THE LANGUAGES OF THE HARAPPANS AND THE LINGUISTIC IDENTITY OF THE INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION

 

THE LANGUAGES OF THE HARAPPANS AND THE LINGUISTIC IDENTITY OF THE INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION 

This is an extremely complex issue and needs to be treated with the attention it deserves. We also need to be prepared to deal with a high level of complexity always, and at all times. The IVC was pre-Sanskritic given that the IVC went into terminal decline in 1900 BC, and disappeared entirely by 1300-1400 BC unlike Vedic culture which flourished till 600 BC and beyond. The IVC also lay to the west of the Aryavarta. The IVC began from the Baluchistan region where Mehrgarh is located, while the Vedic homeland is to the north of the Punjab. It is also unlikely that so many millions of people all the way up to the Iran border were conversing in Sanskrit. There are also many different aspects of Indian religious traditions, not just Vedic. There were many different languages and language groups in the north-western part of the Indian subcontinent, even though a majority were speaking so-called IE languages. We had Iranian languages, Indo-Iranian languages, Burushaski/Proto-Burushaski, (isolate) etc. Since the people living in the Gujarat -Saurashtra region of the IVC did not migrate eastward to the Gangetic plains, it is likely that the early languages of this region were linear antecedents of the present-day languages of this region, albeit subsequently Sanskritized. We also had the vassal Ahar, Jorwe, Banas, Kayatha cultures to the east of the IVC who may have been speaking their own distinct and separate languages. Some researchers also claim that some Munda like languages were spoken by some people in the region, though all claims needs to be constantly scrutinized and validated. Therefore, the linguistic situation in the region is extremely complex indeed as it will be, given the fact the we are dealing with an area that stretches from Iran in the west to the Gujarat-Maharashtra border in the south to the Punjab region in the north-east.  All these hypotheses are also of course, not mutually exclusive. I had proposed that the Harappans were speaking "Many different languages (probably many different language groups) that included many languages that much later came to be known as the Prakrits of the Gangetic plains - when the migrations to the Gangetic plains took place in 1900 BC- It is also of course highly unlikely that terms such as Prakrits were used in the Indus valley for obvious reasons. This is a no-brainer. Post-Harappan artefacts have been found in many places in the subcontinent as observed by Gregory Possehl. Therefore, there was a continuity between Harappan and Post-Harappan cultures in many places of the subcontinent. Coming to Dravidian, a Dravidian language called Brahui was spoken in Pakistan by relatively small numbers of people- This language has not been proven to be very ancient. However, the presence of Brahui in the region will not automatically preclude the existence of other languages/language groups in the region given the fact that real world issues are always extremely complex, and it is not possible to oversimplify. Read the concept of non self-canceling contradictory evidence. Contradictory evidence is also the biggest blessing we can have in a study of Ancient India. Any one who tries to condense 5000 years of history of a vast region into a few lines will fail spectacularly. Brahui is also classified as a northern Dravidian language, and its speakers do not genetically resemble South Indians. One theory posits and postulates that Brahui speakers migrated from central India in the tenth century after Christ. (Josef Elfenbein and Jules Bloch) All theories must be critically evaluated and interdisciplinary and cross-cultural teams be instituted. Indeed, this is the way forward. The classification of languages into language groups and language subgroups must also be critically reevaluated from time to time. It is also our responsibility to pursue accuracy, and lay the foundations for a scientific temper in India and beyond. A script-based or a decipherment-based approach may not mostly work given that most inscriptions are short, and most signs may have been word signs. This is not withstanding the fact that the Dholavira signboard displays random sign repetition.   

Please read my papers on Indology.