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Anything IE is extremely unlikely as a language for the Indus seals; it only really fits with an out of India model of Indo-European, which is outright rejected
by arnsholt 5y ago
Anything IE is extremely unlikely as a language for the Indus seals; it only really fits with an out of India model of Indo-European, which is outright rejected by all serious scholars AFAIK. If we're going to look for contemporary relatives of the Indus language, the serious candidate is Dravidian. The Dravidian family was in India around the right time, and was definitely spoken in a larger area prior to the Aryan invasions.
- hasmanean 5y agoI don’t think the Indus Valley seals are a script at all. They might be more like corporate logos. Try deciphering the english language from a bunch of billboards and pop/cans. Even if you figure out the alphabet there aren’t enough words to construct a single sentence. All the AI in the universe won’t help when the problem is lack of real data.
- arnsholt 5y agoWell, names and titles are still language, but I agree with your actual point: the Indus inscriptions seem to be too short and probably not general enough to allow an in-depth understanding without finding new, longer texts.
- mcswell 5y agoThat was Sproat et al's point. (Sorry, I can't remember the other authors, I just happen to know Richard Sproat.)