Harappan 'non-texts'?

[Stephen Hodge]

Guillaume Jacques wrote:

> I should say that homonymy in chinese characters is the rather
recent.
> of phonetic erotion and increased word-compounding.
Though all this, as you acknowledge, has no immediate Indological
relevance, I feel I should reply to this since it was my suggestion.
I am a well aware of the various points have raised so I have problem
about the probable nature of archaic Chinese.

> However, if the Indus Script had been comparable in complexity with
> Chinese, we should have expected a much higher number of signs.
I was not suggesting that IV script was necessarily logographic or
ideographic.  More by way of thinking aloud, I was wondering if the IV
script was syllabic.  Most syllabic scripts have a small quantity of
symbols to represent each one since all the systems I know are V or
CV.  If a script were syllabic, then judging from a language like
modern Chinese which has V, VC, CV and CVC, one might expect to end up
with around 450 odd signs  -- this is not to suggest that the IV
language was "monosyllabic".   If, for the sake of argument, one took
a simple 5 vowel system which did not distinguish length and worked
through all the permutations of the consonants together with finals
nasals represented by anusvara and also those ending with a visarga
type of aspiration thus ka ki ku ke ko, kam kim, kum, kem, kom, kah,
kih, kuh, keh, koh, multiply this by, say by way of example, the 28
non-vocalics aksaras of Sanskrit (simplifying all prevocalic nasals to
"n") we end up with exactly 450, not forgetting to add a few extra
signs for vowels.   I merely voiced this observation because it seemed
an interesting coincidence that the basic range of IV symbols is said
by some to be around 450.  Note however that this kind of rotational
end-stopped syllabic system was not unknown in India -- I have worked
extensively on a Buddhist tantra which presents exactly this set of
permutations as a Wheel of Letters -- not doubt other subscribers will
know of others.

Having said the above, I acknowledge I have not looked at IV script in
any detail nor do I have any theories about what language might be
represented by it. Not doubt others wiser than myself will see reasons
why this suggestion would not fit the known facts about IV script.

Best wishes,
Stephen Hodge