Why is it in news?

Researchers use statistical indices to measure variations in letters and determine the orientation of a written script.

Details

• Two scientists working at The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, (IMSc) have figured out a way to computationally estimate whether a language is written from left to right or otherwise.
• Most interestingly, they have studied the Indus script and calculated that it must flow from right to left.
• Professor Iravatham Mahadevan [the well-known Indus scholar] was one of the experts who had figured out that the Indus script ran from right to left by observing how the writing got a little cramped as it ran towards the left — suggesting that the writer started writing at the right end and ended up running out of space as he or she reached the left end.
• It is known intuitively that in a language, some words are used more often than others. Similarly, some letters of the alphabet occur more at the start of words and others are more common at the end of words. The variation faced by different letters may be measured using two independent statistical indices — the Gini index and Shannon’s entropy.
• The scientists established that there is a difference between these measures when calculated for the first letter and the last letter. This difference between start and end of a word makes it possible for them to identify whether the word is written from left to right or the other way around.
• In most of 24 languages studied, including Arabic, Chinese, Korean, and Sumerian, the duo was able to match their results and predict using their computation alone whether the words in that language were written left to right or otherwise. In the hitherto undeciphered Indus script also, they predict that the words are written from right to left.

Abou the Indus Valley script

• The Indus script (also known as the Harappan script) is a corpus of symbols produced by the Indus Valley Civilization during the Kot Diji and Mature Harappan periods between 3500 and 1900 BCE.
• Most inscriptions containing these symbols are extremely short, making it difficult to judge whether or not these symbols constituted a scriptused to record a language, or even symbolise a writing system.
• In spite of many attempts, 'the script' has not yet been deciphered, but efforts are ongoing. There is no known bilingual inscription to help decipher the script, nor does the script show any significant changes over time. However, some of the syntax (if that is what it may be termed) varies depending upon location.
• The first publication of a seal with Harappan symbols dates to 1875, in a drawing by Alexander Cunningham.
• Since then, over 4,000 inscribed objects have been discovered, some as far afield as Mesopotamia.
• In the early 1970s, Iravatham Mahadevan published a corpus and concordance of Indus inscriptions listing 3,700 seals and 417 distinct signs in specific patterns. He also found that the average inscription contained five symbols, and the longest inscription contained only 14 symbols in a single line. He also established the direction of writing as right to left.

Source

The Hindu