Garshuni is a lock

Claim (verbatim)

Garshuni is a lock. This connects script choice with information control in a shared-language world. Garshuni, Arabic language in Syriac script, is usually explained as scribal habit or identity display. The conjecture: it also functioned as a soft access-control layer, keeping community texts in the common spoken language unreadable to the majority scribal culture, and the communities knew it. If the lock worked, circulation should be measurably sealed: ownership and reader notes in Garshuni books should be almost exclusively intra-communal across centuries, while Christian Arabic books in Arabic script, carrying the same kinds of content, leak across communal lines at detectable rates through sale, pawn, and curiosity.

Prediction clause (verbatim)

In catalogued Garshuni manuscripts, the share of legible ownership and reader notes carrying extra-communal markers (Muslim or Jewish name formulas) is at most 5%, while Arabic-script Christian manuscripts from the same regions and centuries show an extra-communal note share of at least 10%. Primary clause: the Garshuni extra-communal share at or below 5%; the verdict follows it. Secondary: the at-least-5-point gap between the two script groups.

Kill-dataset (verbatim)

Kill: the Mingana Collection catalogues (Birmingham) and vHMML's Garshuni records, both of which transcribe ownership and reader notes.

Novelty / leakage triage

provisional — model-triaged, shepherd review pending

A provisional first pass authored by the model (Opus), not yet confirmed by the shepherd. It carries the same dated-search requirements as an authoritative verdict but is excluded from every headline figure and cannot underwrite a prediction until a shepherd confirms it. Provisional reading: Leaked (already exists in the literature).

The item's surprising connection -- that Garshuni (Arabic language in Syriac script) functioned as a soft access-control layer, keeping community texts unreadable to the surrounding Arabic-script majority -- is already asserted in the Garshuni literature: it is described as offering 'a measure of privacy in communication against outside intrusion' and as serving 'to conceal Christian books from infidels' eyes' (alongside the identity-assertion function Mengozzi emphasizes). The verdict follows the item's primary clause (sealed, intra-communal circulation), and that clause restates a published functional claim. Only the specific paratext measurement -- Garshuni ownership/reader notes carrying extra-communal markers at <=5% vs >=10% for Arabic-script Christian manuscripts -- is unrun.

• Garshuni scholarship on the concealment/privacy function (with Mengozzi on the identity function) — Garshuni offering privacy 'against outside intrusion' / concealing texts from outsiders -- the access-control connection, published
• Mingana Collection catalogues (Birmingham) and vHMML Garshuni records (transcribed ownership/reader notes) — The kill dataset for the (unrun) extra-communal note-share comparison

Predictions

No prediction registered yet.