A computer analysis of symbols inscribed on stone tablets and artifacts more than 4,000 years ago has prompted a new debate on a fiercely contested question: Did the people of the Indus Valley civilization have a written language? According to the researchers who conducted the latest analysis, the answer is yes, and the next step is to search for the grammatical rules governing the language. But other researchers have harsh words for the methods used in the study. “As they say: garbage in, garbage out,” [New Scientist], one critic says.
The Indus civilisation flourished in isolation 4,500 years ago along the border of what is now eastern Pakistan, but almost no historical information exists about the people and their long-lost community. Archaeologists working in the region have unearthed a rich hoard of artifacts, including amulets, seals and ceramic tablets, many of which are embellished with the unusual symbols [The Guardian]. But some researchers contend that the symbols are simply religious or political imagery, and that they don’t add up to a language. They note that most of the inscriptions are extremely short (averaging only four or five symbols), and that few symbols are used repeatedly.
For the new study, which will be published in Science, computer scientist Rajesh Rao used pattern-analyzing software to first analyze a collection of languages, including Sanskrit, ancient Sumerian, and modern English. They then examined other information systems, including a computer programming language and the sequence of DNA. The analysis used what is called “conditional entropy”. When aimed at language, this statistical technique comes up with a measure for the “orderedness” of words, letters or characters – from totally ordered to utterly random [New Scientist]. Rao’s team found that the computer programming language was highly ordered (to avoid ambiguity in commands), the DNA sequence was very random, and that spoken languages fell in the middle.
When they next seeded the program with fragments of Indus script, it returned with grammatical rules based on patterns of symbol arrangement. These proved to be moderately ordered, just like spoken languages…. [A]ccording to Rao, this early analysis provides a foundation for a more comprehensive understanding of Indus script grammar, and ultimately its meaning. “The next step is to create a grammar from the data that we have” [Wired], he says.
But researchers on the other side of the argument say that comparing the inscriptions on the Indus tablet to a small handful of languages and other information systems doesn’t provide nearly enough information to reach an informed conclusion, and argue that Rao’s team has just impressed its audience with a fancy computer trick. “There’s zero chance the Indus valley is literate. Zero,” says Steve Farmer, … who authored a 2004 paper with two academics with the goading title “The Collapse of the Indus Script Thesis: The myth of a literate Harappan civilization” [New Scientist].
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Image: J.M. Kenoyer/Harrapa.com
April 24th, 2009 at 12:13 am
I tend to believe that the ancients were a lot smarter than we give them credit for. Case in point, my oft-brought-up Kerkythea mechanism, or the chromed swords of the Terracotta Army.
April 24th, 2009 at 3:53 am
to be more credible, the paper should have included/compared proven non-scripts (sign based inscriptions) in the study. Without these it is not worth giving serious consideration.
April 24th, 2009 at 9:30 am
It is interesting to see a fresh trial for a solution to an old problem. If the method could be improved well and good. It is good to have a few proven non- scripts in such study.But endless refinement cannot be undertaken initially either. More over we can do it still. But there is no point in criticizing any effort as unscientifically as saying that there is zero chance for indus valley people to have been literate. No scientist who has studied statistics will come up with such a stance unless she herself lived at the time in question, in which case, as per her hypothisis any way she would not be literate!! but Farmer can safely bet on his own opinion. Can’t others do the same with a greater truth?
Funny indeed are the ways of the world, even the literate one.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:45 am
*sigh* science and skeptics always claim to know 100% of the facts until they prove themselves wrong. I’m not saying they were literate, but c’mon, how do you just dismiss the possibility. as nick says, they were a lot smarter than we credit them, and this is proven time and again, especially of late.
not to mention, being open minded in fields like science is the only way to truly solve the mysteries of the world. if you just write something off without proving or disproving the facts surrounding it, no matter how far fetched they may seem, how are you ever going to advance?
April 24th, 2009 at 11:34 am
In an undergraduate paper I wrote on Mohenjo-Daro, oh so many years ago, I recall such Indus Valley scripts being associated with trade ledgers, not unlike in various maya codices where ideograms were used to track trade goods. I didn’t see this mentioned anywhere above. The archeological record at Mohenjo-Daro suggests social hierarchy, craft specialization, water engineering, trade etc. More credit indeed – busy, sophisticated folks. Is doesn’t seem reasonable to dismiss with such certainty that Indus Valley ideograms lack syntax – instead, it requires futher investigation.
April 25th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
“Experts” had also said flying, going to space are impossible, or nobody would want to watch
TV instead of listening to radio, and so on and on… It never ends! ^_^
April 25th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
Why diagreement?
Language was never invented! It developed from simple signs necessary for indirect communication! Its origin being trail reading!
After all, when one can read a trail, someone has already written it!
Purposely added clues were the next development.
The writing and reading of the clues is basic grammar as the order is all important!
The teaching of track reading is basic language teaching.
Back then, a gramatical error could very well have spelled,”death”!
regards aquatic thinking.
April 25th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
It seems to me that the two arguments against the Indus script thesis used in the article, short inscriptions and few symbols used repeatedly, are really reaching for something to disprove the theory. I believe that the length of a script is irrelevant to whether or not it is a language. Also it stands to reason that in short scripts there will be few if any repeating symbols, since it is a short script. An open mind is required when dealing with the unknown, and jumping to conclusions in a scientific inquiry should be avoided. Such a definitive statement saying that there is “zero chance” of literacy in the ancient Indus valley makes me suspect the motivations behind the statement, and shows a closed mind. I would not be surprised if competition for research money was a motivating factor, or simple jealousy, in this debate.
April 26th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Kerkythea mechanism?
You mean the antikythera mechanism?
Stop saying Kerkythea, ,thats a graphics rendering system for modern computers.
April 28th, 2009 at 3:17 am
Hi Folks!
I’m afraid some of you have missed the point. Have you read the paper by Farmer, Sproat and Witzel? You can find it here. Moreover, I strongly recommend reading their ‘refutation of the refutation’ BEFORE you make any dismissive conclusions, because what they say is really important here . Also see the following link for the maths behind: .
In short, what Farmer, Sproat & Witzel say is that using FAKE data sets and statistical information that has never been shown to be of any relevance to deciding whether a given system is of linguistic or non-linguistic origin is simply pointless and doesn’t prove anything.
It quite natural that the Hindutva nationalist movement dislikes the idea of illiterate society. We should all realize, however, that there’s nothing bad in accepting this. Contrary to that, it may open new horizons in comparative work, since non-linguistic symbol systems are as important for the study of human past as any other archeological data. They carry important information which should be, is and will be studied carefully – no need to worry…
Believe me, everyone, including Farmer, Sproat and Witzel, would be happy if the Indus ’script’ were a linguistic SCRIPT, indeed, because that would give us an extraordinary source of information about the culture. However, if the ’script’ isn’t a SCRIIPT, it is necessary to stop wasting time with ‘deciphering’ or ‘translating’ efforts and start to investigate the symbols in a totally different way in order to extract as much useful information from them as possible…
June 26th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
@Petusek:
Feeding known fake data into the program tests the programs false positive rate, so a reliable measure of the PPV of the test can be gained. Then, when the program returns a yes for the test script, it’s reliability can be trusted, and discussed.
It’s not testing the script, it’s testing the program.