Fwd: Indus script decipherment paradigm -- Michael Korvink

[Guest guest]

---------- Forwarded message ----------S. Kalyanaraman <kalyan97Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 4:48 PM

Fwd: Indus script decipherment paradigm -- Michael Korvinkkishore patnaik <kishorepatnaik09

 

 

 

---------- Forwarded message ----------S. Kalyanaraman <kalyan97

Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 11:32 AMIndus script decipherment paradigm -- Michael Korvink

Indus script decipherment paradigm – Michael Korvink

 

I have created a webpage outlining insightful contributions of Prof. Michael Korvink, on a decipherment paradigm.

The link is:

http://sites.google.com/site/kalyan97/a-new-decipherment-paradigm

Michael Korvink, whose theses are outlined below, suggests the search for loan words of Munda and Language X to decipher segmented 'texts' of Indus script inscriptions.

 

Limitations of Korvink's approach:

1. The focus is ONLY on 'signs'. The 'pictorial motifs' are totally ignored citing them to be 'narrative' contexts. This is to be juxtaposed to the fact that just as the 'rim of jar' glyph occurs frequently, the 'one-horned heifer' also occurs frequently. What is the narrative in the 'one-horned heifer'? Does the narrative have an underlying speech which the heifer (composite glyph with one horn and pannier) embodies?

2. The assumption is that a 'sign' has to be syllabic. One possibility is ignored: that both 'signs' and 'pictorial motifs' are glyphs and could be hieroglyphs. It is inconceivable that pictographs such as a tiger, elephant, rhinoceros, alligator, man-perched on a tree branch, a person seated in a posture of meditation, a woman ligatured to a tiger, bull, zebu, buffalo could have been used without recognizing them in as relatable to words of an underlying language. It is clear that over 100 such pictorial motifs apart from about 400 signs which are normalized pictorial motifs (such as rim of jar, wide-mouthed rimless pot, fish, slice, numeral strokes, antelope looking back, tiger looking back, horned-person ligatured to the hindpart of a bull or bovine) embodied speech. There are also composite or ligatured signs. A water-carrier glyph gets normalized as a 'sign'. Swastika is used both as a pictorial motif and as a 'sign' sandwiched between an elephant and a tiger. Thus, the distinction drawn in corcordances, between 'signs' and 'pictorial motifs' both of which are glyphs is arbitrary.

 

Comment: Subject to these two major limitations in the reasoned analyses provided by Korvink. it should be possible to identify 'loan words' of both Munda and Language X and read them rebus into the hieroglyphs of Sarasvati civilization (so-called Indus script).

 

 

The script is simply neither syllabic nor alphabetic but hieroglyphic and both 'signs' and 'pictorial motifs' are such glyphs read rebus as hieroglyphs.

This rebus reading has been attempted on this web portal and the 15 ebooks presented (see links appended) -- in the context of one FUNCTION served by the hieroglyphs: the repertoire of khanaka (miners) and karmaara (smiths) -- both words repeated in the glyphs. The rim of a jar in Santali is: kanda kan-ka; rebus: kanda 'fire-altar'; khanaka 'miner'; that is, miner's fire-altar (or smelter) possession. A tiger looking back in Telugu is kol krammara; rebus: kol 'tiger'; 'pancaloha (alloy of five metals)'; karmaara 'smith'; that is, smith alloy of five metals.

Thus, if both signs and pictorial motifs are read as glyphs, they can be seen to embody, as hieroglyphs, the language, Mleccha (Meluhha). Evidence for the language Meluhha and the script Mlecchita vikalpa exists in later-day texts. The glyphs continue to be used in mints while punching devices on punch-marked coins of many janapadas, 5 to 6 centuries Before the Common Era

Dr. S. Kalyanaraman kalyan97 29 December 2008

The Indus Script: A Positional-statistical Approach

By Michael Korvink

2007, Gilund Press, ISBN 0615182399, ISBN-13: 9780615182391, 96 pp.

Since the discovery of the Indus Civilization, the meaning of the enigmatic Indus script remains hidden in its four hundred characters. While many would-be-decipherers have attempted to unravel its meaning with the aid of a presumed underlying language, none of these attempts has proven successful. In response, the approach taken in this work does not preclude an underlying language, but offers an alternate approach where the positional patterns of the Indus signs are investigated in an attempt to segment the character strings.

Conclusion: " Since the discovery of the Indus Civilization, the meaning of enigmatic Indus script remains hidden its four hundred characters. While many would-be-decipherers have attempted to unravel its meaning with the aid of a presumed underlying language, none of these attempts have proven successful. In response, the approach taken in this work does not presume an underlying language, but offers an alternate approach where the positional patterns of the Indus signs are investigated. Consequently, the search for meaning is deferred until a later time. Though the search for meaning is suspended at this point, the use of positional-statistical patterns to segment texts serves as a necessary preliminary step in the search for meaning. Once rough segmentation is achieved, one may begin to speculate on the meaning of the characters by comparing early loanwords of Indian texts to the units segmented from positional-statistical analysis. It is not likely that the continued segmenting of texts and investigating of early Indian loanwords will lead to a full decipherment. However, it does offer us a legitimate method for speculating on the meaning of the Indus inscriptions. "

http://www.flipkart.com/indus-script-michael-korvink-positional/0615182399-11w3fl1cdd#previewbook

" The Indus Script: A New Decipherment Paradigm. " SAGAR: A South Asia Graduate Research Journal Volume 12 (2004). http://www.scribd.com/doc/9571765/deciphermentparadigm

The Indus Script: A Statistical-Positional Approach

There is a great difficulty for the researcher of Indus inscriptions as our understanding of the nature of the Indus inscriptions changes. One finds themselves trying to separate, in researching previous decipherment attempts, the observations from the inference of those observations. Often the observation and inference of the observation are so tightly intertwined that one must start from scratch in their own research. For example, Mahadevan and Parpola have well researched the positional-statistical patterns in the script. Yet, much of their articles intertwine linguistic terminology with positionalstatistical terminology (e.g. gender or nominative case suffixes). It is the hard data of decipherment attempts, such as the patterns in placement of various signs that, remain current, while the conclusions of that data may become outdated. Therefore, rather than a coterminous pursuit of meaning and structure, where one is often tempted to force the linguistic structure onto the script, the structure alone must be analyzed. It is only then that one may us other a priori methods in search for meaning. Therefore, in response to this dilemma, this presentation . . .

Presented at the 32nd Annual Conference on South Asia at Wisconsin, October 2003

http://southasiaconference.wisc.edu/pdf/Abstracts03.pdf

Conclusion: " Although it is somewhat discouraging that the use of pictographic transparency and the inherent speculation in using it, is inescapable, a much greater impediment in Indus script studies is the dependence on the Dravidian Hypothesis – a hypothesis recently encountering serious criticism…Recent studies however show that in the earliest substrata of the Rg Veda, books 2 and 7, show no Dravidian influence but rather a Munda influence…In addition, J. Elfinbein has discovered phonological differences between Brahui and the Dravidian languages of the South, further corroborating that Brahui was a language of a second post-Harappan wave of Dravidians from outside of India (Elfinbein 1987, 215-233). Evidence from non-linguistic research presents more problems. The argument that the Dravidians were the Harappans fails to explain the total absence of similar archaeological material between the Indus valley and South India where one finds the Dravidian languages…Therefore, with the aforementioned linguistic studies and lak of archaeological finds, one can conclude that insufficient evidence is available at this time to continue to advocate the Dravidian argument as it is presented today. The understanding that Dravidian is not likely to be an underlying language in the Indus civilization has serious implications in the study of the Indus script…If we abandon the Dravidian hypothesis, the approaches of Parpola, Mahadevan, and Fairservis have no meaningful application to the Indus characters (i.e. there is no language proven appropriate of having these methods applied). Therefore, the methods for approaching the script must be updated. An analogous situation can be seen in the decipherment of Luwian Hieroglyphs. A.H. Sayce suggested that the glyphs were the product of the Hittites, but had no successful reading over his twenty years of research (Daniels 2000,89). Significant progress was not made until I.J. Gelb released a cold study of the glyphs in the form of three pamphlets analyzing the structure and segmentation of the texts (Daniels 2000,89). With thirty years of unsuccessful readings with the Dravidian methods, a new, less speculative approach is in order. As with Gelb, a study is necessary in the Indus inscriptions that is based on structural analysis and the positional frequency of various signs, not on a Dravidian presupposition. An examination of I.J. Gelb's well-known grid of undeciphered scripts will prove helpful (Gelb 1973, 268)…Until further evidence is revealed as to what language the Indus people spoke – not to say that the Indus script 'encoded speech' – a Class III script, where both the language and the script are unknown, is a much more viable classification and is likely to produce less speculative results. (While the Indus script does not likely represent language, isolated units may be compared to words of later Indian texts)…For example, a drawing of a peepal leaf simply denotes a 'peepal leaf'. One can then turn to later Indian textual sources to which this sign can be compared. It is at this point that the question can be asked: what is the most plausible language spoken in the Indus region at this time? Before this however, a word of caution is in order. One need not assume an underlying language in the Indus inscriptions in order to attempt to find comparison between the pictography in Indus inscriptions and words from other languages. Isolated words in Sumerian accounting tables could very well be compared to Sumerian tablets with a narrative function. Similarly, one can confidently compare words in a narrative context with the isolated units from the Indus. With the vastness of Indus civilization, it is not inconceivable that many of their words have survived through later Indian texts. Therefore one hopes that these loan words may have some overlap with the segmented Indus inscriptions. A possible source in which this type of comparison may be executed is the Rg Veda. As stated earlier, Dravidian is not likely to be the language of the Indus Civilization; however there are other linguistic substrata, such as Munda influences in the Rg Veda and Masica's Language X, that might be candidates in our search for meaning. The Indo-Iranians branched off from the Indo-Europeans before the advent of agriculture. (One of the arguments for this theory is that words, previously not related to agriculture, were later developed to describe agricultural-related items and activity in Indo-European. However, this phenomenon does not occur in the Indo-Iranian branch; rather a number of loan-words (not Aryan in origin) take their place. See Masica 1979, 55-151.) Hence, the Indo-Aryans (a subgroup of the Indo-Iranians) adopted many agricultural-related loan-words from the indigenous people (most likely being the Harappans) (see Masica 1979, 137-138). The earliest books of the Rg Veda, showing no influence of Dravidian, show influence from Munda and a pre-Munda substratum language. The first of these is Munda, a form of Austro-Asiatic. Munda, thought to have been spoken in Eastern India, has often been ruled out by scholars of the Indus script as being too far removed geographically to be the language of the Harappans. Recent linguistic studies however suggest that Munda was likely to originate in or perhaps west of the Punjab.[http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/IndusLang.pdf Mirror: http://www.scribd.com/doc/9572872/Indus-Lang ] This reinstates Munda's candidacy as a possible Indus language. The second possible source, Masica's Language X, is a group of Hindi loan words whose origin is uncertain…A comparison of the pictography of the segmented Indus inscriptions to the two linguistic sources may be the method that can lead us to speculate on meaning in the Indus inscriptions…In conclusion, methods for deciphering the Indus script based on a linguistic presupposition cannot be employed at this time. The necessary alternative to the former Dravidian approach relies on the segmentation of texts and its subsequent comparison to loan-words of early Indian textual sources. Such comparisons rely on the pictographic transparency of the segmented unit and are thus speculative in nature. A new paradigm based on segmentation, though having its limitations, offers a much more meaningful analysis than those methods based on the currently wanting Dravidian theory. "

