--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> Here's Iravatham Mahadevan's critical assessment of Asko Parpola's
admittedly ingenious attempt to decipher the Indus script:
>
> http://www.harappa.com/script/maha15.html
>
> Retroflexion is of course characteristic of Dravidian, but if Rigvedic
Indo-Aryan had the retroflex series before it began to borrow words from
Dravidian, one has to consider other substare languages as the possible
source of retroflexion -- perhaps in Dravidian _as well as_ Indo-Aryan.
Retroflex consonants occur also in Burushaski (a linguistic isolate), in
Dardic, Nuristani, and in the Iranian languages of the Afghan region
(Pashto, Parachi, Ormuri, some Baluchi dialects, most of the Pamir
languages). As these languages do not form a genetic grouping, only a
geographical one, retroflexion must be considered an areal trait,
possibly picked up from a pre-IE substrate of Central Asia.
>
> Piotr
>
>
I. Mahadevan is also sure, and pursuing the IVC script as Dravidian.
Of course there are some differences between Parpola and Mahadevan,
in certain signs. Both have published about the god Murukan
worship in IVC. And, both agree on the fish-star (tamil has mIn
for both) idea, and the IVC seals representing stars as fish.
I can point to another example from old tamil texts. Dravidians
use fish to denote star, mIn = fish as well as star.
In Tamil, pullutal 'to hug'. pulli = wall-lizard = palli.
In the head jewelry stuck on a girl's head is pullakam (old tamil
texts), made in the shape of wall-lizard (palli/pulli).
Note that fish is harder to sculpt than a star symbol,
similar to wall-lizard harder to make than a crescent or sun.
Regards,
N. Ganesan