A Sarasvati Hieroglyph Dictionary The underlying hypotheses of the analysis presented herein are two-fold: • that the Bharatiya languages constitute the core legacy from the linguistic area of this civilization; and • that the writing system consisted of hieroglyphs, intended to record property transactions of artisans -- smiths in particular. [cf. Seal impression from Ur showing a water- carrier and an enclosure of two brackets: () ] This crucial evidence of the continuum of Sarasvati culture in India enables linking Sarasvati writing system -- mlecchita vikalpa with Sarasvati lingua franca -- mleccha. kut.i = a woman water-carrier (Te.) rebus: kut.hi ‘a smelter for smelting iron ore’ (Santali) The ur seal impression of the “water-carrier” glyph is the foundation glyph for the following signs and variants, starting with Sign 12: V012 V014 V015 A simple step is attempted and presented, based on the orthographic-semantic framework provided by the Indian Lexicon (a comparative dictionary of over 25 ancient languages of India), that the inscriptions are composed of hieroglyphs which can be read rebus. (The word hieroglyph was coined in 1598 from hieroglyphic > Middle French hieroglyphique < Latin hieroglyphicus < Ancient Greek ἱερογλυφικός (hierogluphikos ) < ἱερογλυφέω (hieroglupheō , “to represent hieroglyphically”) < ἱερός (hieros , “sacred, holy”) + γλύφω (gluphō , “to carve, to engrave, to cut out”. Source: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hieroglyph ) It is appropriate to render many glyphs of the civilization, as hieros , ‘sacred’, consistent with Indian tradition following Gr.tsamada rishi of Rigveda – mantra dras.t.aa -- who has seen Sarasvati in three forms: river, 1 mother, divinity – Vaakdevi Sarasvati who nurtured, in over 80% of archaeological sites, on the banks of River Sarasvati. Hieroglyphs are pictograms used to represent phonograms (of syllabic sounds or word sounds). Hieroglyphs use pictorial symbols to connote, as rebus, individual sounds of the spoken language. The word, ‘rebus’ is an ablative plural of res ‘thing’ and means ‘of or by things’ derived from the phrase: nōn verbīs sed rébus " meaning "not by words but by things". An example illustrates the rebus principle. The sounds in the sentence, “I can see you” can be written down by using the pictographs of “eye - can – sea – ewe”. (Example taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebus ) The pictorials in inscriptions on a variety of media – terracotta bangles, paintings on jars, incisions on copper plates, tablets, seals, stone tools, metallic weapons -- unearthed in archaeological excavations (and taken from the exquisite corpuses of Mahadevan and Parpola) are tagged to the morphemes of the languages of Bharat. A morpheme, in language studies of internal structure of words, is the smallest abstract unit, with semantic meaning, that roughly corresponds to a set of words that are different forms of the same word. (For example, the word ‘talk’ has different forms such as talk, talks, talked, and talking.) Using the rebus principle, homonyms with substantive meanings are identified: such as the tools of jeweller-smithy, turner, miner, smith, metals-trader, mint. (A homonym is one of a group of words that share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have different meanings.) Two categories of lexemes are collated: • words which are adaptable for hieroglyphic representation ('image' words); • words related to the artefacts of the bronze-age civilization ('tool or product' words). [A word links tightly together, one or more morphemes and is a unit of language which carries meaning.] Many inscribed objects have recurrent glyphs. [A glyph is the shape given to a particular illustrated symbol. Hence, a glyph can have many variant orthographic representations as identified in Mahadevan and Parpola corpuses and concordance lists of the Sarasvati writing system – the so-called Indus script.] The Sign list used, in a perspective snapshot presents a number of variants and ligatures which reinforce the hieroglyphic nature of orthography and a unique use of ligatured glyphs. 2 V182 V184 These are examples of ‘signs’ which are derived from the ‘antelope’ glyph. It is notable that Sign 182 occurs repeatedly on copper plate epigraphs. The first variant on the left of variants of Sign 184 demonstrates this. The ligature of a tail is characteristic both on this sign variant and on pictorial motifs which depict an ‘antelope’ V213 Sign 213 could be derived from the pictorial motif of ‘standard device’ normally shown in front of a one-horned heifer. sangad.a ‘gimlet’; Rebus: sangad.a ‘portable furnace’ Sign 51 may be identified as a ‘bandicoot, rat’ seen from the back as shown on the variant on fifth from left. kod.el ‘rat’ glyph may be rebus for kol.el ‘smithy’: kole.l. V001 V002 As Signs 20 and 21 demonstrate, the ‘body’ glyph gets ligatured with other glyphs which occur independently as hieroglyphs. Such ligatured glyphs have to be read by isolating and identifying the ligaturing elements and reading each element rebus. and.ren (pl. and.ran) male, man (Pe.); and.ra a male animal or bird, male (Kui); an.d.ra_ male (said only of animals)(Kur.); an.d.ya_ fierce, unmanageable (of bulls, bullocks, and male buffaloes)(Kur.); an.d.ya a bull (Malt.); an.d.i_ra male (Skt.); an.d.ira_ id. (Or.)