On Indus Civ. signs

[Michael Witzel]

QED of what I said about journalists. Advice : use equal scrutiny  
with regard to the rest of what they write:

Half-understood and sensation-geared. Or brain-dead, as in this case.

---

Instead, we will have a *serious* discussion of these points at our  
12th Round Table at Kyoto, May 30-31, in front of many archaeologists  
from the subcontinent, America, Europe and Japan...

See: <http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/12thRT.htm>

We will report then.

Cheers,

Michael


On Apr 25, 2009, at 7:18 AM, Asko Parpola wrote:

> I think the context makes it clear that the Guardian quote should  
> have been: "Writing is one of the hallmarks of civilization ..."
>
> Best regards, Asko Parpola
>
> Michael Witzel wrote:
>
> Parpola said ...
>
> And the Guardian, in rather garbled fashion, has him say:
> ""Language is one of the hallmarks of a literate civilisation. If  
> it's real writing, we have a chance to know their language and to  
> get to know more about their religion and other aspects of their  
> culture. We don't have any literature from the region that can be  
> understood."
>
> To my mind at least, language is a hallmark of ANY human culture,  
> whether hunter-gatherer or state society...

============
Michael Witzel
witzel at fas.harvard.edu
<www.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm>

Dept. of Sanskrit & Indian Studies, Harvard University
1 Bow Street,
Cambridge MA 02138, USA

phone: 1- 617 - 495 3295 (voice & messages), 496 8570, fax 617 - 496  
8571;
my direct line:  617- 496 2990