The Script of Harappa and Mohenjodaro and its Connection with Other Scripts c10.s39: Analysis of Tables LII and LIII
The Script of Harappa and Mohenjodaro and its Connection with Other Scripts c10.s39
- Language
- English
Analysis of Tables LII and LIII
c10.s39.1
It is not always easy to distinguish 𓂝 and 𓂝 in the texts from their shape alone. But that they are distinct is clear (a) from the evidence of their sequences, (b) from the fact that both varieties occur on the same text: see 4, 6, 12, 16, 22, 34, of Table LII. The last sign in Col. IV of Table LII is almost identical with the second sign in Table LIII. Yet the sequence shows that it clearly belongs to Table LII. It is more likely that the two forms had independent pictographic origins, than that the one arose from the other by intentional differentiation. As we have seen when Proto-Indian desired to form new signs by differentiation they did it by the addition of strokes, and that in a manner to make the differentiated sign readily distinguishable.
c10.s39.2
The first sign in Table LIII, plus 1, is merely a carelessly made ⋈" of texts 16, 17, and Table LXXXI.
c10.s39.3
⋈ is a modification of ⋈, probably by substituting the vowel u for the (inherent) vowel a. The change is not made on euphonic principles, since ⋈ is found between the same signs as ⋈. The phonetic modification is therefore to be attributed to dialectal variations in the pronunciation of the word ⋈ ⋈
c10.s39.4
⋈ is a phonetic compound of / and ⋈. It is elsewhere written as separate signs, see texts 4-9, and especially 4 and 5. Now why should it be optional to write / ⋈ or ⋈ ? Surely because it was optional to pronounce the combination as two syllables, or as one syllable by contraction. Now it has been shown that / has probably the value wi, ui, or u. ⋈ is probably a syllable ending in a, since the addition of / can be made to it for purposes of vowel modification. Then in / ⋈ we have ba-wi while in ⋈ we have b'wi.¹
c10.s39.5
¹ Or it may be an "integral" compound.
c10.s39.6
⋈ by its position in the text is probably an effaced form of ⋈ and the two signs following the letter in Col. IV. These four signs are probably ⋈ modified by ū. The 'chevron' strokes seem to be of the gunu order, without effect (?) on the sound or meaning of the sign, cf. ⋈, ⋈, ⋈. But they may be ū forms. See Analysis of Table XCI, note (1).
c10.s39.7
⋈ and ⋈ are probably compounds of ⋈ with | and () respectively. Whether these compounds are ideographic or phonetic is impossible to say on the evidence.
c10.s39.8
The last two signs in Col. IV are clearly allied or identical judged by their shape and the sequence R ⋔ . The fact that the first has one short interior stroke, and the second two, leads to regard them as allied rather than identical: vowel modifications of a base-form ⋈ which however is lost, its value being supplied no doubt in our script by a homophonous sign. There two signs are probably ideographically distinct from the other signs in Col. IV.