Jyeshtha Shuddha Dwadashi
The deciphering of the mysterious scripts and symbols used by the long-lost Indus civilization has eluded scholars since the scripts were first discovered a century-and-a-half ago.
In his new study, published in the May 2009 issue of Science, Rao said he and his collaborators have found that the ancient Indus symbols may be more than simple drawings. Instead, Rao’s study suggests that the symbols meet the criteria of a highly structured language.
“The history of decipherment efforts has been a mishmash of crazy ideas,” said Rajesh Rao, a professor of computer science and engineering at the UW. “There have been all kinds of theories and speculations regarding what these Indus scripts mean.”
Scholars are eager and motivated to unlock the possible meaning of the script because understanding a civilization’s language can lead to an understanding of its culture. However, a key to unlocking and deciphering the language has not yet been discovered, so scholars and academics worldwide face a tremendous challenge when trying to apply meaning to these symbols.
“The way ancient and unknown scripts are usually deciphered is through some sort of external clue — that is, some sort of applicable knowledge,” said Richard Solomon, professor of ancient language and literature at the UW. “That is how the Mesopotamian scripts were deciphered.”
Solomon said his inclination is that the scripts are a language, as Rao has found.
“I look at the [scripts] and think of thousands and thousands of other [scripts] from the ancient world that have since been recognized as languages,” Solomon said.
Solomon, however, also acknowledged the prevalence and newfound popularity of another theory causing a stir in academia: that the symbols found on the scripts are not a language and have no meaning other than aesthetics.
Rao set out to verify the hypothesis that the script encodes a language through a combination of statistical analysis and computer algorithms.
He first learned of the Indus symbols during high school in India. From then on, Rao was intrigued by the mystery surrounding their meaning. While on a sabbatical to India in 2007, Rao teamed up with a group at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai, which was already working toward determining the language value of the script.
“Since we don’t know how to decipher the script, we can start at a level to see what the statistical patterns are,” Rao said. “Which symbols can follow other symbols?”
Rao employed his computer-science expertise and worked with his team to compute the “conditional entropy” of the language.
Conditional entropy is a complex concept that measures how much flexibility is allowed within a series or language.
Most modern languages have conditional entropy that falls in the middle of the spectrum — that is, neither completely structured, nor completely lacking in structure.
Rao’s study shows that the Indus script’s conditional entropy does fall in the middle of the spectrum, which supports the hypothesis that the script is a language.
The innovative study has rejuvenated interest and the controversy surrounding the Indus script. After being published in Science, the findings were covered by the science media worldwide, including Wired magazine and the BBC.
For now, Rao and his team in India hope to continue their work with the Indus scripts.
One of the hopes for decipherment, said Solomon, is that a bilingual document like the Rosetta Stone will be uncovered, with a common text written out in a known language as well as the unknown one. An artifact like this would act as a key to unlocking the mysterious meaning of the Indus scripts.
“I have this thought that [the key or bilingual document] may be in a back drawer in the storage of a Baghdad museum,” Solomon said. “Things get shoved into corners. Sometimes great discoveries are made in the back rooms. I have a feeling it may be somewhere.”
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