In most of the unsuccessful attempts at interpreting the Indus script, the "method" has consisted of comparing other pictographic scripts and supposing that the Indus signs have been pronounced like the similar- looking foreign signs. However, as a rule, different pictographic scripts have been used to write different languages, and their similar-looking signs have denote… >

5. Gharial eating fish on molded terra-cotta tablet from Mohenjo-daro Consideration of the picture puzzle principle employed by the early scripts suggests a way to recognize the identity of the underlying language. We should try to find a specific context where a given, pictorially identifiable sign apparently has been used in a meaning different from the primary pictorial… >

Many hypotheses have been put forward about the affinity of the Indus language, but only two alternatives have had wider support. Indo-Aryan languages have been spoken in the area once occupied by the Indus civilization and gradually all over North India since at least 1000 B.C. It is natural to assume that they were spoken there even earlier. Speakers of Hindi, Bengali and… >

7. A Harappan potsherd from Amri, combining the 'fish' and 'star' motifs. An early form of Dravidian, then, emerges as the historically most likely language to have been spoken by the Indus people. The uniformity of the sign sequences in Indus inscriptions coming from all parts of the large area occupied by the Indus civilisation precludes the possibility that widely differ… >

9. An "Early Harappan" polychrome pot with fish design from Nal, South Baluchistan If the 'fish' pictograms of the Indus script generally meant 'star', why was the meaning 'star' not expressed directly with a 'star' pictogram as in the ancient Near East? Why did the Harappans in a more complicated way use a 'fish' pictogram and the rebus principle? One answer could be t… >

13. Systematic and interlocking interpretations of Harappan pictograms. One further way to check the correctness of the above proposed interpretation of the 'fish' pictograms is to study Indus signs that occur next to the 'fish' pictograms. The task is to test whether any of these signs can be interpreted by applying the same methods and hypotheses, and to see if somethin… >

14. An Indus Seal from Mohenjo-daro Another diacritic sign is drawn either directly or obliquely across the body of the 'fish' pictogram (Fig. 14, 13c). It could denote 'halving' or 'dividing into two parts': the corresponding Proto-Dravidian root, *pacu , is homophonous with Proto-Dravidian *pacu 'green'. The resulting compound, * pacu-meen 'halved fish' & 'green star', … >

The pictogram just mentioned has several variant forms in the Indus texts (Fig. 16, 17). Their comparison with the motifs of Early Harappan painted pottery (Fig. 7) suggests that this pictogram represents the large Indian fig tree, Ficus Indica. Except when combined with another sign (depicting the 'crab'), which is placed inside it omitting the central "branch" (Fig. 15)… >

20. (Right) The six or seven ladies (the Pleiades?) on an Indus seal In the Indus script, numerals are marked by repeating a short vertical stroke the required number of times. The pictograms of 'six' (six short strokes divided to two lines) and (on its left side) 'fish' together form a syntactic unit (Fig. 13f). It corresponds to the compound aru-meen 'six-star' occurring… >