" The Linear Hierarchy in the Indus 'Fish.' " SAGAR: A South Asia Graduate Research Journal Volume 14 (2005). Mirror>: http://www.scribd.com/doc/9571678/Fish-Signs Conclusion: " …if the Indus fish have a fixed order the fish most likely did not have a syllabic value. "

Thesis: The Indus Script: Current Methods for Decipherment with an Emphasis on the Rebus Principle and Bilingual Parallels.B.A. in Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC-2002

Michael Pieter Korvink (704) 687-4603 mpkorvin 9201 University Boulevard Charlotte, NC 28223 Faculty: UNC Charlotte, Religious Studies http://www.religiousstudies.uncc.edu/mpkorvin/Curriculum%20Vitae.htm

References

Daniels, Peter T. 2000. " The Decipherment of Ancient Near Eastern Scripts. " In Civilizations of the Ancient Near East. Edited by Jack M. Sasson, 81-93. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers.

Elfenbein, J. H. 1987. " A Periplous of the 'Brahui Problem.' " Studia Iranica (16): 215-233.

Gelb, I. J. 1973. " Written Records and Decipherment. " Current Trends in Linguistics 11: 268.

Korvink, Michael. 2004. Starting from Scratch: A Positional-Statistical Approach to the Indus Script. M.A. Thesis, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Masica, C. P. 1979. " Aryan and Non-Aryan Elements in North Indian Agriculture. " In Aryan and Non-Aryan in India. Edited by M. Deshpande and P.E. Hooks. Ann Arbor: Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan, 55-151.

E-books

The Saraswati: The mother of Indian civilization. Inaugural address delivered on 24 October 2008 by Prof. BB Lal in the Conference on Vedic River Sarasvati and Hindu Civilization held at India International Centre, New Delhi

Sarasvati – Vedic River and Hindu Civilization by S. Kalyanaraman (2008)

Vedic River Sarasvati and Hindu Civilization (ed.) S. Kalyanaraman (2008) – Compendium of Papers presented at the Conference on the same subject held at at India International Centre, New Delhi between Oct. 24 to 26, 2008

The webpage updated with these links: http://sites.google.com/site/kalyan97/Conf-Presentations

http://sites.google.com/site/kalyan97/mlecchitavikalpa

E-books --Vedic River Sarasvati and Hindu civilization

by S. Kalyanaraman

Sarasvati -- Vedic river and Hindu civilization (12 Sept. 2008) 89 pages

Sarasvati hieroglyph dictionary (Update 31 March 2008) 348 pages

Reading new Bhirrana seals with Sarasvati hieroglyphs (Addenda 2 March 2008)

Sarasvati: Vedic river and Bharatiya civilization (March 2008) -- 332 pages

River Sarasvati -- Legend, myth and reality (1999)

Sarasvati (2000) -- 1281 pages

Sarasvati in 7 volumes (2003)

Civilization Volume 1

Rigveda Volume 2

River Volume 3 Bharati Volume 4

Technology Volume 5 Language Volume 6 [lingua franca of Sarasvati civilization. mlecha, meluhha. essential semantic unity of all bharatiya languages]

Epigraphs Volume 7

Indus script encodes mleccha speech 5 volumes (2008)

Writing (Volume 1) 554 pagesDictionary (Volume) 2 50 pages

Epigraphica (Volume 3) 202 pages

Language (Volume 4) 367 pagesLexicon (Volume 5) 5,111 pages [indian Lexicon. A comparative dictionary of over 25 ancient Bharatiya (Indian) languages]

 

[Guest guest]

Dear Mr.Kalyanraman,

My friend and a historian Mr.Daniel Salas is deciphering the Indus Script to Sanskrit Devanagiri script.If you are interested I will ask him to send you mails.Expecting your reply,

Cordially,

B.C.VENKATAKRISHNAN.

website: www.vedascience.com

 

 

 

 

kishore patnaik <kishorepatnaik09 Monday, December 29, 2008 6:04:55 PM Fwd: Indus script decipherment paradigm -- Michael Korvink

 

 

---------- Forwarded message ----------S. Kalyanaraman <kalyan97 (AT) gmail (DOT) com>Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 4:48 PMFwd: Indus script decipherment paradigm -- Michael Korvinkkishore patnaik <kishorepatnaik09@ gmail.com>

 

 

 

---------- Forwarded message ----------S. Kalyanaraman <kalyan97 (AT) gmail (DOT) com>Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 11:32 AMIndus script decipherment paradigm -- Michael Korvink

Indus script decipherment paradigm – Michael Korvink

I have created a webpage outlining insightful contributions of Prof. Michael Korvink, on a decipherment paradigm.

The link is:

http://sites. google.com/ site/kalyan97/ a-new-decipherme nt-paradigm

Michael Korvink, whose theses are outlined below, suggests the search for loan words of Munda and Language X to decipher segmented 'texts' of Indus script inscriptions.

Limitations of Korvink's approach:

1. The focus is ONLY on 'signs'. The 'pictorial motifs' are totally ignored citing them to be 'narrative' contexts. This is to be juxtaposed to the fact that just as the 'rim of jar' glyph occurs frequently, the 'one-horned heifer' also occurs frequently. What is the narrative in the 'one-horned heifer'? Does the narrative have an underlying speech which the heifer (composite glyph with one horn and pannier) embodies?2. The assumption is that a 'sign' has to be syllabic. One possibility is ignored: that both 'signs' and 'pictorial motifs' are glyphs and could be hieroglyphs. It is inconceivable that pictographs such as a tiger, elephant, rhinoceros, alligator, man-perched on a tree branch,

a person seated in a posture of meditation, a woman ligatured to a tiger, bull, zebu, buffalo could have been used without recognizing them in as relatable to words of an underlying language. It is clear that over 100 such pictorial motifs apart from about 400 signs which are normalized pictorial motifs (such as rim of jar, wide-mouthed rimless pot, fish, slice, numeral strokes, antelope looking back, tiger looking back, horned-person ligatured to the hindpart of a bull or bovine) embodied speech. There are also composite or ligatured signs. A water-carrier glyph gets normalized as a 'sign'. Swastika is used both as a pictorial motif and as a 'sign' sandwiched between an elephant and a tiger. Thus, the distinction drawn in corcordances, between 'signs' and 'pictorial motifs' both of which are glyphs is arbitrary.

Comment: Subject to these two major limitations in the reasoned analyses provided by Korvink. it should be possible to identify 'loan words' of both Munda and Language X and read them rebus into the hieroglyphs of Sarasvati civilization (so-called Indus script).

 

The script is simply neither syllabic nor alphabetic but hieroglyphic and both 'signs' and 'pictorial motifs' are such glyphs read rebus as hieroglyphs.

This rebus reading has been attempted on this web portal and the 15 ebooks presented (see links appended) -- in the context of one FUNCTION served by the hieroglyphs: the repertoire of khanaka (miners) and karmaara (smiths) -- both words repeated in the glyphs. The rim of a jar in Santali is: kanda kan-ka; rebus: kanda 'fire-altar'; khanaka 'miner'; that is, miner's fire-altar (or smelter) possession. A tiger looking back in Telugu is kol krammara; rebus: kol 'tiger'; 'pancaloha (alloy of five metals)'; karmaara 'smith'; that is, smith alloy of five metals.Thus, if both signs and pictorial motifs are read as glyphs, they can be seen to embody, as hieroglyphs, the language, Mleccha (Meluhha). Evidence for the language Meluhha and the script Mlecchita vikalpa exists in later-day texts. The glyphs continue to

be used in mints while punching devices on punch-marked coins of many janapadas, 5 to 6 centuries Before the Common Era Dr. S. Kalyanaraman kalyan97 (AT) gmail (DOT) com 29 December 2008

The Indus Script: A Positional-statisti cal Approach

By Michael Korvink

2007, Gilund Press, ISBN 0615182399, ISBN-13: 9780615182391, 96 pp.

Since the discovery of the Indus Civilization, the meaning of the enigmatic Indus script remains hidden in its four hundred characters. While many would-be-decipherer s have attempted to unravel its meaning with the aid of a presumed underlying language, none of these attempts has proven successful. In response, the approach taken in this work does not preclude an underlying language, but offers an alternate approach where the positional patterns of the Indus signs are investigated in an attempt to segment the character strings.

