Rajesh Rao: Computing a Rosetta Stone for the Indus script

Translator: Niels Justus Reviewer: Anders Finn Jørgensen

I'd like to begin with a thought experiment.

Jeg vil begynde med et tankeeksperiment.

Imagine that it's 4,000 years into the future.

Vi er 4000 år ude i fremtiden.

Civilization as we know it

Civilisationen, som vi kender den,

has ceased to exist --

findes ikke mere

no books,

ingen bøger,

no electronic devices,

ingen elektroniske dimser,

no Facebook or Twitter.

ingen Facebook og Twitter.

All knowledge of the English language and the English alphabet

Al viden om det engelske sprog

has been lost.

og alfabetet, er gået tabt.

Now imagine archeologists

Forestil jer nu at arkæologerne

digging through the rubble of one of our cities.

graver i ruinerne fra vore byer.

What might they find?

Hvad finder de?

Well perhaps some rectangular pieces of plastic

Måske nogle firkantede stykker plastik,

with strange symbols on them.

med mærkelige symboler på dem.

Perhaps some circular pieces of metal.

Måske nogle runde stykker metal.

Maybe some cylindrical containers

Måske nogle cylinderformede beholdere,

with some symbols on them.

med symboler på dem.

And perhaps one archeologist becomes an instant celebrity

Og måske bliver en arkæolog berømt

when she discovers --

da hun i bjergene,

buried in the hills somewhere in North America --

et sted i Nord Amerika, opdager

massive versions of these same symbols.

massive udgaver af de samme symboler. (Latter)

Now let's ask ourselves,

Lad os nu spørge os:

what could such artifacts say about us

hvad kunne sådanne fund fortælle

to people 4,000 years into the future?

om os om 4000 år ?

This is no hypothetical question.

Det er ikke noget hypotetisk spørgsmål.

In fact, this is exactly the kind of question we're faced with

Det er præcis det, vi er konfronteret med,

when we try to understand the Indus Valley civilization,

når vi prøver at forstå Indusdalens civilisation

which existed 4,000 years ago.

som fandtes for 4000 år siden.

The Indus civilization was roughly contemporaneous

Induscivilisationen var omtrentlig samtidig

with the much better known Egyptian and the Mesopotamian civilizations,

med de langt mere kendte Ægyptiske og Mesopotamiske civilisationer,

but it was actually much larger than either of these two civilizations.

men det var langt større end de to.

It occupied the area

Det bredte sig over

of approximately one million square kilometers,

omtrentlig 1 million km²,

covering what is now Pakistan,

og dækkede det nuværende Pakistan,

Northwestern India

Nordvest Indien

and parts of Afghanistan and Iran.

og dele af Afghanistan og Iran.

Given that it was such a vast civilization,

Eftersom at det var en kæmpe civilisation

you might expect to find really powerful rulers, kings,

kunne man forvente at finde rigtig magtfulde herskere, konger

and huge monuments glorifying these powerful kings.

og store monumenter, som glorificerede disse magtfulde konger.

In fact,

Men,

what archeologists have found is none of that.

arkæologerne fandt intet af dette.

They've found small objects such as these.

De fandt små objekter som disse.

Here's an example of one of these objects.

Her er et eksempel på eet af disse objekter.

Well obviously this is a replica.

Dette er selvfølgelig en replika.

But who is this person?

Men hvem er denne person ?

A king? A god?

En konge ? En gud ?

A priest?

En præst ?

Or perhaps an ordinary person

Eller måske et almindeligt menneske

like you or me?

som dig og mig ?

We don't know.

Vi ved det ikke.

But the Indus people also left behind artifacts with writing on them.

Men Indusfolket efterlod også genstande med tekst på.

Well no, not pieces of plastic,

Nej, ikke plastik-kort,

but stone seals, copper tablets,

men stensegl, kobberstykker

pottery and, surprisingly,

krukker og - meget overraskende -

one large sign board,

en stor tavle med tegn,

which was found buried near the gate of a city.

som blev fundet nær porten til en by.

