Monday, June 5, 2017

One Guy's Ideas About Links Between The Harappan And Brahmi Script

The paper is Subhajit Ganguly, "Relation Between Harappan And Brahmi Scripts" (copyright 2012 uploaded in 2017).

It is posted on the vixra site (an ungated pre-print archive mostly for non-professional researchers) which is notorious for crackpot postings, particularly in some of its forums such as those related to fundamental physics, but is not always so far off the mark in some of its other forums. Nothing on the vixra site, including this paper, should be taken as proven, but every once and a while one of its authors produce some interesting ideas like this one that deserve a little further attention. There are several other papers posted at the site by the same author on the same theme.

The abstract states:
Around 45 odd signs out of the total number of Harappan signs found make up almost 100 percent of the inscriptions, in some form or other, as said earlier. Out of these 45 signs, around 40 are readily distinguishable. These form an almost exclusive and unique set. The primary signs are seen to have many variants, as in Brahmi. Many of these provide us with quite a vivid picture of their evolution, depending upon the factors of time, place and usefulness. Even minor adjustments in such signs, depending upon these factors, are noteworthy. Many of the signs in this list are the same as or are very similar to the corresponding Brahmi signs. These are similarities that simply cannot arise from mere chance. It is also to be noted that the most frequently used signs in the Brahmi look so similar to the most frequent Harappan symbols. The Harappan script transformed naturally into the Brahmi, depending upon the factors channelizing evolution of scripts.
The Harappan script is last attested ca. 1900 BCE when that civilization collapsed and remains undeciphered with disputed theories regarding its origins and the origins of the language it describes. There are credible claims, however, that it continued to be used on a limited basis until 1500 BCE or even as late as 1100 BCE. There is serious dispute over whether the Harappan script codes a true language, or merely a proto-language made up mostly of trademarks, analogous to the Vinca script of the Neolithic Vinca culture in the Balkans. Per Wikipedia
An opposing hypothesis that has been offered by Michael Witzel and Steve Farmer, is that these [Harappan] symbols are nonlinguistic signs which symbolise families, clans, gods, and religious concepts—similar to components of coats of arms or totem poles. In a 2004 article, Farmer, Sproat, and Witzel presented a number of arguments stating that the Indus script is nonlinguistic, principal among them being the extreme brevity of the inscriptions, the existence of too many rare signs (increasing over the 700-year period of the Mature Harappan civilization), and the lack of the random-looking sign repetition typical of language.
A couple of credible academic claims have been made, however, that the script actually codes the Harappan language.

The earliest attested version of the Brahmi script is roughly the 3rd century BCE and its origins are disputed among professionals, and it wouldn't take many undiscovered inscriptions to bridge the gap in an area where there is probably a significant amount remaining to be discovered in the archaeological record. The leading view is that the Brahmi script is ultimately derived from the Phoenician script that is the source of the Roman and Greek alphabets, for example, but this is not a consensus view and the argument for an indigenous origin of the script also has credible supporters within academic linguistics.

10 comments:

DDeden said...

Oldest "7" had a central slash, not found in the Brahmi script shown, but in Phoenician and (inverted) Chinese, indicating 7 angles.

andrew said...

Interesting.

DDeden said...

Numbers_0_9_.pps is the filename that shows the sequence, but incorrectly claims zero came via Arab-Hindu zifr, it actually is from KhoiSan !kung: !hxaro which means ostrich egg, used as canteens, etched & gifted, originating the many words for exchange/cargo/charge/share etc. Chinese zero is Ling. !hxaro + ling = caroling/cantor sing & swing incense/bell/water canteen.

andrew said...

Your assertion re the number zero is very dubious. The timing and means to transmit this kind of symbol doesn't add up.

DDeden said...

See Wikipedia: shiva lingam, egg-shaped (or column) symbol of Shiva

There is much more support...

(unable to paste link here presently)

DDeden said...

re. Lingam, "formless universe bearer", is very close to 'formless/fluid/water bearer' which is [I]!hxaro[/I] (!Kung: ostrich eggshell) and [I]aka uru[/I](!Xam: water bearer moon) which is root of aqua.rium & aqua.rius (both water bearers/chambers) which in earlier variant form was *Xyambuatla (chamber-water, alternatively, sky-bottle, alternatively (o)cyan.boat (coracle) etc.).

The idea that zero represented formlessness (nothingness) given symbolic oval form within a life-giving oval shell is quite logical.
That the eggshell was gifted to someone who had none (0) is too.

Zero is certainly related to zifr, but is direct descendant of ancient !hxaro trade network, which extended to Australia in the form of Tsuringa exchange of a blank wooden plaque (to be illustrated family history-journey) for an oceanic mollusk shell which is also etched zigzag, similar to etched SAfr ostrich shells 75ka and etched Javanese freshwater clamshell 400ka found by DuBois and discovered by S. Munro & J. Joordens.

Tsuringa ~ hxaro.ling.am ~ have.nothing.

Also, recall our discussion on Aka? It is in here: talkative, qal(Tigrinha), aka uru (!Xam: water bearer moon-mouth-smile=horned moon, a symbol of the ostrich eggshell within a netbag as used by both KhoiSan and Papuan women.

Very likely, sago (35ka: Papua-Moluccas) & taro (26ka: Solomon isles.) were originally thought of as water bearers tu[b]ber[/b]s = !hxaro, both having a rind that sealed (=hxaro) in moisture.

Some chimps in Congo dig up and carry water-rich tubers around during the dry season.

Again, much more, but if you still doubt it, I probably can't convince you anyway.

DDeden said...

Interestingly, the Carolingian Cross has 4 crescent moons intertwined (re. !hxaro.ling, aka uru). Might they have been refugee traders during the onset of Islam? I think they wore turbans.

I'll post more info. at my blog ddeden-the-arc if interested.

DDeden said...

More support:

engur (Sumerian) subsoil water (internal water, as opposed to open exposed water)

endura (Mbuti) internal/interior

*ȅzero, *ȍzero (Proto-Balto-Slavic) water body/bound, edge *

!hxaro (KhoiSan !Kung) ostrich eggshell canteen, etched & exchanged/gifted

zero (English) 0, nothing

xeric (Greek) - no water, arid

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/xeric

* Note: (Baltic) Dane mtDNA L from Middle East (IMO morphology similar to Andaman-KhoiSan females, like the Venus figurines, unlike today Middle Eastern females)
-
re.
Complex spatio-temporal distribution and genogeographic affinity of mitochondrial - DNA haplogroups in 24,216 Danes - Jonas Bybjerg-Grauholm 2017

DDeden said...

Andrew, I remain confident that !hxaro (!Kung San: reciprocity) did 'morph' into zero, with zifr (Arabic) only the historically recorded source. ZIFR@Arabic: ZERO
reCIPROcity/reCIPROcal@English: ~ eQUAl eXCHANGE (zero sum) SHARE
!HXARO@!Kung(African Bushman): reCIPROcal GIFT eXCHANGE of eTCHEd/eNGRAVed/iNSCRIBed oSTRIch eGGSHELLs (cant.eens) by womens' TRAde-TRAil-TREk-TLEco network. This T.RADItion/RADIation has evidential continuity +60ka (So. Africa) and disTRIBution (China, Mesopotamia).
.

andrew said...

Interesting research.