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Undeciphered Ancient Indus Script | ||
Tags: Dead Languages | History | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
 meramarina Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5968 days ago 1341 posts - 2303 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, French Personal Language Map | Message 1 of 7 30 March 2010 at 11:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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I found an interesting magazine article today in the magazine Archaeology, not something I usually read (although it's a great subject) but the title is (I think) "The World's Last Undeciphered Ancient Script." The article is unfortunately not online, but there is an abstract here:
The Indus Enigma and more related information here: the puzzle of undeciphered ancient scripts Excellent reading if you enjoy a good historical enigma! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5423 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 2 of 7 31 March 2010 at 8:15am | IP Logged | ||
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That was very interesting!
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 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 7 31 March 2010 at 11:33am | IP Logged | ||
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.. but it isn't the last undeciphered script of the ancient world. There is a list of such scripts at the Omniglot site, with some supplementary links concerning the Indus Valley script.
I'm not sure that the content of the writings in itself will be particularly witty or profound - the culture of Mohenjo Darians / Harappans was almost too orderly and sober, as if the whole civilization had been designed and implemented by accountant-priests, so presumably their scribes just wrote about things of interest to accountants. But being able to read these texts could tell us a lot about the emergence of civilisation and about the population in the region 5000 years ago, - was it related to the present day Dravidian population, for instance? After all, the texts written in Linear B were exuberantly boring, - but now we know at least what the Minoans wrote about. Btw, I particularly liked the following quote from the second of Meramarina's links: You write about a number of unlikely researchers who have tried their hand at decipherment. Why are so many eccentric personalities attracted to the decipherment of lost languages? One of the truths of archaeological decipherment is that it attracts both geniuses and cranks; and it is not always easy to tell the two apart. Ventris was a genius--but the fact remains that he never attended a university and certainly never studied Greek professionally. Some of the scholars who contributed to the Mayan decipherment were amateurs to begin with, in particular the late Linda Schele, who was an art teacher. Breakthroughs in decipherment seem to require broad knowledge and lateral thinking, as well as a logical, linguistically trained mind--and this combination is more often found in "eccentrics" than in conventional scholars. Edited by Iversen on 31 March 2010 at 11:36am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| meramarina Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5968 days ago 1341 posts - 2303 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, French Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 7 01 April 2010 at 7:55am | IP Logged | ||
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I like that too! Thanks for the Omniglot link. I'll have to look at that more closely.
I was wondering, when I saw the article title, how it could be possible that only one ancient script was undecipherable. I also like the end: You end Lost Languages with a quote from the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore: "The worm thinks it strange and foolish that man does not eat his books." Why did you decide to end a book on undeciphered scripts with this line? This epigram reminds us that writing--and all that flows from its invention, including decipherment--with its incredible diversity, is something singularly human that reminded me of something I read and I looked it up: Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Sir Francis Bacon English author, courtier, & philosopher (1561 - 1626) True, I think, for language books also! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5423 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 7 02 April 2010 at 5:04am | IP Logged | ||
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| Wordmaven Newbie United States Joined 5238 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes | Message 6 of 7 07 October 2010 at 9:54am | IP Logged | ||
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New Indus Script Dictionary:
http://harappanwriting.piczo.com 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 7 of 7 08 October 2010 at 11:48am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm very interested in the credentials of the peers that reviewed these findings.
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