Now we don't know if it says Hollywood,

Vi ved ikke om der står Hollywood,

or even Bollywood for that matter.

eller Bollywood for den sags skyld.

In fact, we don't even know

Vi ved ikke engang

what any of these objects say,

hvad et eneste af disse objekter fortæller,

and that's because the Indus script is undeciphered.

fordi Indusskriften er ikke afkodet.

We don't know what any of these symbols mean.

Vi ved ikke hvad disse symboler betyder.

The symbols are most commonly found on seals.

Symbolerne findes hyppigst på segl.

So you see up there one such object.

og deroppe ses et sådant objekt.

It's the square object with the unicorn-like animal on it.

Det er det firkantede med en enhjørning på det.

Now that's a magnificent piece of art.

Det er et flot stykke kunst.

So how big do you think that is?

Hvor stor tror I det er ?

Perhaps that big?

Måske så stor ?

Or maybe that big?

Eller måske så stor ?

Well let me show you.

Lad mig vise det.

Here's a replica of one such seal.

Her er et kopi af sådant segl.

It's only about one inch by one inch in size --

Det er kun en tomme på hver led

pretty tiny.

-- ret lille.

So what were these used for?

Hvad bruges de til ?

We know that these were used for stamping clay tags

Vi ved, at de blev brugt til at præge leretiketter,

that were attached to bundles of goods that were sent from one place to the other.

som blev fastgjort til varer, som blev sendt fra eet sted til et andet.

So you know those packing slips you get on your FedEx boxes?

Ligesom de pakke-sedler, der er på FedEx-kasser.

These were used to make those kinds of packing slips.

De blev brugt til at lave disse pakkesedler.

You might wonder what these objects contain

Du spørger måske, hvad der står

in terms of their text.

på dem.

Perhaps they're the name of the sender

Måske står der afsenderens navn

or some information about the goods

eller information om varerne,

that are being sent from one place to the other -- we don't know.

som blev sendt fra eet sted til et andet. Vi ved det ikke.

We need to decipher the script to answer that question.

Vi er nødt til at decifrere teksten, for at besvare det spørgsmål.

Deciphering the script

Decifreringen af teksten

is not just an intellectual puzzle;

er ikke bare en intellektuelt gåde..

it's actually become a question

Det er faktisk blevet et spørgsmål,

that's become deeply intertwined

som er blevet stærkt sammenflettet

with the politics and the cultural history of South Asia.

med politik og Sydasiens kulturhistorie.

In fact, the script has become a battleground of sorts

Skriften er faktisk blevet en kampplads,

between three different groups of people.

for tre forskellige grupper.

First, there's a group of people

Først er der den gruppe

who are very passionate in their belief

som er meget lidenskabelig i deres tro på

that the Indus script

at Indusskriften

does not represent a language at all.

ikke repræsentere noget sprog overhovedet.

These people believe that the symbols

De mener, at symbolerne

are very similar to the kind of symbols you find on traffic signs

meget ligner de symboler man ser på trafikskilte

or the emblems you find on shields.

og emblemer på skjolde.

There's a second group of people

Der er en anden gruppe,

who believe that the Indus script represents an Indo-European language.

som mener, at Indus-skriften repræsenterer et Indoeuropæisk sprog.

If you look at a map of India today,

Hvis man ser på et kort over Indien i dag,

you'll see that most of the languages spoken in North India

så ser man, at de fleste sprog, som tales i Nordindien,

belong to the Indo-European language family.

tilhører den Indoeuropæiske sprogfamilie.

So some people believe that the Indus script

Så nogle mener altså at Indusskriften

represents an ancient Indo-European language such as Sanskrit.

repræsenterer en gammelt Indoeuropæisk sprog såsom Sanskrit.

There's a last group of people

Den sidste gruppe

who believe that the Indus people

mener at Indusfolket

were the ancestors of people living in South India today.

var forfædrene til befolkningen i nutidens Sydindien.