Conclusion: "Since the discovery of the Indus Civilization, the meaning of enigmatic Indus script remains hidden its four hundred characters. While many would-be-decipherer s have attempted to unravel its meaning with the aid of a presumed underlying language, none of these attempts have proven successful. In response, the approach taken in this work does not presume an underlying language, but offers an alternate approach where the positional patterns of the Indus signs are investigated. Consequently, the search for meaning is deferred until a later time. Though the search for meaning is suspended at this point, the use of positional-statisti cal patterns to segment texts serves as a necessary preliminary step in the search for meaning. Once rough segmentation is achieved, one may begin to speculate on the meaning of the characters by comparing early loanwords of Indian

texts to the units segmented from positional-statisti cal analysis. It is not likely that the continued segmenting of texts and investigating of early Indian loanwords will lead to a full decipherment. However, it does offer us a legitimate method for speculating on the meaning of the Indus inscriptions."

http://www.flipkart .com/indus- script-michael- korvink-position al/0615182399- 11w3fl1cdd# previewbook

"The Indus Script: A New Decipherment Paradigm." SAGAR: A South Asia Graduate Research Journal Volume 12 (2004). http://www.scribd. com/doc/9571765/ deciphermentpara digm

The Indus Script: A Statistical- Positional Approach

There is a great difficulty for the researcher of Indus inscriptions as our understanding of the nature of the Indus inscriptions changes. One finds themselves trying to separate, in researching previous decipherment attempts, the observations from the inference of those observations. Often the observation and inference of the observation are so tightly intertwined that one must start from scratch in their own research. For example, Mahadevan and Parpola have well researched the positional-statisti cal patterns in the script. Yet, much of their articles intertwine linguistic terminology with positionalstatistic al terminology (e.g. gender or nominative case suffixes). It is the hard data of decipherment attempts, such as the patterns in placement of various signs that, remain current, while the conclusions of that data may become outdated. Therefore, rather than a coterminous

pursuit of meaning and structure, where one is often tempted to force the linguistic structure onto the script, the structure alone must be analyzed. It is only then that one may us other a priori methods in search for meaning. Therefore, in response to this dilemma, this presentation . . .

Presented at the 32nd Annual Conference on South Asia at Wisconsin, October 2003

http://southasiacon ference.wisc. edu/pdf/Abstract s03.pdf

Conclusion: "Although it is somewhat discouraging that the use of pictographic transparency and the inherent speculation in using it, is inescapable, a much greater impediment in Indus script studies is the dependence on the Dravidian Hypothesis – a hypothesis recently encountering serious criticism…Recent studies however show that in the earliest substrata of the Rg Veda, books 2 and 7, show no Dravidian influence but rather a Munda influence…In addition, J. Elfinbein has discovered phonological differences between Brahui and the Dravidian languages of the South, further corroborating that Brahui was a language of a second post-Harappan wave of Dravidians from outside of India (Elfinbein 1987, 215-233). Evidence from non-linguistic research presents more problems. The argument that the Dravidians were the Harappans fails to explain the total absence of similar archaeological

material between the Indus valley and South India where one finds the Dravidian languages…Therefore, with the aforementioned linguistic studies and lak of archaeological finds, one can conclude that insufficient evidence is available at this time to continue to advocate the Dravidian argument as it is presented today. The understanding that Dravidian is not likely to be an underlying language in the Indus civilization has serious implications in the study of the Indus script…If we abandon the Dravidian hypothesis, the approaches of Parpola, Mahadevan, and Fairservis have no meaningful application to the Indus characters (i.e. there is no language proven appropriate of having these methods applied). Therefore, the methods for approaching the script must be updated. An analogous situation can be seen in the decipherment of Luwian Hieroglyphs. A.H. Sayce suggested that the glyphs were the product of the Hittites, but had no successful reading over his

twenty years of research (Daniels 2000,89). Significant progress was not made until I.J. Gelb released a cold study of the glyphs in the form of three pamphlets analyzing the structure and segmentation of the texts (Daniels 2000,89). With thirty years of unsuccessful readings with the Dravidian methods, a new, less speculative approach is in order. As with Gelb, a study is necessary in the Indus inscriptions that is based on structural analysis and the positional frequency of various signs, not on a Dravidian presupposition. An examination of I.J. Gelb's well-known grid of undeciphered scripts will prove helpful (Gelb 1973, 268)…Until further evidence is revealed as to what language the Indus people spoke – not to say that the Indus script 'encoded speech' – a Class III script, where both the language and the script are unknown, is a much more viable classification and is likely to produce less speculative results. (While

the Indus script does not likely represent language, isolated units may be compared to words of later Indian texts)…For example, a drawing of a peepal leaf simply denotes a 'peepal leaf'. One can then turn to later Indian textual sources to which this sign can be compared. It is at this point that the question can be asked: what is the most plausible language spoken in the Indus region at this time? Before this however, a word of caution is in order. One need not assume an underlying language in the Indus inscriptions in order to attempt to find comparison between the pictography in Indus inscriptions and words from other languages. Isolated words in Sumerian accounting tables could very well be compared to Sumerian tablets with a narrative function. Similarly, one can confidently compare words in a narrative context with the isolated units from the Indus. With the vastness of Indus civilization, it is

not inconceivable that many of their words have survived through later Indian texts. Therefore one hopes that these loan words may have some overlap with the segmented Indus inscriptions. A possible source in which this type of comparison may be executed is the Rg Veda. As stated earlier, Dravidian is not likely to be the language of the Indus Civilization; however there are other linguistic substrata, such as Munda influences in the Rg Veda and Masica's Language X, that might be candidates in our search for meaning. The Indo-Iranians branched off from the Indo-Europeans before the advent of agriculture. (One of the arguments for this theory is that words, previously not related to agriculture, were later developed to describe agricultural- related items and activity in Indo-European. However, this phenomenon does not occur in the Indo-Iranian branch; rather a number of loan-words (not Aryan in origin) take their place. See Masica 1979,

55-151.) Hence, the Indo-Aryans (a subgroup of the Indo-Iranians) adopted many agricultural- related loan-words from the indigenous people (most likely being the Harappans) (see Masica 1979, 137-138). The earliest books of the Rg Veda, showing no influence of Dravidian, show influence from Munda and a pre-Munda substratum language. The first of these is Munda, a form of Austro-Asiatic. Munda, thought to have been spoken in Eastern India, has often been ruled out by scholars of the Indus script as being too far removed geographically to be the language of the Harappans. Recent linguistic studies however suggest that Munda was likely to originate in or perhaps west of the Punjab.[http://www.people. fas.harvard. edu/~witzel/ IndusLang. pdf Mirror: http://www.scribd. com/doc/9572872/ Indus-Lang ] This reinstates Munda's candidacy as a possible Indus language. The second possible source, Masica's Language X, is a group of Hindi loan words whose origin is uncertain…A comparison of the pictography of the segmented Indus inscriptions to the two linguistic sources may be the method that can lead us to speculate on meaning in the Indus inscriptions… In conclusion, methods for deciphering the Indus script based on a linguistic presupposition cannot be employed at this time. The necessary alternative to the former Dravidian approach relies on the segmentation of texts and its subsequent comparison to loan-words of early Indian textual sources. Such comparisons rely on the pictographic transparency of the segmented

unit and are thus speculative in nature. A new paradigm based on segmentation, though having its limitations, offers a much more meaningful analysis than those methods based on the currently wanting Dravidian theory."

"The Linear Hierarchy in the Indus 'Fish.'" SAGAR: A South Asia Graduate Research Journal Volume 14 (2005). Mirror>: http://www.scribd. com/doc/9571678/ Fish-Signs Conclusion: "…if the Indus fish have a fixed order the fish most likely did not have a syllabic value."

Thesis: The Indus Script: Current Methods for Decipherment with an Emphasis on the Rebus Principle and Bilingual Parallels.B.A. in Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC-2002

Michael Pieter Korvink (704) 687-4603 mpkorvin (AT) email (DOT) uncc.edu 9201 University Boulevard Charlotte, NC 28223 Faculty: UNC Charlotte, Religious Studies http://www.religiou sstudies. uncc.edu/ mpkorvin/ Curriculum% 20Vitae.htm

References

Daniels, Peter T. 2000. "The Decipherment of Ancient Near Eastern Scripts." In Civilizations of the Ancient Near East. Edited by Jack M. Sasson, 81-93. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers.

Elfenbein, J. H. 1987. "A Periplous of the 'Brahui Problem.'" Studia Iranica (16): 215-233.

Gelb, I. J. 1973. "Written Records and Decipherment." Current Trends in Linguistics 11: 268.

Korvink, Michael. 2004. Starting from Scratch: A Positional-Statisti cal Approach to the Indus Script. M.A. Thesis, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Masica, C. P. 1979. "Aryan and Non-Aryan Elements in North Indian Agriculture." In Aryan and Non-Aryan in India. Edited by M. Deshpande and P.E. Hooks. Ann Arbor: Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan, 55-151.

E-books

The Saraswati: The mother of Indian civilization. Inaugural address delivered on 24 October 2008 by Prof. BB Lal in the Conference on Vedic River Sarasvati and Hindu Civilization held at India International Centre, New DelhiSarasvati – Vedic River and Hindu Civilization by S. Kalyanaraman (2008)Vedic River Sarasvati and Hindu Civilization (ed.)

S. Kalyanaraman (2008) – Compendium of Papers presented at the Conference on the same subject held at at India International Centre, New Delhi between Oct. 24 to 26, 2008The webpage updated with these links: http://sites. google.com/ site/kalyan97/ Conf-Presentatio nshttp://sites. google.com/ site/kalyan97/ mlecchitavikalpaE-books --Vedic River Sarasvati

and Hindu civilization by S. Kalyanaraman Sarasvati -- Vedic river and Hindu civilization (12 Sept. 2008) 89 pages Sarasvati hieroglyph dictionary (Update 31 March 2008) 348 pagesReading new Bhirrana seals with Sarasvati hieroglyphs (Addenda 2 March 2008) Sarasvati: Vedic river and Bharatiya civilization (March 2008) -- 332 pagesRiver Sarasvati -- Legend, myth and reality (1999)Sarasvati (2000) -- 1281 pagesSarasvati in 7 volumes (2003) Civilization Volume 1 Rigveda Volume 2 River Volume 3 Bharati Volume 4 Technology Volume 5 Language Volume 6 [lingua franca of Sarasvati civilization. mlecha, meluhha. essential semantic unity

of all bharatiya languages] Epigraphs Volume 7Indus script encodes mleccha speech 5 volumes (2008)Writing (Volume 1) 554 pagesDictionary (Volume) 2 50 pagesEpigraphica (Volume 3) 202 pagesLanguage (Volume 4) 367 pagesLexicon (Volume 5) 5,111 pages [indian Lexicon. A comparative dictionary of over 25 ancient Bharatiya (Indian) languages]

 

[Guest guest]

Sri Venkatakrishnan,

 

It is better to post them here on this group for the benefit of everyone.

