Decipherment of the Indus script: new angles and approaches, part 4
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These are remarks by Ron Vara from here:
ᱮᱞᱚᱱ ᱨᱤᱣ ᱢᱩᱥᱠ ( /ˈiːlɒn/ EE-lon; ᱡᱟᱱᱟᱢ ᱡᱩᱱ ᱒᱘, ᱑᱙᱗᱑) ᱩᱱᱤ ᱫᱚ ᱢᱤᱫ ᱵᱮᱯᱟᱨᱤᱭᱟᱹ ᱠᱟᱱᱟᱭ ᱚᱠᱚᱭ ᱫᱚ ᱩᱱᱤᱭᱟᱜ ᱢᱩᱲᱩᱫ ᱵᱷᱩᱢᱤᱠᱟ Tesla, Inc., SpaceX, ᱟᱨ ᱴᱩᱭᱴᱚᱨ (ᱡᱟᱦᱟᱸ ᱩᱱᱤ ᱮᱠᱥ ᱞᱮᱠᱟᱛᱮ ᱧᱩᱛᱩᱢ ᱵᱚᱫᱚᱞ ᱮᱱᱟ) ᱨᱮ ᱵᱟᱰᱟᱭᱚᱜ ᱠᱟᱱᱟ᱾
This is the first sentence in the article Elon Musk in Santali alphabet (Ol Chiki). Yes, it's an alphabetic writing system, not an abugida. What makes the Santali alphabet really elusive is that it resembles the shapes of the undeciphered Indus Valley script. Soviet archaeologists once tried to decipher IVC seals using Santali alphabet. Sounds ridiculous, but it's a sad truth that Santali is a unique language with little to no academic attention having been paid to it.
What makes Santali language itself stand out is the lack of "indianization" as compared to even Southeast Asian Austroasiatic languages like Mon and Khmer. Its phonology is still archetypically East Asian with a superimposed South Asian areal layer. Its morphology is somewhat mixed between SEA Austroasiatic prefixing and (self-innovative) highly polysynthetic verb akin to the Kiranti languages (spoken ~20 kilometres away in Nepal), so Santali is not remotely influenced by Sanskrit, except for a few Austroasiatic loanwords in early Vedic Sanskrit.
Selected readings
- "Decipherment of the Indus script: new angles and approaches, part 3" (3/28/25)
- "Decipherment of the Indus script: new angles and approaches" (3/6/25) — with useful bibliography
- "Decipherment of the Indus script: new angles and approaches, part 2" (3/22/25)
David Marjanović said,
April 18, 2025 @ 7:58 am
The Santali alphabet was invented by Raghunath Murmu in 1925. The resemblances to Indus glyphs are deliberate.
The Santali language belongs to the Munda branch of Austronesian.
Yves Rehbein said,
April 18, 2025 @ 8:14 am
I see no implication of ancient continuity:
"The Ol Chiki script was created in 1925 by Raghunath Murmu for the Santali language," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ol_Chiki_script
Santali is a Munda language in the Austroasiatic super family. Although Munda is frequently mentioned as a probable candidate for Indus Script (mostly due to Witzel in the Western perception, I suppose), it is considered less likely. In contrast, an unknown "language x" that cannot be probed is improbable but not less likely. This is para-consistent logic.
The arguments about Indus Script are chiefly inductive reasoning because it cannot be verified. So, readings may make sense (every swan that I have seen was white) but this does not exclude exceptions (a black swan event). I have only half listened to a philosophy podcast discussing Popper and Wittgenstein.
Suffice it to say the lexicon of reconstructed Proto-Munda should be interesting. Some phono-semantic matches with this or that are virtually guaranteed. Proto-Munda *harkE "moon" vs. *aŋaj "moon" (Rau apud Wikipedia) is internally inconsistent, for example . My first thought goes to Sanskrit ruc, Latin lux "light", and incidentally luna "moon".
However, Indo-European comparanda for light, bright, moon, sky, storm, cloud, dark etc. (e.g. Latin lux "light", luna "moon") are so easy to find, they find me, e.g. Armenian erkinkʻ "sky", uncertain to PIE *dyew- when I was looking for a verb "to know" (as of witness vis-a-vis white, visual etc.).
Chris Button said,
April 18, 2025 @ 11:55 pm
This makes me think of Pau Cin Hau and the two scripts he created for Zo/Kuki/Chin speakers on the Burma-India border.
Maxwell Martin said,
April 19, 2025 @ 5:30 am
Is it possible to subscribe to Language Log, that is, receive links to new posts?
Philip Taylor said,
April 19, 2025 @ 5:55 am
https://wordpress.com/log-in?redirect_to=%2Freader%2Fsubscriptions%2F%3Fs%3Dlanguagelog.ldc.upenn.edu may be that which you seek …