(CDIAL 1111; DEDR App. 7). Rebus: aduru ‘native metal’. Glyph is: me~_d, me_d ‘body’ (Kur.); meth body (Malt)(DEDR 5099). Sign 1 occurs 131 times on epigraphs. Rebus: med. ‘iron’ (Mundari). 3 dan:go, d.an:goro = a thick club; a cudgel (G.lex.) V008 V009 V019 V028 V029 V032 V035 V038 V040 bhat.a ‘warrior’ bhat.a = a warrior (G.lex.) bhad.a a warrior; a hero; adj. Strong, mighty; opulent; an opulent person (G.lex.) bhar. = soldier (B.); warrior (G.); hero, brave man (Ku.); bhat.a = hired soldier (MBh.) pat.ai = army, weapons, battle (Ta.); pat.a = battle, army (Ma); pad.eyila = soldier (Ka.); pad.eval.a = a general (Ka.); pad.ava = fight, battle; pad.avalamu = van of an army; pad.ava_lu = commander of an army (Te.) batur.i = a young bull; batur.iko hukarea = young bulls low (Mundari.lex.) cf. bat.u = boy (esp. a young Brahman), term applied contemptuously to an adult (MBh.); bar.u a Brahman title (B.); servant (Or.); bar.ua_ Brahman boy, pupil (H.); bad.u_u (OG.)(CDIAL 9121). bhat.t.o = a contemptuous term for a bra_hman.a; bhat.a, bhat.t.a = a title affixed to the names of learned bra_hman.as; a learned man (G.lex.) m1653 ivory plaque 1905 bha_tha_ quiver (OAw.H.); bha_tho, bha_to, bha_thr.o quiver (G.); bha_ta_ quiver (M.); bha_tad. id. (M.); bathi_ quiver (S.)(CDIAL 9424). Basket : vat.t.i basket made of palm-stem fibre; (ve_t.t.uvan- ma_n-r-acai corinta vat.t.iyum : Purana_. 33); round basket of grass, straw, leather or palm-leaves (Ma.); vat.t.ikai basket (Ta.); bat.t.i basket (Kod..); rattan basket (Tu.); vat.t.il quiver for arrows, basket, measure of capacity (Ta.)(DEDR 5231). Rebus: bhat.a ‘furnace’ (G.) 4 V017 m1198 1482 Sign 7 Homographs exist for the zebu glyph. Homographs are: a ‘man’, an attack, harrow, splinter. h684 4632 [The last two signs of Text 4632 occur on 93 epigraphs] A variant of Sign 8 is a horned, standing person ligatured to the buttocks of a bull. d.hagara_m = pl. the buttocks, hip (G.) Rebus: d.han:gar = blacksmith m1224A m1224B m1224 m1224e 4319 Standing person with horns and bovine features (hoofed legs and/or tail). d.hagara_m 'thigh' (G.); rebus: d.han:gar 'blacksmith' (H.) er-aka = upper arm, wing (Te.) [Note the orthographic emphasis on the wing of a bird]. Note the raised arm on m1224 of the horned person standing with buttocks ligatured to the back of a bovine (with tail). Rebus: eraka ‘copper’ (Ka.) kod. ‘horn’; rebus kod. ‘workshop’ V008 V017 bhat.a = a warrior (G.lex.) bhad.a a warrior; a hero; adj. Strong, mighty; opulent; an opulent person (G.lex.) bhar. = soldier (B.); warrior (G.); hero, brave man (Ku.); bhat.a = hired soldier (MBh.) pat.ai = army, weapons, battle (Ta.); pat.a = battle, army (Ma); pad.eyila = soldier (Ka.); pad.eval.a = a general (Ka.); pad.ava = fight, battle; pad.avalamu = van of an army; pad.ava_lu = commander of an army (Te.) Rebus: bhat.a ‘furnace’ (G.) bata = lattice work, inter-lacing (Santali.lex.) Rebus: bhat.a ‘furnace’ (G.) 5 satthika ‘svastika glyph’ (P.); rebus: jasta ‘zinc’ (H.) kod.a = in arithmetic, one (Santali) got. = one (Santali) got.a = numerative particle (Mth.) kod. = place where artisan’s work (Kur.) barea ‘two’; rebus: bar.ea ‘merchant’ kolom ‘three’ (Austro-asiatic) Rebus: Ka. kolime , kolume, kulame, kulime, kulume, kulme fire- pit, furnace; (Bell.; U.P.U.) Sign 112 kolmo ‘three’; rebus: kolmo ‘rice-plant’ Glyphs composed of four and three short linear strokes: pon, ponea, ponon = four (Santali) Rebus: pon ‘gold’ (Ta.) pon, ponea, ponon = four (Santali) pon-, por- = metal, gold, luster, beauty (Ta.); pol = gold (Ma.) kolom ‘three’ (Austro-asiatic) Rebus: Ka. kolime , kolume, kulame, kulime, kulume, kulme fire- pit, furnace; (Bell.; U.P.U.) gan.d.e ‘to place at a right angle to something else, cross, transverse’; gan.d. gan.d. ‘across, at right angles, transversely’ (Santali) [Note: A slanted line Lahn.d.a writing of accounts connotes a quarter; a straight line connotes ‘one’.] Rebus: kand. ‘furnace, altar’ (Santali) kolmo ‘rice plant’; rebus: kolami ‘furnace’; ad.aren ‘lid’; rebus: aduru ‘native metal’ 6 Sign 180 Signs 180, 181 have variants. Edging, trimming (cf. orthography of glyph in the middle of the epigraph) kor.i = pegs in the ground in two rooms on which the thread is passed back and forth in preparing the warp (S.) got. Hem of garment (H.) kod. ‘artisan’s workshop’ (Kur.) sa_ngi ‘squirrel’ , ‘ladder’ (P.) tsa_ni, tsa_nye = squirrel (Kon.lex.) [Alternatives: tor.