 

regards,

 

Kishore patnaik

On Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 10:57 PM, venkata krishnan <bcvk71 wrote:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Mr.Kalyanraman,

My friend and a historian Mr.Daniel Salas is deciphering the Indus Script to Sanskrit Devanagiri script.If you are interested I will ask him to send you mails.Expecting your reply,

Cordially,

B.C.VENKATAKRISHNAN.

website: www.vedascience.com

 

 

 

 

kishore patnaik <kishorepatnaik09

Monday, December 29, 2008 6:04:55 PM Fwd: Indus script decipherment paradigm -- Michael Korvink

 

 

 

 

---------- Forwarded message ----------S. Kalyanaraman <kalyan97 (AT) gmail (DOT) com>

Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 4:48 PMFwd: Indus script decipherment paradigm -- Michael Korvinkkishore patnaik <kishorepatnaik09@ gmail.com>

 

 

 

 

 

---------- Forwarded message ----------S. Kalyanaraman <kalyan97 (AT) gmail (DOT) com>

Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 11:32 AMIndus script decipherment paradigm -- Michael Korvink

Indus script decipherment paradigm – Michael Korvink

 

I have created a webpage outlining insightful contributions of Prof. Michael Korvink, on a decipherment paradigm.

The link is:

http://sites. google.com/ site/kalyan97/ a-new-decipherme nt-paradigm

 

Michael Korvink, whose theses are outlined below, suggests the search for loan words of Munda and Language X to decipher segmented 'texts' of Indus script inscriptions.

 

Limitations of Korvink's approach:

1. The focus is ONLY on 'signs'. The 'pictorial motifs' are totally ignored citing them to be 'narrative' contexts. This is to be juxtaposed to the fact that just as the 'rim of jar' glyph occurs frequently, the 'one-horned heifer' also occurs frequently. What is the narrative in the 'one-horned heifer'? Does the narrative have an underlying speech which the heifer (composite glyph with one horn and pannier) embodies?

2. The assumption is that a 'sign' has to be syllabic. One possibility is ignored: that both 'signs' and 'pictorial motifs' are glyphs and could be hieroglyphs. It is inconceivable that pictographs such as a tiger, elephant, rhinoceros, alligator, man-perched on a tree branch, a person seated in a posture of meditation, a woman ligatured to a tiger, bull, zebu, buffalo could have been used without recognizing them in as relatable to words of an underlying language. It is clear that over 100 such pictorial motifs apart from about 400 signs which are normalized pictorial motifs (such as rim of jar, wide-mouthed rimless pot, fish, slice, numeral strokes, antelope looking back, tiger looking back, horned-person ligatured to the hindpart of a bull or bovine) embodied speech. There are also composite or ligatured signs. A water-carrier glyph gets normalized as a 'sign'. Swastika is used both as a pictorial motif and as a 'sign' sandwiched between an elephant and a tiger. Thus, the distinction drawn in corcordances, between 'signs' and 'pictorial motifs' both of which are glyphs is arbitrary.

 

Comment: Subject to these two major limitations in the reasoned analyses provided by Korvink. it should be possible to identify 'loan words' of both Munda and Language X and read them rebus into the hieroglyphs of Sarasvati civilization (so-called Indus script).

 

 

The script is simply neither syllabic nor alphabetic but hieroglyphic and both 'signs' and 'pictorial motifs' are such glyphs read rebus as hieroglyphs.

This rebus reading has been attempted on this web portal and the 15 ebooks presented (see links appended) -- in the context of one FUNCTION served by the hieroglyphs: the repertoire of khanaka (miners) and karmaara (smiths) -- both words repeated in the glyphs. The rim of a jar in Santali is: kanda kan-ka; rebus: kanda 'fire-altar'; khanaka 'miner'; that is, miner's fire-altar (or smelter) possession. A tiger looking back in Telugu is kol krammara; rebus: kol 'tiger'; 'pancaloha (alloy of five metals)'; karmaara 'smith'; that is, smith alloy of five metals.

Thus, if both signs and pictorial motifs are read as glyphs, they can be seen to embody, as hieroglyphs, the language, Mleccha (Meluhha). Evidence for the language Meluhha and the script Mlecchita vikalpa exists in later-day texts. The glyphs continue to be used in mints while punching devices on punch-marked coins of many janapadas, 5 to 6 centuries Before the Common Era

Dr. S. Kalyanaraman kalyan97 (AT) gmail (DOT) com 29 December 2008

The Indus Script: A Positional-statisti cal Approach

 

By Michael Korvink

2007, Gilund Press, ISBN 0615182399, ISBN-13: 9780615182391, 96 pp.

 

Since the discovery of the Indus Civilization, the meaning of the enigmatic Indus script remains hidden in its four hundred characters. While many would-be-decipherer s have attempted to unravel its meaning with the aid of a presumed underlying language, none of these attempts has proven successful. In response, the approach taken in this work does not preclude an underlying language, but offers an alternate approach where the positional patterns of the Indus signs are investigated in an attempt to segment the character strings.

Conclusion: " Since the discovery of the Indus Civilization, the meaning of enigmatic Indus script remains hidden its four hundred characters. While many would-be-decipherer s have attempted to unravel its meaning with the aid of a presumed underlying language, none of these attempts have proven successful. In response, the approach taken in this work does not presume an underlying language, but offers an alternate approach where the positional patterns of the Indus signs are investigated. Consequently, the search for meaning is deferred until a later time. Though the search for meaning is suspended at this point, the use of positional-statisti cal patterns to segment texts serves as a necessary preliminary step in the search for meaning. Once rough segmentation is achieved, one may begin to speculate on the meaning of the characters by comparing early loanwords of Indian texts to the units segmented from positional-statisti cal analysis. It is not likely that the continued segmenting of texts and investigating of early Indian loanwords will lead to a full decipherment. However, it does offer us a legitimate method for speculating on the meaning of the Indus inscriptions. "

http://www.flipkart .com/indus- script-michael- korvink-position al/0615182399- 11w3fl1cdd# previewbook

 

" The Indus Script: A New Decipherment Paradigm. " SAGAR: A South Asia Graduate Research Journal Volume 12 (2004). http://www.scribd. com/doc/9571765/ deciphermentpara digm

The Indus Script: A Statistical- Positional Approach

There is a great difficulty for the researcher of Indus inscriptions as our understanding of the nature of the Indus inscriptions changes. One finds themselves trying to separate, in researching previous decipherment attempts, the observations from the inference of those observations. Often the observation and inference of the observation are so tightly intertwined that one must start from scratch in their own research. For example, Mahadevan and Parpola have well researched the positional-statisti cal patterns in the script. Yet, much of their articles intertwine linguistic terminology with positionalstatistic al terminology (e.g. gender or nominative case suffixes). It is the hard data of decipherment attempts, such as the patterns in placement of various signs that, remain current, while the conclusions of that data may become outdated. Therefore, rather than a coterminous pursuit of meaning and structure, where one is often tempted to force the linguistic structure onto the script, the structure alone must be analyzed. It is only then that one may us other a priori methods in search for meaning. Therefore, in response to this dilemma, this presentation . . .

 

Presented at the 32nd Annual Conference on South Asia at Wisconsin, October 2003

http://southasiacon ference.wisc. edu/pdf/Abstract s03.pdf

 

