{"pk":28497,"title":"Efficient use of ambiguity in an early writing system:Evidence from Sumerian cuneiform","subtitle":null,"abstract":"Ambiguity has often been viewed as a hindrance to communi-cation. In contrast, Piantadosi et al. (2012) argued that ambi-guity may be useful in that it allows communication to be ef-ficient, and they found support for this argument in the spokenforms of modern English, Dutch, and German. The historicalorigins of this phenomenon cannot be probed in the case of spo-ken language, but they can for written language, as it leaves anenduring trace. Here, we explore ambiguity and efficiency inone of the earliest known written forms of language: Sumeriancuneiform. Sumerian cuneiform exhibits extensive ambiguity,and for that reason it has been considered to be poorly suited forcommunication. We find, however, that ambiguity in Sumeriancuneiform supports efficient communication, mirroring the ear-lier findings for spoken English, Dutch, and German. Thus, theearly stages of human writing exhibit evidence suggesting pres-sure for communicative efficiency.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"efficient communication; ambiguity; writing sys-tems; cuneiform; information theory"}],"section":"Papers with Oral Presentations","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/43t177m7","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Noah","middle_name":"","last_name":"Hermalin","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of California, Berkeley","department":""},{"first_name":"Terry","middle_name":"","last_name":"Regier","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of California, Berkeley","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2019-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/28497/galley/18368/download/"}]}