lingvoj.org

Linked Languages Resources

Indus Valley Language

xiv

Search languages

Powered by Freebase

The Harappan language (AKA the Indus or Mohenjo-Daro language) is the unknown language or languages of the Bronze Age Harappan civilization (Indus Valley Civilization, or 'IVC'). The language being unattested in any readable contemporary source, hypotheses regarding its nature are reduced to purported loanwords and substratum influence, notably the substratum in Vedic Sanskrit and a few terms recorded in Sumerian cuneiform, in conjunction with analyses of the undeciphered Indus script. There are a number of hypotheses as to the nature of this unknown language: an Indo-European language, close or identical to Proto-Indo-Iranian: suggested by Shikaripura Ranganatha Rao. The Elamo-Dravidian hypothesis places it in the vicinity of either Elamite or Dravidian, perhaps identical with Proto-Dravidian itself. This is endorsed by Kamil Zvelebil, Asko Parpola and Iravatham Mahadevan. Michael Witzel (2001) as an alternative to the Elamo-Dravidian hypothesis suggests an underlying, prefixing language that is similar to Austroasiatic, notably Khasi; he calls it para-Munda (i.e. a language related to the Munda subgroup or other Austroasiatic languages, but not strictly descended from the last common predecessor of the contemporary Munda family). a lost phylum, i.e. a language with no living continuants (or perhaps a last living reflex in the moribund Nihali language). In this case, the only trace left by the language of the Indus Valley Civilization would be historical substratum influence, in particular the substratum in Vedic Sanskrit. a Semitic language: Malati Shendge (1997) identified the Harappan culture with an Asura empire, and these Asura further with the Assyrians. There is a handful of possible loanwords reflecting the language of the Indus Valley Civilization. Sumerian Meluhha may be derived from a native term for the Indus Valley Civilization, also reflected in Sanskrit mleccha, and Witzel (2000) further suggests that Sumerian šimmar (a type of tree) may be cognate to Rigvedic śimbala and śalmali (also names of trees). The question has some political significance in Indian politics, the Dravidian and Indo-European hypotheses being embraced by Dravidian and Hindu nationalists, respectively (see Indigenous Aryans for details).
Source : DBpedia

Names (more)

Technical notes

This page is providing structured data for the language Indus Valley Language.
Following BCP 47 the recommended tag for this language is xiv.

This page is marked up using RDFa, schema.org, and other linked open vocabularies. The raw RDF data can be extracted using the W3C RDFa Distiller.

Freebase search uses the Freebase API, based on ISO 639-3 codes shared by Freebase language records.

ISO 639 Codes

Linked Data URIs

Sources