Conclusion: " Although it is somewhat discouraging that the use of pictographic transparency and the inherent speculation in using it, is inescapable, a much greater impediment in Indus script studies is the dependence on the Dravidian Hypothesis – a hypothesis recently encountering serious criticism…Recent studies however show that in the earliest substrata of the Rg Veda, books 2 and 7, show no Dravidian influence but rather a Munda influence…In addition, J. Elfinbein has discovered phonological differences between Brahui and the Dravidian languages of the South, further corroborating that Brahui was a language of a second post-Harappan wave of Dravidians from outside of India (Elfinbein 1987, 215-233). Evidence from non-linguistic research presents more problems. The argument that the Dravidians were the Harappans fails to explain the total absence of similar archaeological material between the Indus valley and South India where one finds the Dravidian languages…Therefore, with the aforementioned linguistic studies and lak of archaeological finds, one can conclude that insufficient evidence is available at this time to continue to advocate the Dravidian argument as it is presented today. The understanding that Dravidian is not likely to be an underlying language in the Indus civilization has serious implications in the study of the Indus script…If we abandon the Dravidian hypothesis, the approaches of Parpola, Mahadevan, and Fairservis have no meaningful application to the Indus characters (i.e. there is no language proven appropriate of having these methods applied). Therefore, the methods for approaching the script must be updated. An analogous situation can be seen in the decipherment of Luwian Hieroglyphs. A.H. Sayce suggested that the glyphs were the product of the Hittites, but had no successful reading over his twenty years of research (Daniels 2000,89). Significant progress was not made until I.J. Gelb released a cold study of the glyphs in the form of three pamphlets analyzing the structure and segmentation of the texts (Daniels 2000,89). With thirty years of unsuccessful readings with the Dravidian methods, a new, less speculative approach is in order. As with Gelb, a study is necessary in the Indus inscriptions that is based on structural analysis and the positional frequency of various signs, not on a Dravidian presupposition. An examination of I.J. Gelb's well-known grid of undeciphered scripts will prove helpful (Gelb 1973, 268)…Until further evidence is revealed as to what language the Indus people spoke – not to say that the Indus script 'encoded speech' – a Class III script, where both the language and the script are unknown, is a much more viable classification and is likely to produce less speculative results. (While the Indus script does not likely represent language, isolated units may be compared to words of later Indian texts)…For example, a drawing of a peepal leaf simply denotes a 'peepal leaf'. One can then turn to later Indian textual sources to which this sign can be compared. It is at this point that the question can be asked: what is the most plausible language spoken in the Indus region at this time? Before this however, a word of caution is in order. One need not assume an underlying language in the Indus inscriptions in order to attempt to find comparison between the pictography in Indus inscriptions and words from other languages. Isolated words in Sumerian accounting tables could very well be compared to Sumerian tablets with a narrative function. Similarly, one can confidently compare words in a narrative context with the isolated units from the Indus. With the vastness of Indus civilization, it is not inconceivable that many of their words have survived through later Indian texts. Therefore one hopes that these loan words may have some overlap with the segmented Indus inscriptions. A possible source in which this type of comparison may be executed is the Rg Veda. As stated earlier, Dravidian is not likely to be the language of the Indus Civilization; however there are other linguistic substrata, such as Munda influences in the Rg Veda and Masica's Language X, that might be candidates in our search for meaning. The Indo-Iranians branched off from the Indo-Europeans before the advent of agriculture. (One of the arguments for this theory is that words, previously not related to agriculture, were later developed to describe agricultural- related items and activity in Indo-European. However, this phenomenon does not occur in the Indo-Iranian branch; rather a number of loan-words (not Aryan in origin) take their place. See Masica 1979, 55-151.) Hence, the Indo-Aryans (a subgroup of the Indo-Iranians) adopted many agricultural- related loan-words from the indigenous people (most likely being the Harappans) (see Masica 1979, 137-138). The earliest books of the Rg Veda, showing no influence of Dravidian, show influence from Munda and a pre-Munda substratum language. The first of these is Munda, a form of Austro-Asiatic. Munda, thought to have been spoken in Eastern India, has often been ruled out by scholars of the Indus script as being too far removed geographically to be the language of the Harappans. Recent linguistic studies however suggest that Munda was likely to originate in or perhaps west of the Punjab.[http://www.people. fas.harvard. edu/~witzel/ IndusLang. pdf Mirror: http://www.scribd. com/doc/9572872/ Indus-Lang ] This reinstates Munda's candidacy as a possible Indus language. The second possible source, Masica's Language X, is a group of Hindi loan words whose origin is uncertain…A comparison of the pictography of the segmented Indus inscriptions to the two linguistic sources may be the method that can lead us to speculate on meaning in the Indus inscriptions… In conclusion, methods for deciphering the Indus script based on a linguistic presupposition cannot be employed at this time. The necessary alternative to the former Dravidian approach relies on the segmentation of texts and its subsequent comparison to loan-words of early Indian textual sources. Such comparisons rely on the pictographic transparency of the segmented unit and are thus speculative in nature. A new paradigm based on segmentation, though having its limitations, offers a much more meaningful analysis than those methods based on the currently wanting Dravidian theory. "

" The Linear Hierarchy in the Indus 'Fish.' " SAGAR: A South Asia Graduate Research Journal Volume 14 (2005). Mirror>: http://www.scribd. com/doc/9571678/ Fish-Signs Conclusion: " …if the Indus fish have a fixed order the fish most likely did not have a syllabic value. "

Thesis: The Indus Script: Current Methods for Decipherment with an Emphasis on the Rebus Principle and Bilingual Parallels.B.A. in Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC-2002

 

Michael Pieter Korvink (704) 687-4603 mpkorvin (AT) email (DOT) uncc.edu 9201 University Boulevard Charlotte, NC 28223 Faculty: UNC Charlotte, Religious Studies http://www.religiou sstudies. uncc.edu/ mpkorvin/ Curriculum% 20Vitae.htm

 

References

Daniels, Peter T. 2000. " The Decipherment of Ancient Near Eastern Scripts. " In Civilizations of the Ancient Near East. Edited by Jack M. Sasson, 81-93. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers.

Elfenbein, J. H. 1987. " A Periplous of the 'Brahui Problem.' " Studia Iranica (16): 215-233.

Gelb, I. J. 1973. " Written Records and Decipherment. " Current Trends in Linguistics 11: 268.

Korvink, Michael. 2004. Starting from Scratch: A Positional-Statisti cal Approach to the Indus Script. M.A. Thesis, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

 

 

 

Masica, C. P. 1979. " Aryan and Non-Aryan Elements in North Indian Agriculture. " In Aryan and Non-Aryan in India. Edited by M. Deshpande and P.E. Hooks. Ann Arbor: Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan, 55-151.

E-books

The Saraswati: The mother of Indian civilization. Inaugural address delivered on 24 October 2008 by Prof. BB Lal in the Conference on Vedic River Sarasvati and Hindu Civilization held at India International Centre, New Delhi

Sarasvati – Vedic River and Hindu Civilization by S. Kalyanaraman (2008)

Vedic River Sarasvati and Hindu Civilization (ed.) S. Kalyanaraman (2008) – Compendium of Papers presented at the Conference on the same subject held at at India International Centre, New Delhi between Oct. 24 to 26, 2008

The webpage updated with these links: http://sites. google.com/ site/kalyan97/ Conf-Presentatio ns

http://sites. google.com/ site/kalyan97/ mlecchitavikalpa

E-books --Vedic River Sarasvati and Hindu civilization

by S. Kalyanaraman Sarasvati -- Vedic river and Hindu civilization (12 Sept. 2008) 89 pages

Sarasvati hieroglyph dictionary (Update 31 March 2008) 348 pages

Reading new Bhirrana seals with Sarasvati hieroglyphs (Addenda 2 March 2008)

Sarasvati: Vedic river and Bharatiya civilization (March 2008) -- 332 pages

River Sarasvati -- Legend, myth and reality (1999)

Sarasvati (2000) -- 1281 pagesSarasvati in 7 volumes (2003)

Civilization Volume 1 Rigveda Volume 2

River Volume 3 Bharati Volume 4

Technology Volume 5 Language Volume 6 [lingua franca of Sarasvati civilization. mlecha, meluhha. essential semantic unity of all bharatiya languages]

Epigraphs Volume 7

Indus script encodes mleccha speech 5 volumes (2008)

Writing (Volume 1) 554 pagesDictionary (Volume) 2 50 pages

Epigraphica (Volume 3) 202 pagesLanguage (Volume 4) 367 pages

Lexicon (Volume 5) 5,111 pages [indian Lexicon. A comparative dictionary of over 25 ancient Bharatiya (Indian) languages]

 

[Guest guest]

, venkata krishnan <bcvk71

wrote:

>

> Dear Mr.Kalyanraman,

>                                    My friend and a historian

Mr.Daniel Salas is deciphering the Indus Script to Sanskrit

Devanagiri script.<

<

 

How can that be? How can he decipher a script that has already been

deciphered? To limit ourselves to Sanskrit readings, it has been

deciphered by some Rao, another Rao (SR), Natwar Jha, NS Rajaram, the

addressee Dr. K., and by the Germans Ushanas Richter and Hasenpflug,

separately. And all of them disagree, yet none of them ever argues it

out with any of the others. Steve Farmer with his non-script reading

and Asko Parpola with his Dravidian reading at least take the trouble

of rebutting each other's theories.

 

Kind regards,

 

Koenraad Elst

[Guest guest]

Dear Koenraad, I wish you and your family a very happy New Year. Your statement is very well put. I see that none of the organizations is ready to bring all the scholars who claimed rightly or otherwise the decipherment on one dais. I am sure even an Indian University could be possibly afford that.

Btw, there is nothing much to say about Steve's arguments. When I ask him inconvenient questions over the private mails, he simply sulks. In the entire gamut, many do not seem to be aware of , much less talk of Vikramkher inscriptions which I have posted here sometime ago.

My own thesis is Indus seals are mostly merchant seals(and hence, they are short in length) and there is a high possibility that it represents a script, a forerunner of vikramkher and Brahmi. regards,

Kishore patnaik On Tue, Dec 30, 2008 at 11:15 PM, Koenraad Elst <koenraad.elst wrote:

 

 

 

 

, venkata krishnan <bcvk71

wrote:

>

> Dear Mr.Kalyanraman,

> My friend and a historian

Mr.Daniel Salas is deciphering the Indus Script to Sanskrit

Devanagiri script.<

<

 

How can that be? How can he decipher a script that has already been

deciphered? To limit ourselves to Sanskrit readings, it has been

deciphered by some Rao, another Rao (SR), Natwar Jha, NS Rajaram, the

addressee Dr. K., and by the Germans Ushanas Richter and Hasenpflug,

separately. And all of them disagree, yet none of them ever argues it

out with any of the others. Steve Farmer with his non-script reading

and Asko Parpola with his Dravidian reading at least take the trouble

of rebutting each other's theories.

 

Kind regards,

 

Koenraad Elst

[Guest guest]

The Indus Valley Civilization was the first major urban culture of

South Asia. It reached its peak from 2600 BC to 1900 BC roughly, a

period called by some archaeologists " Mature Harappan " as

distinguished from the earlier Neolithic " Early Harappan " regional

cultures. Spatially, it is huge, comprising of about 1000 settlements

of varying sizes, and geographically includes almost all of modern

Pakistan, parts of India as far east as Delhi and as far south as

Bombay, and parts of Afghanistan.

 

The main corpus of writing dated from the Indus Civilization is in the

form of some two thousand inscribed seals in good, legible conditions.

(In case you don't know what seals are, they are used to make

impressions on malleable material like clay.)

 

Although these seals and samples of Indus writing have been floating

around the scholastic world for close to 70 years, little progress has

been made on deciphering this elegant script. However, we should not

blame scholars for their lack of progress, for there are some major

impediments to decipherment:

 

1. Very short and brief texts. The average number of symbols on the

seals is 5, and the longest is only 26.

