Statement of Intent

The purpose of this paper is to contrast and critically review the prevalent theories on the Indus Valley Writing System. After examining the various theories, the paper suggests that the Indus Valley Writing system may not have represented a spoken language.

The Indus Valley inscriptions were first found in the early 1870's. Since then, there have been various attempts at its decipherment. The findings represented a spectrum of opinions, paving way for innumerable issues of contention. After over a century, the two major schools of thought link the inscriptions to the Indo Aryan and the Dravidian languages. The issue has translated itself into a field for the clash of civilizations, with each of the groups claiming superiority over the other ancient civilizations on the basis of the proposition that the Indus Valley inscriptions represented the first script to be used, and was thus the forerunner of all the writing systems in the world.

  After decades of controversial findings and decipherment declarations, there has emerged a new possibility that the inscriptions might have not represented any language. The new theory has been met with ridicule on the ground that it sought to reduce the importance of the Indus valley civilization. The paper serves the purpose of demonstrating the probability of the no-language thesis.

  The Earliest Harappan Writing dates back to 3500 BC. The writings were found mostly on seals that were used for trade. They were occasionally found on pottery and other works of art. The last record of the Harappan Writing found dates back to 1500 BC. The sites of the findings range from Harappa in the north to Dholavira in Gujarat in the south, thus constituting an immensely large geographical area.

  The writing contains over 400 principal signs which are written from right to left. Agglutination, joining of two words to make a new word is seen in the structure of the language. The chief difficulties in decipherment were that one, we had no bilingual texts and two, attempts at identification of parent language or language family proved futile.

  Early Scholars thought that the script was the archetype of the Brahmi script, and hence the predecessor of all the Indian scripts. Their assumption seems to be based on geographical proximity of the Indus Valley to the places where the scripts of Brahmi and Kharosti later evolved. It does not take a lot to refute this theory as it did not take into account the time factor. The Indus Valley Writing and the first accounts of Brahmi are separated by at least one thousand years.

  Later scholars sought to build on this theory without verification of the ground on which it was based. This resulted in irreparable loss to the study of the IVW as later day scholars would merely research and document evidences that tend to prove this theory right. In the late 1960's, scholars proposed that the script is a dialect of Sanskrit. They based their findings on structural linguistics and the Indian audience readily accepted the notion that the 'holy language' was the first language to be spoken and written.

  Later researchers used the computer generated analysis of the writings and came to the conclusion that the writing was in fact more related to the Dravidian tongue than any other. The computer analysis was assumed to be trustworthy and the matter was thought resolved. This view prevailed for the latter half of the last century.

  The researchers failed to attempt lateral thinking on the issue. The only goal they set for themselves was linking the Indus writing to any Indian script. Any indications to the contrary to the proposed theory were seldom met with recognition.

  Let’s examine the development of writing itself, and analyze the characteristics of a writing system. Humans started using writing for the simple reason that it provided a way of extending memory by imprinting information into media less fickle than the human brain. Undoubtedly, the first instances of writing were pictographic. Based on evidences, it is believed that writing was invented independently in at least three different places, Mesopotamia, China and Mesoamerica. And predictably, the writing usually contained pictures representing a number or an animal.

  There were limitations to picture writing, it could easily convey words that had obvious graphic equivalents but abstract concepts like loyalty and friendship were impossible to represent. It then became important to use symbols as phonemes that joined together to produce a sound that had an implied meaning which was understood. Thus came into existence the first script, the Proto-Sinaitic developed from the Egyptian symbols.

  After the development of the Proto-Sinaitic script, intellectual efforts at developing scripts for different languages followed, and thus various writing systems came into existence. Modifications were made to suit the sounds of individual phonemes in the local language. Thus follows our first premise, when you write, you either have to borrow from the older signs or have to gradually develop a symbolic writing into a script.

  Now, where did we go wrong with the Indus writing decipherment? The damage was done when it was first assumed to be a script. Other writings prevalent at that time used the symbol and this fact should have been taken into account.  The example of the Vinca writings is cited by historian Steve Farmer. It was in use around 4000 BC. No one believes it to be a script, because it was never assumed to be one. Additionally, the presence of over 400 principal signs, indicated that the writing was oriented towards symbolic codes rather than signs that represented phonemes since there do not exist so many phonemes in a single language.

