Harappan non-texts

[Stephen Hodge]

Dr Farmer wrote:
>   In terms of differences in style, the characters in Text A
>   are written in 'small seal' form, an old style of writing
>   that was to be abandoned in the Han;  the characters in Text B
>   by way of contrast, are written in the more modern "clerical"
>   script. This is one indication that Text A was copied before Text
B.

According to Chinese sources on the development of the script, the
"small seal" style (Text A) was the official script during the Qin
period but because it was awkward to write quickly the clerical script
(Text B) was developed but these existed in tandem -- a bit like
Egyptian hieroglyphs with hieratic and later demotic.   However, the
various styles of writing Chinese were used anachronistically for
various purposes down to the present -- Japanese personal seals used
daily by millions still use small seal script.

I agree overall with the other authorities you quote although it does
rather seem to be a matter of emphasis -- the Chinese seem to prefer
to emphasize the continuity aspect.  Thus Yin Binyong, a senior
academician at the Beijing Institute of Applied Linguistics, says
"although there have been many changes in their forms, from the point
of view of the writing system as a whole, there has been no basic
qualitative change."

> M. Witzel is right: All specialists agree that before the Han
> dynasty ancient Chinese was anything *but* "fixed" !
>
But that is not quite the same as saying "the Chinese script of 300
BCE is not that of 300 CE" -- true there are many changes,
simplifications and changes in calligraphic style but the bulk of
characters in use during the Han period and later can be traced
clearly back to the small and earlier large seal scripts.   A quick
look at Morohashi or the Hanyu Dazidian dictionaries will confirm
this.
There have also been many non-standard characters in existence
throughout Chinese literary history that are recognized as variants on
"official" forms.   Anyway, all this corroborates your views about
scribal pressures towards simplification to produce literature in bulk
which is something not apparent in IV script -- even if that script
was preserved as an official "archaic" form one would expect more
cursive forms of the script to have been used in tandem as with
Chinese and other languages.

***************
Michael Witzel wrote:
Yes, in modern N. Chinese (Beijing). And that's an extreme case, with
just CV or CV+Nasal shapes of syllables. Even modern S. Chinese and
earlier N. Chinese have more possibilities. Add, for ex.
southern -p, -t, -k (as in Chang Kai Chek) and you get quite a few
more than 420...
*****
Yes, I am aware of this as I use early medieval Chinese transcriptions
to reconstruct Indic original terms from Buddhist texts.   But there
were still a fairly limited number of possible syllables since I
believe you do not get final p/t/k in all possible post-vocalic
combinations.  It is a moot question whether ancient Chinese was tonal
at all but some theorize that tones arose with the impoverishment of
the permissible shape of words and phonetic system.  This can be seen
with modern Tibetan which has rapidly become a tonal language over the
past 50 years for similar reasons (under Chinese influence, no doubt).

>>if the [IV] script
>>worked on a syllabic basis as with Chinese words you might expect
>>around 400 -- 600 signs.

>Based on what type of language ??

I was just commenting on the coincidence rather than theorizing any
particular language.  Through your own research, you have certain
theories about what the IV language might have been like and I am not
in a position to disagree with you since that is not my field of
expertise though I note that other people have other theories --
Dravidian etc.  A "mono-syllabic" Tibeto-Burman type of language might
fit this small range of signs but I will leave that to others to argue
over.  It does seem to me however that 400 - 600 logographic signs is
pretty sparse for a sophisticated writing system which adds weight to
the mnemonic theory -- in which case there is probably no hope of ever
deciphering the script as with Easter Island rongo-rongo.

Best wishes,
Stephen Hodge