2. The language underneath is unknown.

3. Lack of bilingual texts.

 

For instance, consider Champollion, who deciphered Egyptian

hieroglyphs with all of these 3 important clues: there were very long

Egyptian texts; he knew Coptic, a descendant of Egyptian; and the

Rosetta Stone, a bilingual text between Greek and two written forms of

Egyptian.

 

But the script isn't as bad as undecipherable. For one, even though

scholars don't have long texts and bilingual texts, they can still

theorize about the language underneath the writing system. There are

several competing theories about the language that the Indus script

represent:

 

1. The language is completely unrelated to anything else, meaning

an isolate. Well, this doesn't get us anywhere.

 

2. The language is " Aryan " (some form of Indian-Iranian

Indo-European). The historical languages spoken in Northern India and

Pakistan all belong to the Indic branch of Indo-European, including

Sanskrit, Hindi, Punjabi, etc., so maybe the people of the Indus

valley spoke a very old Indo-European language?

 

The major problem with this model is the fact that horses played

a very important role in all Indo-European cultures, being a people

constantly on the move. " There is no escape from the fact that the

horse played a central role in the Vedic and Iranian cultures... "

(Parpola, 1986) Sidenote: " Vedic " means from the time of the Vedas,

the earliest text in India, and the Vedic culture is from around 1500

to 500 BC. However, no depiction of horses on seals nor any remains of

horses have been found so far before 2000 BC. They only appear after

2000 BC. Very likely there were no Aryan speakers present before 2000

BC in the Indus Valley.

 

3. The language belongs to the Munda family of languages. The Munda

family is spoken largely in eastern India, and related to some

Southeast Asian languages. Like Aryan, the reconstructed vocabulary of

early Munda does not reflect the Harappan culture. So its candidacy

for being the language of the Indus Civilization is dim.

 

4. The language is Dravidian. The Dravidian family of languages is

spoken in Southern Indian, but Brahui is spoken in modern Pakistan. So

far this is the most promising model, as in the following points:

* There are many Dravidian influences visible in the Vedic

texts. If the Aryan language gradually replaced the Dravidian,

features from Dravidian would form a " substratum " in Aryan. One of

these features is the appearance of retroflex consonants in Indian

languages, both Indo-European and Dravidian. In contrast, retroflex

consonants do not appear in any other Indo-European language, not even

Iranian ones which are closest to Indic. (For more information on

retroflex consonants please visit my Phonetics page).

* Another possible indication of Dravidian in the Indus

texts is from structural analysis of the texts which suggests that the

language underneath is possibly agglutinative, from the fact that sign

groups often have the same initial signs but different final signs.

The number of these final signs range between 1 to 3. The final signs

possibly represent grammatical suffixes that modify the word

(represented by the initial signs). Each suffix would represent one

specific modification, and the entire cluster of suffixes would

therefore put the word through a series of modifications. This suffix

system can be found in Dravidian, but not Indo-European. Indo-European

tongues tend to change the final sounds to modify the meaning of a

word (a process called inflection), but repeated addition of sounds to

the end of word is extremely rare. Often many suffixes in an

agglutinative language correspond to a single inflectional ending in

an inflectional language.

 

The Dravidian model isn't just an unapplicable theory...But first we

have to know what kind of writing system is the Indus script.

 

A count of the number of signs reveal a lot about the type of system

being used. Alphabetic systems rarely have more than 40 symbols.

Syllabic systems like Linear B or Cherokee typically have 40 to 100 or

so symbols. The third ranges from logophonetic to logographic, running

upwards of hundreds of signs (like 500 signs in Hieroglyphic Luwian,

and 5000 symbols in modern Chinese).

 

It appears that the maximum number of Indus script symbols is 400,

although there are 200 basic signs (ie signs that are not combined

from others). This means that the Indus script is probably

logophonetic, in that it has both signs used for their meanings, and

signs used for their phonetic values.

 

Many signs start off as pictorial representation of a physical object,

often misleadingly called pictograms. They really are should be called

logograms because they represent words in the language. However, it's

next to impossible to write out a word with abstract meaning

pictorially. What all early writers figured out was to use a logogram

not for the object or idea it was originally supposed to stand for,

but for all words sounding similar to the original word for that

object or idea. For example, in English to write " leave " we can use a

picture of a " leaf " . This is called rebus writing, and is a

tremendously common pattern in all early writing systems. We could

also then use the same " leaf " symbol to stand for the sound in

" relief " , adding another symbol in front of the " leaf " symbol in order

to indicate the " re " sound. So the logogram gained a phonetic value as

well.

 

Testing the theory

 

How can we take the theoretical framework so far and apply it to

archaeological data?

 

Numerals seem to represented by vertical lines (represented by number

of lines in the glyph), but they only go up to 7. Analysis reveal 4

more signs that appear in the same context as these numerals, and so

they likely represent numbers higher than 7.

 

The fact that no vertical-line numeral sign denotes 8 very likely

means the Harappan language is based 8. (For example, the Arabic

numerals that we use has symbols from 0 to 9, and to write " ten " we

have to combined the symbols 1 and 0, which identify our number system

as based ten.)

 

Base 8 languages are rare in the world, but it does appear that early

Dravidian is base 8, but later changed to base 10 (possibly under

Indo-European influence). When translated, the count from 1 to 7 is

familiar to us: " one " , " two " , " three " , " four " , " five " , " six " , " seven " .

However, above seven, the number's etymologies become non-numerical: 8

is " number " , 9 is " many minus one " , and 10 is " many " . (Fairservis 1983)

 

But can we actually read (not interpret) any symbol on the seals? We

should start with " pictograms " , as this one:

 

Many scholars (Knorozov, Parpola, Mahadevan, etc) see this sign as a

fish. Fish in reconstructed Proto-Dravidian is *mîn. Coincidentally,

*mîn is also the word for star. On many pots from Mohenjo Daro, an

Indus site, there are drawings of fish and stars together, and so

affirming this linguistic association.

 

Going further, often the numeral six appears before the fish. Either

it means 6 fish, or 6 stars. Old Tamil (a Dravidian language still

spoken today) texts from just around the 1st century AD recorded the

name of the Pleiades, a star cluster visible during autumn and winter

just above Orion, as " Six-Stars " , or aru-mîn. Throughout the world,

titles with celestial connotations are very common, and the clause Six

Stars forming part or whole of a Harappan title is not unreasonable.

(Parpola, 1986)

 

Sometimes symbols are added to the basic sign to make new signs. Of

these, the one that looks like a circumflex accent placed on top of

the fish is quite interesting. It is theorized to mean " roof " , and in

Proto-Dravidian it is *vêy/mêy. This is phonetically similar to

Proto-Dravidian word for " black " , *may. Together with fish, it spells

out mai-m-mîn, or " black star " , which in Old Tamil means the planet

Saturn. In Sanskrit texts, Saturn is associate the color black. The

god of death, Yama, is the presiding of this planet, and is usually

depicted as riding on a dark buffalo.

 

But the " fish " reading isn't accepted by all scholars. William

Fairservis saw it as a combination of a loom twist and a human sign,

and form a honorific title pertaining to rulership (Fairservis, 1983).

I, however, am more inclined to accept the fish identification.

 

This is a quick overview of the current process in the decipherment of

the Indus script. For more information you can either go to the

following links, or go to a good library for books and articles (check

out my references).

 

Links about the Indus Civilization:

 

* History - The Indus Valley Civilisation

* Harappa.com intereting site...lots of pictures with an

accompanying essay.

* The Indus Story

* Yet another page on Indus Civilization

* Languages in pre-Islamic Pakistan -- Fascinating stuff!

 

 

http://ancientscripts.com/indus.html

[Guest guest]

Exclusive by BBC News Online Science Editor Dr David Whitehouse

 

The first known examples of writing may have been unearthed at an

archaeological dig in Pakistan.

 

So-called 'plant-like' and 'trident-shaped' markings have been found

on fragments of pottery dating back 5500 years.

 

 

 

Dr Richard Meadow of Harvard University: " We may be able to follow the

history of signs. "

They were found at a site called Harappa in the region where the great

Harappan or Indus civilisation flourished four and a half thousand

years ago.

 

Harappa was originally a small settlement in 3500 BC but by 2600 BC it

had developed into a major urban centre.

 

 

[ image: Harappa was occupied until about 1900 BC]

Harappa was occupied until about 1900 BC

The earliest known writing was etched onto jars before and after

firing. Experts believe they may have indicated the contents of the

jar or be signs associated with a deity.

 

According to Dr Richard Meadow of Harvard University, the director of

the Harappa Archaeological Research Project, these primitive

inscriptions found on pottery may pre-date all other known writing.

 

Last year it was suggested that the oldest writing might have come

from Egypt.

 

Clay tablets containing primitive words were uncovered in southern

Egypt at the tomb of a king named Scorpion.

 

They were carbon-dated to 3300-3200 BC. This is about the same time,

or slightly earlier, to the primitive writing developed by the

Sumerians of the Mesopotamian civilisation around 3100 BC.

 

" It's a big question as to if we can call what we have found true

writing, " he told BBC News Online, " but we have found symbols that

have similarities to what became Indus script.

 

 

[ image: Work at Harappa is likely to fuel the debate on early writing]

Work at Harappa is likely to fuel the debate on early writing

" One of our research aims is to find more examples of these ancient

symbols and follow them as they changed and became a writing system, "

he added.

 

One major problem in determining what the symbols mean is that no one

understands the Indus language. It was unique and is now dead.

 

Dr Meadow points out that nothing similar to the 'Rosetta Stone'

exists for the Harappan text.

 

The Rosetta Stone, housed in the British museum since 1802, is a large

slab of black basalt uniquely inscribed with the same text in both

Egyptian hieroglyphs and Greek.

 

Its discovery allowed researchers to decipher the ancient Egyptian

script for the first time.

 

The Harappan language died out and did not form the basis of other

languages.

 

 

 

Dr Meadow: " The earliest inscriptions date back to 3500 BC. "

" So probably we will never know what the symbols mean, " Dr Meadow told

BBC News Online from Harappa.

 

What historians know of the Harappan civilisation makes them unique.

Their society did not like great differences between social classes or

the display of wealth by rulers. They did not leave behind large

monuments or rich graves.