These people believe that the Indus script

De mener at Indusskriften

represents an ancient form

repræsenterer en gammel form for

of the Dravidian language family,

den Dravidianske sprogfamilie

which is the language family spoken in much of South India today.

som er den sprogfamilie, som tales i store dele af Syd Indien i dag.

And the proponents of this theory

Og fortalerne for denne teori

point to that small pocket of Dravidian-speaking people in the North,

peger på den lille lomme af Dravidiantalende folk.

actually near Afghanistan,

nær Afghanistan.

and they say that perhaps, sometime in the past,

De siger at man måske engang

Dravidian languages were spoken all over India

talte Dravidianske sprog over hele Indien,

and that this suggests

og det antyder

that the Indus civilization is perhaps also Dravidian.

at Indus-civilisationen måske også er Dravidiansk.

Which of these hypotheses can be true?

Hvilken af disse hypoteser er rigtig ?

We don't know, but perhaps if you deciphered the script,

Vi ved det ikke, men hvis man kunne dechifrere skriften,

you would be able to answer this question.

så ville man måske kunne besvaret spørgsmålet.

But deciphering the script is a very challenging task.

Men dechifreringen af skriften er en meget udfordrende opgave.

First, there's no Rosetta Stone.

For det første er der ikke nogen "Rosetta sten".

I don't mean the software;

Jeg tænker ikke på softwaren.

I mean an ancient artifact

Jeg tænker på en historisk genstand,

that contains in the same text

som indeholder samme tekst

both a known text and an unknown text.

på både et kendt og et ukendt sprog.

We don't have such an artifact for the Indus script.

Vi har ikke sådan en genstand for Indusskriften.

And furthermore, we don't even know what language they spoke.

Og vi ved ikke engang hvilket sprog de talte.

And to make matters even worse,

Og for at gøre sagen endnu værre,

most of the text that we have are extremely short.

så er de fleste tekster ekstremt korte.

So as I showed you, they're usually found on these seals

Som jeg viste jer, så findes de som regel på disse segl,

that are very, very tiny.

som er meget meget små.

And so given these formidable obstacles,

I betragtning af disse formidable forhindringer,

one might wonder and worry

kan man spørge

whether one will ever be able to decipher the Indus script.

om man overhovedet vil blive i stand til at dechifrere Indus-skriften

In the rest of my talk,

I resten af mit foredrag

I'd like to tell you about how I learned to stop worrying

vil jeg fortælle om, hvordan jeg lærte at overvinde denne frygt

and love the challenge posed by the Indus script.

og i stedet holde af udfordringen som Indusskriften gav.

I've always been fascinated by the Indus script

Jeg har altid været fascineret af Indusskriften

ever since I read about it in a middle school textbook.

siden jeg læste om den i skolebog.

And why was I fascinated?

Hvorfor var jeg fascineret ?

Well it's the last major undeciphered script in the ancient world.

Det er den sidste større ikke-decifrerede skrift i den forhistoriske verden.

My career path led me to become a computational neuroscientist,

Min karrieres vej førte mig til at blive computer-neuro-forsker

so in my day job,

I mit daglige arbejde

I create computer models of the brain

laver jeg computermodeller af hjernen

to try to understand how the brain makes predictions,

for at forstå hvordan hjernen forudsiger ting,

how the brain makes decisions,

hvordan hjernen tager beslutninger,

how the brain learns and so on.

hvordan hjernen lærer og så videre.

But in 2007, my path crossed again with the Indus script.

Men i 2007, krydsedes min vej igen med Indusskriften.

That's when I was in India,

Det var da jeg var i Indien,

and I had the wonderful opportunity

og jeg havde den dejlige mulighed

to meet with some Indian scientists

for at mødes med nogle indiske forskere,

who were using computer models to try to analyze the script.

som brugte computere til at analysere skriften.

