full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Rajesh Rao: A Rosetta Stone for a lost language

Unscramble the Blue Letters


But in 2007, my path crossed again with the Indus script. That's when I was in iinda, and I had the wonderful opportunity to meet with some iadnin scientists who were using computer models to try to alazyne the script. And so it was then that I realized there was an opportunity for me to croltlbaaoe with these scientists, and so I jumped at that opportunity. And I'd like to describe some of the results that we have found. Or better yet, let's all coillveltcey decipher. Are you ready?

The first thing that you need to do when you have an undeciphered script is try to figure out the direction of writing. Here are two texts that contain some symbols on them. Can you tell me if the direction of writing is right to left or left to right? I'll give you a cpoule of seconds. Okay. Right to left, how many? Okay. Okay. Left to right? Oh, it's almost 50/50. Okay. The answer is: if you look at the left-hand side of the two texts, you'll notice that there's a cramping of signs, and it seems like 4,000 yraes ago, when the scribe was wtiirng from right to left, they ran out of sapce. And so they had to cram the sign. One of the sgnis is also below the text on the top. This suggests the direction of writing was probably from right to left, and so that's one of the first things we know, that directionality is a very key aspect of linguistic scripts. And the Indus script now has this particular pertrpoy.

Open Cloze


But in 2007, my path crossed again with the Indus script. That's when I was in _____, and I had the wonderful opportunity to meet with some ______ scientists who were using computer models to try to _______ the script. And so it was then that I realized there was an opportunity for me to ___________ with these scientists, and so I jumped at that opportunity. And I'd like to describe some of the results that we have found. Or better yet, let's all ____________ decipher. Are you ready?

The first thing that you need to do when you have an undeciphered script is try to figure out the direction of writing. Here are two texts that contain some symbols on them. Can you tell me if the direction of writing is right to left or left to right? I'll give you a ______ of seconds. Okay. Right to left, how many? Okay. Okay. Left to right? Oh, it's almost 50/50. Okay. The answer is: if you look at the left-hand side of the two texts, you'll notice that there's a cramping of signs, and it seems like 4,000 _____ ago, when the scribe was _______ from right to left, they ran out of _____. And so they had to cram the sign. One of the _____ is also below the text on the top. This suggests the direction of writing was probably from right to left, and so that's one of the first things we know, that directionality is a very key aspect of linguistic scripts. And the Indus script now has this particular ________.

Solution


  1. collectively
  2. signs
  3. writing
  4. space
  5. india
  6. couple
  7. years
  8. property
  9. collaborate
  10. analyze
  11. indian

Original Text


But in 2007, my path crossed again with the Indus script. That's when I was in India, and I had the wonderful opportunity to meet with some Indian scientists who were using computer models to try to analyze the script. And so it was then that I realized there was an opportunity for me to collaborate with these scientists, and so I jumped at that opportunity. And I'd like to describe some of the results that we have found. Or better yet, let's all collectively decipher. Are you ready?

The first thing that you need to do when you have an undeciphered script is try to figure out the direction of writing. Here are two texts that contain some symbols on them. Can you tell me if the direction of writing is right to left or left to right? I'll give you a couple of seconds. Okay. Right to left, how many? Okay. Okay. Left to right? Oh, it's almost 50/50. Okay. The answer is: if you look at the left-hand side of the two texts, you'll notice that there's a cramping of signs, and it seems like 4,000 years ago, when the scribe was writing from right to left, they ran out of space. And so they had to cram the sign. One of the signs is also below the text on the top. This suggests the direction of writing was probably from right to left, and so that's one of the first things we know, that directionality is a very key aspect of linguistic scripts. And the Indus script now has this particular property.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
indus script 17
indus civilization 4
linguistic scripts 4
random jumble 4
indus valley 3
indus people 3
script represents 3
stamping clay 2
clay tags 2
packing slips 2
language family 2
south india 2
india today 2
undeciphered script 2
computer models 2
symbols tend 2
computer model 2
represent language 2
linguistic script 2
sentence written 2
unusual patterns 2
star constellation 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
indus script represents 3
stamping clay tags 2
south india today 2

Important Words


  1. analyze
  2. answer
  3. aspect
  4. collaborate
  5. collectively
  6. computer
  7. couple
  8. cram
  9. cramping
  10. crossed
  11. decipher
  12. describe
  13. direction
  14. directionality
  15. figure
  16. give
  17. india
  18. indian
  19. indus
  20. jumped
  21. key
  22. left
  23. linguistic
  24. meet
  25. models
  26. notice
  27. opportunity
  28. path
  29. property
  30. ran
  31. ready
  32. realized
  33. results
  34. scientists
  35. scribe
  36. script
  37. scripts
  38. seconds
  39. side
  40. sign
  41. signs
  42. space
  43. suggests
  44. symbols
  45. text
  46. texts
  47. top
  48. undeciphered
  49. wonderful
  50. writing
  51. years