 

They appear to be a peaceful people who displayed their art in smaller

works of stone.

 

Their society seems to have petered out. Around 1900 BC Harappa and

other urban centres started to decline as people left them to move

east to what is now India and the Ganges.

 

This discovery will add to the debate about the origins of the written

word.

 

It probably suggests that writing developed independently in at least

three places - Egypt, Mesopotamia and Harappa between 3500 BC and 3100 BC.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/334517.stm

[Guest guest]

HISTORY

 

Towards a scientific study of the Indus Script

 

IRAVATHAM MAHADEVAN

 

Future research should deal both with structural analysis of the Indus

texts aided by the computer and also with archaeological and

linguistic evidence to find answers to the riddle of the Indus Script.

 

Additional material with Indus inscriptions are being continually

unearthed from the older sites as well as from newly discovered sites.

It is quite likely that we may reach a critical mass of inscriptions

necessary for a successful decipherment. The criticism that there has

been little or no progress towards decipherment is also not based on

facts.

 

Photos: The Hindu Photo Library

 

AN URBAN CIVILISATION: The Great Bath of Mohenjodaro.

 

I HAVE been a researcher in this field for the last four decades.

After completing the first phase of my studies of the Tamil-Brahmi

script in 1968, I turned my attention towards the Indus Script, having

been attracted by the pioneering work of the Russian scholars led by

Yuri V. Knorozov and the Finnish scholars led by Asko Parpola. What I

found especially appealing in their brilliant work is that, unlike all

previous attempts to decipher the Indus Script, the computer was

employed to carry out sophisticated cryptanalytical procedures on a

scientific basis. I felt that similar work should be undertaken in

India also.

 

In 1970, I was awarded a Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship for this project.

In 1970-71, a photographic card catalogue of the Harappan inscribed

objects was assembled. The Indus texts and their background data were

coded in a numerical format suitable for computer analysis. An

experimental concordance was prepared in collaboration with K.

Visvanathan with the help of an IBM 1620 computer at the Fundamental

Engineering Research Establishment in the College of Engineering,

Guindy, Chennai. Publication of this paper brought me an offer of

collaboration from leading computer scientists at the Tata Institute

of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai. Mythili Rangarao designed the

computer programmes. Professor R. Narasimhan, the doyen of computer

scientists in India, guided our work at TIFR.

 

Interdisciplinary collaboration

 

This interdisciplinary collaboration resulted in the publication in

1977 of my book, The Indus Script: Texts, Concordance and Tables,

published by the Archaeological Survey of India. As the title

indicates, the book provides the basic source material in an organised

manner for further research, but does not put forward any particular

theory of linguistic decipherment. In retrospect, this has turned out

to be a very salutary precaution, as the Concordance is now used world

over by all researchers, whatever be their own views on the language

of the Indus Script.

 

 

 

Iravatham Mahadevan, an expert on the Indus Script.

 

In 1977, a computerised Input Data File was compiled at TIFR; it was

updated in 1980. This is the master file from which the pictorial

version of the Indus Texts and the Concordance (published in my 1977

book) were created through brilliant and innovative computer

programmes at TIFR. To appreciate this achievement, one must remember

that the computers of the early 1970s were much less powerful than

computers of today. We had to use punched cards to put in the data and

also to obtain the output. There were no monitors for visual check.

The pictorial version of the Indus texts has been widely acclaimed as

aesthetically appealing and close to the originals, providing research

scholars without access to the originals with reliable texts to pursue

their own lines of research.

 

Professor Gift Siromoney and his colleague, Professor Abdul Huq,

carried out further work on the Indus Script with the help of the

computer in the 1980s at the Madras Christian College. Their

collaboration resulted in the publication of a series of brilliant

research papers (and a doctoral thesis by Abdul Huq), which explored

the structural properties of the Indus texts like frequent

combinations of signs, segmentation of texts into words, and phrases,

etc. What is especially noteworthy about their work is its scientific

character without any pre-supposition on the linguistic affinities of

the Harappan people and the Indus Script.

 

Use of computers

 

The potentialities of the computerised Input Data File have not been

exhausted by my 1977 book or even by the further researches by

Professor Siromoney and his colleagues. For one thing, much of the

data compiled in the file, including details on the locus and

stratigraphy of inscribed objects, are yet to be published and remain

open to further research. For another, new data are becoming available

both from the earlier sites like Mohenjodaro and Harappa and from

newer sites like Dholavira. Stratigraphic data from sites like Lothal

and Kalibangan are still unpublished.

 

The format of the Input Data File now stored at the Indus Research

Centre (IRC) will permit all such additions, enlarging the corpus of

texts and their background data for further research. I have faith

that the availability of this material in an accessible computerised

form will attract younger scholars from university departments of

mathematics, statistics, and linguistics. They can join together in

inter-disciplinary research teams to explore further the structure of

the Indus Script and ultimately its linguistic character. Fortunately,

the Roja Muthiah Research Library (RMRL) is well equipped with the

latest computer facilities and well staffed with experts to lend

strong support to the research activities of the IRC.

 

The IRC proposes to conduct regular workshops and colloquia on

different aspects of the Indus Civilisation, including especially the

Indus Script. The centre will also arrange occasional seminars

inviting scholars in India and visiting scholars from abroad to

present their research findings. In due course, I hope it will publish

regular bulletins on the work done at the centre or by contributing

scholars elsewhere. May I take this opportunity to appeal to scholars

and research institutions engaged in similar work to let us have

copies of their books, monographs, research papers, and other

publications to enable the IRC to build up an exhaustive library on

all aspects of the Harappan civilisation and the Indus Script?

 

No ideological bias

 

I should like to lay particular emphasis on the fact that the IRC is a

forum for scientific investigations without any ideological bias. This

does not of course mean that the centre will not undertake research

into the linguistic aspects of the Indus Script. After all, linguistic

decipherment of the Indus Script is the ultimate objective of

research. What we mean when we say there should be no ideological bias

is that we should not start with preconceived notions or

presuppositions and tailor our research to fit into ideology-driven

linguistic models.

 

 

 

Still a riddle: Some examples of the Indus Script.

 

Let me illustrate this statement with a couple of examples:

 

Analysis of the Indus texts has now conclusively established that the

writing of the Indus Script was from right to left (with some minor

exceptions). Yet we find some scholars claiming that the Indus Script

should be read from left to right because that is how Sanskrit (or

Tamil) scripts are written. It is clear that all attempts to read the

Indus texts generally from the left are ab initio invalid.

 

Computer analysis has shown that the Indus texts possess only

suffixes, not prefixes or infixes. This indicates that the Harappan

language was of the suffixing type (like Dravidian), not of the

prefixing type (like Indo-Aryan).

 

Archaelogical context

 

It is also necessary for well-rounded research to look beyond the

inscriptions and take the archaeological context into account. Let me

again illustrate this with some well-known examples:

 

 

# The Indus civilisation was urban in character. The Vedic

civilisation was rural and pastoral. There is hardly any description

of city life in the Rig Veda.

 

# The Indus seals depict many animals but not the horse. The chariot

with spoked wheels is also not depicted in the Indus art. On the

contrary, these are among the main features of the society depicted in

the Rig Veda.

 

# The Harappan religion, as far as we can make out from pictorial

representations, included the worship of buffalo-horned male gods,

mother goddesses, the pipal tree, serpents, and probably also phallic

worship. Such modes of worship seem alien to the religion of the Rig Veda.

 

These examples (among many others) make it very improbable that the

Harappan city dwellers were the same as the people of the Vedic culture.

 

Substantial evidence

 

Ruling out the Aryan authorship of the Indus civilisation does not of

course automatically make it Dravidian. However there is substantial

evidence favouring that supposition. I mention the most important

aspects of the evidence without going into details:

 

 

# The survival of Dravidian languages like Brahui in North India.

 

# The presence of Dravidian loan words in the Rig Veda.

 

# The substratum influence of Dravidian languages on the Prakrit

dialects of North India.

 

The evidence indicates that Dravidian languages were once spoken

widely in North India and one or more of Dravidian dialects could well

be the language of the Indus texts.

 

Let me state with all the emphasis I can command that `Aryan' and

`Dravidian' are names of languages and not of races. Speakers of one

language can, and frequently did, switch over from one language to

another. We should not allow research into the Indus civilisation and

language to be vitiated by false notions of racial or ethnic identities.

 

Speakers of the Aryan languages indistinguishably merged with speakers

of Dravidian and Munda languages millennia ago †" creating a composite

Indian society, culture, and religious traditions containing elements

inherited from every source. It is thus more than likely that Indus

artistic and religious motifs and craft traditions have survived and

can be traced in the Sanskrit literature from the days of the Rig

Veda, and also in the old Tamil traditions recorded in the Sangam

poetry. This is the basic assumption that underlies my own work on the

interpretation of the Indus Script through bilingual parallels drawn

from Sanskrit and Old Tamil works.

 

 

Quite recently, Steve Farmer and Michael Witzel proposed that the

Indus Script was not a writing system at all but merely a collection

of picture signs conveying messages visually but not linguistically.

It is difficult to take this new theory seriously because concordances

of the Indus texts compiled by different authors (G. R. Hunter,

Parpola, and Mahadevan) are in essential agreement and bring out

obvious linguistic features like the existence of regular sign

combinations suggesting words and phrases and grammatical elements

like suffixes. Scholars like Knorozov and Gift Siromoney working

independently have also confirmed these linguistic features. The

theory that the Indus Script is no writing at all appears to me to be

defeatist, born out of frustration reflecting the lack of success of

the decipherment efforts.

 

Solving the riddle

 

Lastly, let me also refer to the view that the Indus Script can never

be deciphered owing to the limited material, their repetitive nature,

and the absence of bilingual records. I am optimistic that sooner or

later the riddle of the Indus Script will be solved.

 

My optimism is based on the following considerations. Additional

material with Indus inscriptions are being continually unearthed from

the older sites as well as from newly discovered sites. It is quite

likely that we may reach a critical mass of inscriptions necessary for

a successful decipherment. The criticism that there has been little or

no progress towards decipherment is also not based on facts.

