Identification of Sounds of Ancient Scripts

Abstract

This work confirms the empirical assumption that there is a relation between images of ancient script characters, their sounds, related tongue tip movements and tongue contours. This relation is used to identify sounds of undeciphered scripts. As a first step, sounds which are not in combinations are selected from Hindi, English and Tamil. There are 24 such sounds. These sounds are then represented by points on inner surface of the oral cavity. Images of characters of Egyptian hieroglyphs and Linear B scripts, which have already been deciphered, are selected and their corresponding sounds are studied to precisely position 24 sounds in the vocal cavity. Then, the relation between images, sounds, tongue tip movements and tongue contours is also verified. Using this information, Indus script and Oracle bone scripts are analyzed and their sound values are identified. This approach may be of help in identifying sounds of ancient scripts representing images and as well as understanding primitive spoken languages lacking written scripts.