And so it was then that I realized

Da erkendte jeg

there was an opportunity for me to collaborate with these scientists,

at der var en mulighed for at samarbejde med disse forskere,

and so I jumped at that opportunity.

så jeg tog chancen.

And I'd like to describe some of the results that we have found.

Jeg vil fortælle nogle af de resultater som vi har fået,

Or better yet, let's all collectively decipher.

eller snarere: lad os alle dechifrere sammen.

Are you ready?

Er I klar ?

The first thing that you need to do when you have an undeciphered script

Det første, som man skal gøre, når man har en ikke-decifreret tekst

is try to figure out the direction of writing.

er at finde ud af skriveretningen.

Here are two texts that contain some symbols on them.

Her er to tekster som indeholder nogle symboler på dem.

Can you tell me

Kan I fortælle mig

if the direction of writing is right to left or left to right?

om retningen er højre-mod-venstre eller venstre-mod-højre ?

I'll give you a couple of seconds.

I får nogle sekunder.

Okay. Right to left, how many? Okay.

OK. Højre-mod-venstre. Hvor mange ? OK.

Okay. Left to right?

Venstre-mod-højre ?

Oh, it's almost 50/50. Okay.

Oh - det er næsten 50/50. OK

The answer is:

Svaret er:

if you look at the left-hand side of the two texts,

hvis I ser på den venstre side af de to tekster,

you'll notice that there's a cramping of signs,

ser I at der en sammenklemning af tegnene,

and it seems like 4,000 years ago,

og det lader til at for 4000 år siden,

when the scribe was writing from right to left,

da skriveren skrev fra højre mod venstre,

they ran out of space.

at han løb tør for plads.

And so they had to cram the sign.

Så de var nødt til at klemme tegnene.

One of the signs is also below the text on the top.

Een af tegnene er også under teksten øverst.

This suggests the direction of writing

Det lader formode, at skriveretningen

was probably from right to left,

sikkert var fra højre mod venstre,

and so that's one of the first things we know,

Det er en af de første ting vi ved,

that directionality is a very key aspect of linguistic scripts.

at retningen er et væsentligt aspekt ved lingvistiske skrifter.

And the Indus script now has

Og Indusskriften har altså

this particular property.

denne egenskab.

What other properties of language does the script show?

Hvilke andre sprogegenskaber udviser skriften ?

Languages contain patterns.

Sprog indeholder mønstre.

If I give you the letter Q

Hvis jeg giver jer bogstavet Q,

and ask you to predict the next letter, what do you think that would be?

og beder jer forudsige hvad det næste bogstav ville være, hvad tror I så, det ville være?

Most of you said U, which is right.

De fleste af jer sagde U, hvilket er rigtigt.

Now if I asked you to predict one more letter,

Men hvis jeg bad jer om at forudsige eet bogstag til,

what do you think that would be?

hvad tror I så det ville være ?

Now there's several thoughts. There's E. It could be I. It could be A,

Der er flere muligheder Det kunne være E. Det kunne være I. Det kunne være A,

but certainly not B, C or D, right?

men bestemt ikke B, C eller D - vel ?

The Indus script also exhibits similar kinds of patterns.

Indusskriften udviser også lignende mønstre.

There's a lot of text that start with this diamond-shaped symbol.

En stor mængde tekst begynder med dette ruder-formet symbol.

And this in turn tends to be followed

Og det følges hyppigt af

by this quotation marks-like symbol.

dette spørgsmålstegn lignende symbol.

And this is very similar to a Q and U example.

Det er helt ligesom Q og U eksemplet.

This symbol can in turn be followed

Dette symbol kan så igen følges

by these fish-like symbols and some other signs,

af disse fiskelignende symboler og nogle andre,

but never by these other signs at the bottom.

men aldrig af disse andre tegn i bunden.

And furthermore, there's some signs

Ydermere er der nogle tegn,

that really prefer the end of texts,

som "foretrækker" slutningen af en tekst,

such as this jar-shaped sign,

såsom dette krukkeformede tegn,

and this sign, in fact, happens to be

og dette tegn viser sig at være

the most frequently occurring sign in the script.

det mest hyppigt forekommende tegn i skriften.

