouped by the field an answer needs. A question sitting between two disciplines appears under both, which is why the group counts add up to more than the number of questions.
Not Yet Classified 9
Linear A
What language does Linear A encode?
Open Linear A
Why It Is Open Linear A has never been deciphered. Roughly seventy percent of its signs reappear in Linear B with known phonetic values, but Linear A itself used those same signs for a different, unidentified language, conventionally called Minoan, which cannot be confidently linked to any known language family.
What Would Settle It A substantial bilingual inscription pairing Linear A with a known deciphered script or language, or a breakthrough matching its sign values to a specific language family with broad scholarly acceptance, neither of which exists today.
Expertise Needed Aegean philology and historical linguistics
Question posed in
Aeon Essays: Without a Rosetta Stone, can linguists decipher Minoan script?.
Rongorongo
Is rongorongo a true writing system, and what does it record?
Open Rongorongo
Why It Is Open Rongorongo remains formally undeciphered. Scholars are divided over whether its roughly six hundred glyph shapes record language directly, in a logo-syllabic system, or serve as a mnemonic aid for memorized chants and genealogies rather than full writing. Steven Roger Fischer claimed a partial decipherment of one tablet in the 1990s, but Jacques Guy and Igor Pozdniakov later showed the pattern he relied on is a generic feature of the script and of Polynesian chant structure generally, not evidence specific to his reading, and the field has not accepted his claim.
What Would Settle It A reproducible decipherment method validated independently by multiple specialists, or the discovery of a bilingual text pairing rongorongo with a known language, neither of which exists today.
Expertise Needed Polynesian linguistics and epigraphy
Question posed in
Spoken Past: Rongorongo, Easter Island's Undeciphered Script.
Joseph Greenberg
Is Joseph Greenberg's Amerind grouping of the indigenous languages of the Americas a valid genetic family?
Open Joseph Greenberg
Why It Is Open Greenberg's 1987 book Language in the Americas proposed that nearly all indigenous languages of the Americas outside Eskimo-Aleut and Na-Dene form one Amerind family, using his mass comparison method. Most historical linguists reject mass comparison as a method for establishing genetic relationships, and reviewers found extensive inaccuracies in the supporting data, so the proposal has generated lively debate but is rejected by most specialists.
What Would Settle It Rigorous application of the standard comparative method, with reconstructed sound correspondences and paradigmatic morphology, to each of the many individual language families Amerind proposes to unite, verified independently of Greenberg's own cognate sets.
Expertise Needed Historical and comparative linguistics
Question posed in
Wikipedia: Joseph Greenberg, Americas section; Mass comparison section.
Na-Dene
Does Haida belong within the Na-Dene family, or is it an unrelated language isolate?
Open Na-Dene
Why It Is Open Haida was formerly grouped with Na-Dene, but linguists such as Lyle Campbell consider the comparative evidence for that link inconclusive and classify Haida as a language isolate instead. A separate, still-debated hypothesis (Dene-Yeniseian) proposes linking Na-Dene itself to the Yeniseian languages of Siberia, the only living member of which is Ket.
What Would Settle It A body of regular sound correspondences and shared basic morphology between Haida and the Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit core of Na-Dene, of the kind the comparative method requires, rather than the more impressionistic lexical resemblances the original grouping rested on.
Expertise Needed Historical and comparative linguistics
Question posed in
Wikipedia: Na-Dene Languages, External Classification section.
Altaic
How many speakers do the languages grouped under the proposed Altaic family actually total?
Open Altaic
Why It Is Open Altaic (Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic, sometimes joined with Korean and Japonic in the broader Macro-Altaic proposal) is a disputed grouping most linguists reject as a genuine genetic family rather than the product of contact and chance resemblance. Tertiary sources report language counts for the proposal (about 66 to 74 living languages) but no combined speaker total, likely because giving one would imply endorsing the grouping as a real family.
What Would Settle It Either broad scholarly acceptance of Altaic as a genetic family, which would make a combined total meaningful to publish, or a tertiary source willing to report a purely geographic or areal total across the proposed member languages without asserting genetic unity.
Expertise Needed Historical and areal linguistics (Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic studies)
Question posed in
Wikipedia: Altaic Languages.
Iroquoian
How many speakers do the Iroquoian languages total today?
Open Iroquoian
Why It Is Open Sources describe almost every surviving Iroquoian language as severely or critically endangered, some down to a handful of elderly speakers, and give figures for individual languages (Mohawk, Cherokee) without ever totalling the family, likely because the count changes quickly and no body tracks it in aggregate.
What Would Settle It A coordinated census or revitalization-program report aggregating fluent-speaker counts across all living Iroquoian languages at a single point in time, which does not currently exist.
Expertise Needed North American indigenous linguistics and language revitalization studies
Question posed in
Wikipedia: Iroquoian Languages.
Na-Dene
How many speakers do the Na-Dene languages total today?
Open Na-Dene
Why It Is Open Sources report that Navajo, by far the most widely spoken Na-Dene language, dominates the family numerically, but none of the tertiary sources consulted totals Navajo together with the family remaining, more endangered members into a single Na-Dene figure.
What Would Settle It A single aggregating source (a census bureau report or linguistic survey) that sums Navajo speakers with those of every other living Na-Dene language.
Expertise Needed North American indigenous linguistics
Question posed in
Wikipedia: Na-Dene Languages.
Pama-Nyungan
How many speakers do the Pama-Nyungan languages total today?
Open Pama-Nyungan
Why It Is Open Sources describe most Pama-Nyungan languages as spoken by small ethnic groups of a few hundred speakers or fewer, with almost all remaining ones endangered, but no tertiary source consulted sums these many small communities into a single family-wide total.
What Would Settle It An Australian government or AIATSIS-level survey aggregating speaker counts across every living Pama-Nyungan language at one point in time.
Expertise Needed Australian Aboriginal linguistics
Question posed in
Wikipedia: Pama-Nyungan Languages.
Panini
When Was Panini Born?
Open Panini
Why It Is Open No surviving biographical record fixes Panini's lifetime. Estimates rest on internal evidence within the Ashtadhyayi itself, such as which earlier grammarians it cites and is cited by, and on references to Panini in later Sanskrit grammatical and historical works, none of which converge on a single date.
What Would Settle It A securely datable primary source naming Panini or precisely placing the Ashtadhyayi within the sequence of ancient Indian grammatical works would narrow the range; short of new textual or archaeological evidence, the centuries-wide estimate is unlikely to close further.
Expertise Needed Indology and the philology of ancient Sanskrit grammatical literature
Question posed in
Ashtadhyayi, Panini.