 

While it is true that linguistic decipherment has not yet been

achieved, much preliminary work like determination of the direction of

writing, segmentation of texts into words and phrases, and isolation

of grammatical features like suffixes has been completed. In these

matters a large measure of agreement has emerged from independent work

by different scholars; this gives us the hope that we are progressing

in the right direction towards decipherment of the Indus Script.

 

I hope that future research in the IRC would deal both with structural

analysis of the Indus texts aided by the computer and also with the

archaeological and linguistic evidence such as the ones I have

mentioned above to find acceptable answers to the riddle of the Indus

Script.

 

(This article by one of the world's leading scholars on the Indus

Valley Script is based on his address at the inaugural function of the

Indus Research Centre at the Roja Muthiah Research Library, Chennai,

on January 25, 2007. Rani Siromoney has gifted her late husband Gift

Siromoney's research material on the Indus Script to the centre; and

the author said he was " only following her noble example " in gifting

his own research materials on the subject to the IRC.)

 

Printer friendly page

[Guest guest]

1

Sarasvati (mleccha) hieroglyphs (Indus Script)

Part 1c

Mleccha vaacas, aarya vaacas

There is no reference in ancient texts to ‘Dravida’ as a language

group. It appears that

'dravida' according to Patanjali's Mahabhashya simply means a group of

people or region

where tamarind is part of the staple food habit. It has nothing to do

with language or people's

ancestry. Tamarind (tamarindus indica) comes from the Arab word

meaning: tamar hindi, that

is, date from Hindusthan. O.Fr. tamarinde (15c.), from Arabic tamr

hindi, lit. " date of India. "

First element cognate with Heb. tamar " palm tree, date palm. " Naming a

region based on

flora is not uncommon. For example, jambu-dvi_pa comes from the word

jambu which is a

tree native to tropical regions of western Bharatam. There can be

speculation if the word

damira (early form of Dravida) is also related to 'tamar' palm

(Hebrew). In Sus'ruta, the word

used for trees with acid leaves is: amla-varga (flora such as lime ,

orange , pomegranate ,

tamarind , sorrel) . What could the etymology of the word amla be? In

Munda, ti.tin, tenturi

means 'tamarind'.

Hanuman speaks to Sita in

the language of the

common man (ma_nus.am

va_kyam arthavat)

Hanuman meets Sita

(Ramayana Sundarakanda, in

Indian art)

A thrilling moment in Bharatiya tradition and ethos is when Hanuman

meets Sitadevi in

As’okavana of Lanka and hands over the ring of S’rirama and assures

Sitadevi that S’rirama

is coming to take her back.

Hanuman deliberates on what language he should use while addressing Sita.

16 antaram tv aham asadya raks.asinam iha sthitah

sanair asvasayis.yami santapabahulam imam

2

17 aham hy atitanus caiva vanaras ca vises.atah

vacam codaharis.yami manus.im iha samskr.tam

18 yadi vacam pradasyami dvijatir iva samskr.tam

ravan.am manyamana mam sita bhita bhavis.yati

19 avasyam eva vaktavyam manus.am vakyam arthavat

maya santvayitum sakya nanyatheyam anindita

“To win her ear with soft address

And whisper hope in dire distress

Shall I, with an extreme Vaanara body, choose

The Sanskrit men delight to use?

If as a man of Bra_hman.a kind

I speak the tongue by rules refined

The lady, yielding to her fears,

Will think ‘tis Ravana’s voice she hears.

I must assume my only plan †"

The language of a common man.â€

[Adapted from Ralph T. Griffith’s translation of Valmiki Ramayana †"

Book V, Canto XXX,

Hanuman’s deliberation; Muir comments in Sanskrit Texts, Part II, p.

166: ‘(the reference to

language of a common man) may perhaps be understood not as a language

in which words

different from Sanskrit were used, but the employment of formal and

elaborate diction.’ Yes,

indeed, Samskr.tam as aryavaacas was differentiated from Prakrit as

mlecchavaacas only by

formality and grammatical refinement of diction.]

In this passage, the reference to the language of a common man is a

reference to mlecchavaacas

(Prakrit) as distinct from arya-vaacas (refined Samskr.tam which was

the refined

language spoken by Ravana, the Bra_hman.a king of Lanka).

Ma_nus.am va_kyam arthavat, ‘meaningful speech of the common man’,

deliberated

Hanuman and spoke to Sita in the lingua franca of the linguistic area.

The objective of this

work is to delineate such a language of the common man: mlecchavaacas

(ja_tibha_s.a_).

The words bha_s.a_, va_cas are semantic cognates of the lexemes of

Austric: basoG ‘to

speak, to say’, basoG-bi ‘to answer (a call)’, just as the Austric

word jel.jal is cognate with

Tamil word col: jel, zel ‘to say, to speak, to answer: jel.jal,

zel.zel ‘’to discuss, to converse’.

3

The semantic cluster may be seen from the following lexemes of

Bharatiya language family:

semantic cluster ‘speak; language’: bha_s.a_ speech (Mn.); bha_sa_

speech, language (Pali.

Pkt.); ba_s. word (Wg.); ba_s.a language (Dm.); bas. (Sh.); ba_s.

(D..); bha_s' (Ku.); bha_s

(N.B.Mth.); language (Konkan.i); bha_sa song (OG.); baha word, saying

(Si.); bas, baha

(Md.): dubha_siya_ interpreter (H.)(CDIAL 9479)

In the 64 arts listed by Vatsyayana in Vidyasamuddes’a, Nos.47, 48 and

49 relate to the art of

communication:

The three arts to be learnt by the youth are related to communication

in society:

The three arts relate to Communication systems of Ancient India:

Sarasvati civilization

heritage

(47) aksara-mustika-kathana--art of expressing letters/numbers with

clenched hand and

fingers. (48) mlecchita-vikalpa†" cryptography, that is, writing system

(e.g. mleccha

hieroglyphs read rebus). This cryptography using mleccha language by

Yudhishthira, Vidura

and Khanaka (a mine worker) is described in Mahabharata jatugriha

parva (shellac house

with non-metallic killer devices).

(49) des’a-bhasha-jnaana†" knowledge of spoken dialects or language

study (mleccha is a

spoken tongue, des’a-bhasha, dialect of indic language family)

Mlecchita Vikalpa (Cryptography: Vatsyayana, Mahabharata); Meluhha †"

Baloch

Meluhha lay to the east of Magan and linked wit carnelian and ivory.

Carnelian! Gujarat was

a carnelian source in the ancient world.

What was the language the sea-faring traders with Mesopotamia spoke?

Mleccha, meluhhan.

 

" Baloch " is the corrupted form of Melukhkha, Meluccha or

Mleccha, which was the

designation of the modern eastern Makkoran during the third and the

second millennia B.C.,

according to the Mesopotamian texts.[J. Hansman, " A Periplus of Magan

and Melukha " , in

BSOAS. London, 1973, p. 555; H.W. Bailey, " Mleccha, Baloc, and

Gadrosia " , in: BSOAS.

No. 36, London, 1973, pp. 584-87.Also see, Cf. K. Kartrunen, India in

Early Greek

Literature. Studia Orientalia, no. 65,Helsinki: Finnish Oriental

Society, 1989, pp. 13-14.]

[unquote] Source: Baluchistan nationalism: its origin and development

†" balochwarna.org

4

Possehl locates meluhha in the mountains of Baluchistan and meluhhan

use magilum-boat

(Possehl, Gregory. Meluhha. in: J. Reade (ed.) The Indian Ocean in

Antiquity. London:

Kegan Paul Intl. 1996a, 133†" 208 sinda refers to date-palm. (cf.

Landsberger, Die Welt des

Orients 3. 261). Shu Ilishu’s personal cylinder seal showed him to be

a translator of

Meluhhan language. “Based on cuneiform documents from Mesopotamia we

know that there

was at least one Meluhhan village in Akkad at that time, with people

called “Son of

Meluhha†living there.…The presence in Akkad of a translator of the

Meluhhan language

suggests that he may have been literate and could read the

undeciphered Indus script. This in

turn suggests that there may be bilingual Akkadian/Meluhhan tablets

somewhere in

Mesopotamia. Although such documents may not exist, Shu-ilishu’s

cylinder seal offers a

glimmer of hope for the future in unraveling the mystery of the Indus

script.†( G. Possehl,

Shu-ilishu’s cylinder seal.)

http://130.91.80.97:591/PDFs/48-1/What%20in%20the%20World.pdf

http://kalyan96.googlepages.com/brahui.pdf

Chronology and Contacts: Writing begins

circa 3500 BCE

Early potters’ marks from Rehman Dheri ca.

3500-2600 BCE [After Durrani et al. 1995].

Early script from Harappa, ca. 3300-2600 BCE. [After Fig. 4.3 in JM

Kenoyer, 1998].

Ravi potsherd with

an early writing

system (Harappa,

1998 find; after Kenoyer Slide 124).

“ca. 6500†" 2600 BCE Early Neolithic communities

are gradually linked in extensive trading networks

across the Sarasvati Sindhu Valley region. The period is characterized

by the elaboration of

ceramics, the beginning of s'ankha (turbinella pyrum) industry

(Nausharo, 6500 BCE), copper

metallurgy, stone bead making, and seal carving. The beginning of

writing is seen in the form

of graffiti on pottery from circa 3500 BCE. A more complicated writing

system seems to

have developed out of or in conjunction with this pottery-marking

system; examples exist

5

from around 2800 BCE. • ca. 2600†" 1400 BCE Numerous seals, some copper

plates and a few

weapons have been found featuring a complex writing system. A seal was

found in Daimabad

(1400 BCE) with the unique glyph of a rimmed, short-necked jar. Some

images on these

seals†" of bulls, horned headdresses, and figures seated in yoga-like

postures†" possibly relate

to later cultural and spiritual developments in Bharat and use of

copper plate inscriptions for

recording property/economic transactions.†(cf. Kenoyer opcit.)

-contd hieroglyphs1d