Given such patterns, here was our idea.

Sådanne mønstre bragte os på end ide.

The idea was to use a computer

Ideen var at bruge en computer

to learn these patterns,

til at lære disse mønstre,

and so we gave the computer the existing texts.

og derfor gav vi computeren de eksisterende tekster.

And the computer learned a statistical model

Og computeren lærte en statistisk model

of which symbols tend to occur together

over hvilke symboler der optræder sammen

and which symbols tend to follow each other.

og hvilke symboler som følger efter hinanden.

Given the computer model,

Med denne computermodel,

we can test the model by essentially quizzing it.

kan vi afprøve modellen ved simpelt at spørge den.

So we could deliberately erase some symbols,

Vi kunne fjerne nogle symboler med vilje,

and we can ask it to predict the missing symbols.

og vi kunne bede den om at forudsige de manglende symboler.

Here are some examples.

Her er nogle eksempler.

You may regard this

Man kan betragte dette

as perhaps the most ancient game

som måske det ældste forhistoriske

of Wheel of Fortune.

lykkehjul.

What we found

Vi fandt

was that the computer was successful in 75 percent of the cases

at computeren var korrekt i 75% af tilfældene

in predicting the correct symbol.

ved forudsigelse af det korrekte symbol.

In the rest of the cases,

I resten af tilfældene,

typically the second best guess or third best guess was the right answer.

var det næstbedste eller det tredjebedste gæt det rigtige svar.

There's also practical use

Der er også en praktisk anvendelse

for this particular procedure.

af denne fremgangsmåde.

There's a lot of these texts that are damaged.

Der findes en masse tekster, som er beskadiget.

Here's an example of one such text.

Her er et eksempel.

And we can use the computer model now to try to complete this text

Vi kan bruge computer-modellen til at forsøge at gøre teksten komplet,

and make a best guess prediction.

ved at fremkomme ved det bedste gæt.

Here's an example of a symbol that was predicted.

Her er et eksempel på, et symbol som blev forudsagt.

And this could be really useful as we try to decipher the script

Det kunne være rigtig brugbart når vi forsøger at decifrere teksten

by generating more data that we can analyze.

ved at frembringe mere data, som vi kan analysere.

Now here's one other thing you can do with the computer model.

Her er noget andet som man kan gøre med computer-modellen.

So imagine a monkey

Forestil jer en abe

sitting at a keyboard.

som sidder på et tastatur.

I think you might get a random jumble of letters that looks like this.

Man vil få en tilfældig smøre af bogstaver, som kunne se sådan ud.

Such a random jumble of letters

Sådan en rodet tekst

is said to have a very high entropy.

siges at have en høj entropi.

This is a physics and information theory term.

Det er et fysik- og informationsteoretisk udtryk.

But just imagine it's a really random jumble of letters.

Men forestil jer bare en rodet bunke bogstaver.

How many of you have ever spilled coffee on a keyboard?

Hvor mange af jer har hældt kaffen udover tastaturet?

You might have encountered the stuck-key problem --

Så har I måske set problemet med den fastsiddende tast.

so basically the same symbol being repeated over and over again.

Det samme tegn bare gentaget igen og igen.

This kind of a sequence is said to have a very low entropy

Den slags sekvenser siges at have en lav entropi

because there's no variation at all.

fordi der ikke er nogen variation overhovedet.

Language, on the other hand, has an intermediate level of entropy;

Sprog har, på den anden side, et mellemniveau af entropi.

it's neither too rigid,

Den er hverken for monoton,

nor is it too random.

eller for tilfældig

What about the Indus script?

Og Indusskriften ?

Here's a graph that plots the entropies of a whole bunch of sequences.

Her er en graf som viser entropien for en bunke sekvenser.

