Talk:Ndakunimba Stones

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Unreliable pseudoscience/fringe sources?[edit]

Some Israelis claim that a symbol that looks like the Hebrew "Y" proves that the whole inscription is Egyptian Hebrew and "Y" stands for "Yahweh". This looks like nationalistic fringe pseudoscience to me. How could there possibly be a direct connection between ancient Egypt or ancient Hebrews and ancient Fiji? Decoding one foreign letter as an entire word in a language with no history in the area is terrible, unscientific methodology. Did these Israeli "scientists" publish this in a peer-reviewed journal? The only source for their extraordinary claim is a newspaper clipping.

I would like to add a template to the statement about the text being Hebrew, but I haven't found a template that fits. I'm not saying the newspaper is an unreliable source. I can believe some people made such a claim. But it's an extraordinary, bizarre claim and I do not think it merits an entire paragraph, until their decipherment is published in a peer-reviewed source. I think it's enough to say, "Some Israelis looked at the stone and claimed it was in Hebrew". 2601:441:4400:1740:3177:7AD6:4BF8:3864 (talk) 03:50, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Searching Google I found no peer-reviewed publication about this supposed decipherment, in fact the only source at all is the 2017 newspaper. The only websites referencing that newspaper are 1. Wikipedia, 2. another Wiki copying from/copied by Wikipedia, and 3. this paper which does not appear to be the work of a linguist: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/355022838%20The%20Distorted%20Delusion%20A%20study%20on%20the%20perversion%20of%20iTaukei%20identity%20Revised%20version. 2601:441:4400:1740:3177:7AD6:4BF8:3864 (talk) 20:28, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that none of these are reliable sources. It appears that two editors at RSN feel the same. I've removed the claims. Woodroar (talk) 03:13, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've restored it in the pruned down version suggested, along with a disproved claim. --WizWheatly (ftaghn) 16:10, 1 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]