  As evident from the history of writing, writing had to develop from some crude form of symbols. The symbols may have developed into a script or the script itself must have been inspired by some other writing system. In case of the Indus writings, we find no ancestors. Hence the impossibility of the Indus writing representing a script follows.

    Another factor that demonstrates the impossibility of the Indus writing representing a script is the apparent lack of development in the writings. Over the many years of Harappan culture, we do not find significant levels of development in the writings. Scripts develop with time and change and form many different varieties. This process is similar to the language divergence phenomenon.

  The absence of long inscriptions, suggests that can the Indus Writing did not encode complex instructions involving lots of words that are characteristic of a language. As longest known Indus inscription is 17 characters long, the belief that it was a symbol language that represented simple identification marks such as 'tax paid' or 'God is pleased' looks plausible. Many Indus Writings carry one or two symbols. The extreme brevity of the inscriptions can be explained by the simple hypothesis that the discrete symbols do not code for an oral language. A study of some of the symbols shows that it may have denoted the positions of people. Representations of animals such as the mythical unicorn, the elephant, the fish, the rhino and the bull are not usually associated with phonemes.

  The failure of repeated decipherment efforts of the writing reaffirms that that the Indus writing system left no descendents. A similar case is the Etruscan language, failure to understand the language implies that Etruscan is not related to any language known today. We can read the Etruscan script but we cannot understand the underlying meaning.

If the Brahmi was evolved from the Indus writings, decipherment attempts would extensively use the Brahmi script. Consider the theory that there was a Sanskrit or Dravidian angle to the Indus writing. In either case, knowledge of these languages should have helped decipherment efforts. Unfortunately, neither Sanskrit nor any of the Dravidian languages aid decipherment efforts. Nor does the Brahmi script. A few instances where scholars have claimed that the Indo-Aryan languages can be used to understand the Indus writing have proved more humorous than informative. Palmyrene, the ancient Syrian script was deciphered using a handful of inscriptions found in the walls of the ancient city of Palmyra since the scholars knew that it resembled Syriac. The Indus Writing has eluded decipherment as it does not code a language that is Indo Aryan or Dravidian.

  If the Indo Aryan angle is to be believed, the fact that the Indus writings do not show cultural similarity with the Indo Aryan race is evident. For instance, Indo Aryans domesticated horses and kept chariots, traits that were not shared by the Indus people.

  The theory that a great deal of information has been lost due to extensive use of perishable materials by the Indus scribes is not acceptable on the grounds that when writing was prevalent, it did not make sense for the people to restrict their writings to perishable materials only, there should have been writings on walls, in caves or at least depictions of writing in works of art.

  The argument that the Indus writing shows linearity instead of randomness in pattern and hence is a form of developed writing as against random signs is a question that we need to ponder on. Additionally, many of the inscriptions show word-crowding at the end of a line, as if to avoid breaking a word. Perhaps the writing followed a set of basic rules which govern its usage. Such sort of rules are not peculiar to scripts, they may be exhibited by symbolic writing too.

  The theory that the Indus writing was not a script does not take anything away from the Indus civilization itself. The usage of a script is not a marker of civilization. There are many urban cultures in the world that did not employ scripts such as the Andean culture; that did not prevent them from building an impressive empire.

  Given the vast extent of archaeological ruins, the Indus Valley would have qualified as the largest literate society in the ancient world if the script hypothesis were true. We know that is not the case. Hence, it must have been a system of symbols, like the symbol codes of the Aztecs who invented a uniform system of symbols that everyone could understand, though they spoke a variety of languages.

 REFERENCES

1. "The collapse of the Indus Script Thesis : The Myth of a literate Harappan civilizations" - Steve Farmer, Richard Sproat and Michael Witzel
2. www.cs.colostate.edu/~malaiya/scripts.html
3. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_script
4. www.ancientscripts.com/ws_families.html www.harappa.com/script
5. www.ancientscripts.com
6. www.bhashaindia.com
7. www.nvtc.gov
8. www.ukindia.com
9. www.zompist.com
10. www.medievalwriting.50megs.com
11. www.straightdope.com
12. www.cmi.ac.in
13. www.omniglot.com
14. www.lost-civilizations.net
15. www.ontopia.net
16. www.appiusforum.com
17. www.iut.univ-paris8.fr