At the very top you find the uniformly random sequence,

Øverst ser du den tilfældigt dannede sekvens

which is a random jumble of letters --

som er et tilfældigt virvar af bogstaver,

and interestingly, we also find

og interessant nok, finder vi også

the DNA sequence from the human genome and instrumental music.

menneskets DNA-sekvens og musik.

And both of these are very, very flexible,

De er begge meget foranderlige,

which is why you find them in the very high range.

hvorfor man ser dem øverst i feltet.

At the lower end of the scale,

Nederst i feltet

you find a rigid sequence, a sequence of all A's,

ses en fastlåst sekvens. En sekvens af A'er,

and you also find a computer program,

og man ser et computerprogram

in this case in the language Fortran,

som her er i Fortran-sproget,

which obeys really strict rules.

som følger meget stramme regler.

Linguistic scripts

Lingvistiske tekster

occupy the middle range.

ligger i midterfeltet.

Now what about the Indus script?

Hvad med Industeksten ?

We found that the Indus script

Vi fandt at Industeksten

actually falls within the range of the linguistic scripts.

faktisk ligger i området med lingvistiske tekster.

When this result was first published,

Da dette resultat blev offentliggjort første gang

it was highly controversial.

var det yderst kontroversielt.

There were people who raised a hue and cry,

Der var nogle som protesterede voldsomt

and these people were the ones who believed

og det var dem, som mente

that the Indus script does not represent language.

at Indusskriften ikke repræsenterer noget sprog.

I even started to get some hate mail.

Jeg fik endda nogle hademails.

My students said

Mine studerende sagde,

that I should really seriously consider getting some protection.

at jeg skulle overveje at få beskyttelse.

Who'd have thought

Hvem ville have troet

that deciphering could be a dangerous profession?

at decifrering kunne være en farlig profession ?

What does this result really show?

Hvad viser dette resultat i virkeligheden ?

It shows that the Indus script

Det viser, at Indusskriften

shares an important property of language.

har en vigtig egenskab for et sprog.

So, as the old saying goes,

Som man plejer at sige,

if it looks like a linguistic script

hvis det ligner et lingvistisk skrift,

and it acts like a linguistic script,

og opfører sig som et lingvistisk skrift,

then perhaps we may have a linguistic script on our hands.

så har man nok også et lingvistisk skrift.

What other evidence is there

Hvilke andre beviser er der

that the script could actually encode language?

for at skriften faktisk koder for et sprog ?

Well linguistic scripts can actually encode multiple languages.

Lingvistiske skrifter kan kode adskillige sprog.

So for example, here's the same sentence written in English

For eksempel er der her den samme tekst på engelsk

and the same sentence written in Dutch

og den samme sætning på hollandsk,

using the same letters of the alphabet.

og som bruger det samme alfabet.

If you don't know Dutch and you only know English

Hvis I ikke kender til hollandsk og I kun kender til engelsk

and I give you some words in Dutch,

og jeg giver jer nogle ord på hollandsk,

you'll tell me that these words contain

så vil I sige at disse ord indeholder

some very unusual patterns.

nogle meget usædvanlige mønstre.

Some things are not right,

Noget stemmer ikke,

and you'll say these words are probably not English words.

og I vil sige, at disse ord nok ikke er engelske ord.

The same thing happens in the case of the Indus script.

Det samme er tilfældet med Indusskriften.

The computer found several texts --

Computeren fandt adskillige tekster,

two of them are shown here --

to af dem vises her

that have very unusual patterns.

som meget usædvanlige mønstre.

So for example the first text:

For eksempel den første tekst:

there's a doubling of this jar-shaped sign.

krukke-tegnet står dobbelt.

This sign is the most frequently-occurring sign

Dette tegn er det hyppigste

in the Indus script,

i Indusskriften,

and it's only in this text

og det er kun i denne tekst

that it occurs as a doubling pair.

at det optræder dobbelt.

Why is that the case?

Hvorfor var det sådan ?

We went back and looked at where these particular texts were found,

Vi undersøgte, hvor disse tekster kom fra,

and it turns out that they were found

og det viste sig, at de blev fundet

very, very far away from the Indus Valley.

langt, langt væk fra Indusdalen.

They were found in present day Iraq and Iran.

De blev fundet i det nutidige Irak og Iran.

And why were they found there?

Hvorfor blev de fundet der ?

What I haven't told you is that

Jeg fik ikke fortalt

the Indus people were very, very enterprising.

at Indusfolket var meget handelsmindede.

They used to trade with people pretty far away from where they lived,

De handlede med folk et langvejs fra, hvor de boede,

and so in this case, they were traveling by sea

og i dette tilfælde, rejste de over havet,

all the way to Mesopotamia, present-day Iraq.

helt til Mesopotamien, det nutidige Irak.

And what seems to have happened here

Det lader til

is that the Indus traders, the merchants,

at Induskøbmændene

were using this script to write a foreign language.

brugte denne skrift til at skrive et fremmed sprog.

It's just like our English and Dutch example.

Ligesom eksemplet med engelsk og hollandsk.

And that would explain why we have these strange patterns

Det kunne forklare disse mærkelige mønstre,

that are very different from the kinds of patterns you see in the text

som er meget forskellig fra mønstrene,

that are found within the Indus Valley.

som fandtes i Indusdalen.

This suggests that the same script, the Indus script,

Det lader antyde, at Indusskriften

could be used to write different languages.

kunne bruges til at skrive forskellige sprog.

The results we have so far seem to point to the conclusion

De resultater vi har indtil nu, synes at pege på den konklusion

that the Indus script probably does represent language.

at Indus-skriften sandsynligvis repræsenterer et sprog.

If it does represent language,

Hvis det ikke repræsenterer et sprog,

then how do we read the symbols?

hvordan skal vi så læse symbolerne ?

That's our next big challenge.

Det er vor næste store udfordring.

So you'll notice that many of the symbols

Man vil bemærke, at mange symboler

look like pictures of humans, of insects,

ligner tegninger af mennesker, insekter,

of fishes, of birds.

fisk, fugle.

Most ancient scripts

De fleste forhistoriske skrifter

use the rebus principle,

bruger rebusprincippet,

which is, using pictures to represent words.

hvor man bruger billeder til at stå for ord.

So as an example, here's a word.

For eksempel

Can you write it using pictures?

Kan I skrive det ved brug af tegninger ?

I'll give you a couple seconds.

I får et par sekunder.

Got it?

Ja ?

Okay. Great.

OK.

Here's my solution.

Her er min løsning.

You could use the picture of a bee followed by a picture of a leaf --

Man kan bruge tegningen af en bi efterfulgt af en tegning af et blad,

and that's "belief," right.

og så står der på engelsk - "belief"

There could be other solutions.

Der er sikkert andre løsninger.

In the case of the Indus script,

I tilfældet med Indusskriften,

the problem is the reverse.

er problemet det omvendte.

You have to figure out the sounds of each of these pictures

Man er nødt til at regne lydene ud for hvert af disse tegninger,

such that the entire sequence makes sense.

sådan at det hele sekvensen giver mening.

So this is just like a crossword puzzle,

Det er ligesom krydsord,

except that this is the mother of all crossword puzzles

med den undtagelse at dette er alle krydsords moder

because the stakes are so high if you solve it.

fordi gevinsten er så stor, hvis man løser den.

My colleagues, Iravatham Mahadevan and Asko Parpola,

Mine kolleger Iravatham Mahadevan og Asko Parpola

have been making some headway on this particular problem.

har gjort nogle fremskridt.

And I'd like to give you a quick example of Parpola's work.

Jeg vil vise jer et eksempel på Parpola's arbejde.

Here's a really short text.

Her er en rigtig kort tekst.

It contains seven vertical strokes followed by this fish-like sign.

Det indeholder 7 lodrette streger efterfulgt af et fisketegn.

And I want to mention that these seals were used

Jeg skal nævne, at disse segl blev brugt

for stamping clay tags

til at præge lermærkater,

that were attached to bundles of goods,

som blev fastgjort til varebundter,

so it's quite likely that these tags, at least some of them,

så det er sandsynligt at nogle af disse mærkater,

contain names of merchants.

indeholder købmændenes navne.

And it turns out that in India

Det viser sig, at der i Indien

there's a long tradition

er en lang tradition

of names being based on horoscopes

for navne som er baseret på stjernebilleder,

and star constellations present at the time of birth.

og en stjernekonstellation står for fødselstidspunktet.

In Dravidian languages,

I dravidianske sprog,

the word for fish is "meen"

er ordet for fisk "meen"

which happens to sound just like the word for star.

som lyder, som ordet for stjerne.

And so seven stars

Og syv stjerner

would stand for "elu meen,"

kunne stå for "elu meen"

which is the Dravidian word

som er det davidianske ord

for the Big Dipper star constellation.

for Karlsvognen.

Similarly, there's another sequence of six stars,

På samme måde, er der en anden sekvens på seks stjerner

and that translates to "aru meen,"

som kan oversættes to "aru meen"

which is the old Dravidian name

som er det gamle dravidianske ord

for the star constellation Pleiades.

for stjerne-konstellationen Plejaderne.

And finally, there's other combinations,

Og til sidst er der andre kombinationer,

such as this fish sign with something that looks like a roof on top of it.

såsom denne fisk med noget som ligner et tag ovenpå den.

And that could be translated into "mey meen,"

Det kunne oversættes til "mey meen",

which is the old Dravidian name for the planet Saturn.

som er det gamle dravidianske ord for Saturn.

So that was pretty exciting.

Det var ret spændende.

It looks like we're getting somewhere.

Det lader til, at vi kommer fremad.

But does this prove

Men beviser dette

that these seals contain Dravidian names

at disse segl indeholder dravidianske navne

based on planets and star constellations?

baseret på stjernekonstellationer ?

Well not yet.

Ikke endnu.

So we have no way of validating

Vi kan ikke på nogen måde bekræfte

these particular readings,

disse tolkninger,

but if more and more of these readings start making sense,

men hvis flere og flere af sådanne tolkninger giver mening

and if longer and longer sequences

og hvis længere og længere sekvenser

appear to be correct,

synes at være korrekt,

then we know that we are on the right track.

så ved vi, at vi er på rette spor.

Today,

I dag

we can write a word such as TED

kan vi skrive ord såsom TED

in Egyptian hieroglyphics and in cuneiform script,

med egyptiske hieroglyffer og i kileskrift,

because both of these were deciphered

fordi disse to blev dechifreret

in the 19th century.

i det 19. århundrede.

The decipherment of these two scripts

Dechifreringen af disse to skrifter

enabled these civilizations to speak to us again directly.

gjorde det muligt for disse civilisationer at tale direkte til os.

The Mayans

Maya'erne

started speaking to us in the 20th century,

begyndte at tale til os i det 20. århundrede,

but the Indus civilization remains silent.

men Induscivilisationen er stadig tavs.

Why should we care?

Betyder det noget ?

The Indus civilization does not belong

Induscivilisationen tilhører ikke bare

to just the South Indians or the North Indians

sydindere eller nordindere

or the Pakistanis;

eller pakistanere.

it belongs to all of us.

Den tilhører os alle.

These are our ancestors --

De er vore forfædre

yours and mine.

dine og mine.

They were silenced

De blev gjort tavse

by an unfortunate accident of history.

af en uheldig begivenhed i historien.

If we decipher the script,

Hvis vi dechifrerer skriften

we would enable them to speak to us again.

kan vi få dem til at tale til os igen.

What would they tell us?

Hvad vil de fortælle os ?

What would we find out about them? About us?

Hvad kan vi lære om dem ? Om os ?

I can't wait to find out.

Jeg kan ikke vente.

Thank you.

Tak.

(Applause)

(Applaus)