Ancient Near East writing systems: Indian sprachbund and Indus writing 
Beyond the Mahābhārata incident in which Vidura is said to have alerted Yudhiṣṭira in Mleccha bhāṣā, evidence is provided on mleccha (cognate meluhha) language from ancient texts.

1 4 | I.11 - 12 {6/8}          mlecchaḥhavaieṣaḥyatapaśabdaḥ . 1 4 | I.11 - 12 {7/8}          

mlecchāḥmābhūmaitiadhyeyamvyākaraṇam .~V.118.5 - 119.12 {20/36} 

mlecchitam vispaṣṭena itievaanyatra .tasmātbrāhmaṇenana 

mlecchitavaina apabhāṣitavai . Patanjali explains in the context of ungrammatical 

mleccha with apaśabdaḥ . (Patanjali: Mahābhāṣya).    

http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2011/10/road-to-meluhha-dt-potts-1982.html


http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2012/02/indian-hieroglyphs-meluhha-and-archaeo.html



These are samples of results of my enquiry into mleccha vācas as distinguished from ārya vācas (Manu). I have detailed more in my book on Indus writing in ancient near East.http://www.amazon.com/Indus-Writing-ancient-Near-East/dp/0982897189/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1371088202&sr=8-1&keywords=indus+writing Vatsyayana attests mlecchitavikalpa as a cipher, one of the 64 arts to be learnt together with deśabhāṣā jnānam and akṣaramuṣṭika kathanam. Patanjali elaborates on mleccha as a dialect. There is a lot of textual data on people as distinct from language -- both mleccha and ārya as dasyu (cf. OIr. daha) and as dwīpavāsinah. I do not know when the word 'ayas' came into vogue.  It is as old as Rgveda. The semantics of this word may hold the key in revisiting our language chronologies. I find the following DEDR (Dravidian etyma) entries intriguing:



aduru native metal (Ka.); ayil iron (Ta.) ayir, ayiram any ore (Ma.); ajirda karba very hard iron (Tu.)(DEDR 192). I do not know how aduru evolved or is phonetically cognate vis-a-vis ayo 'iron' (Gujarati). There is a very specific explanation for the Kannada word: aduru = gaṇiyinda tegadu karagade iruva aduru = ore taken from the mine and not subjected to melting in a furnace (Kannada. Siddhānti Subrahmaṇya śāstri’s new interpretation of the Amarakośa, Bangalore,Vicaradarpana Press, 1872, p. 330) One intriguing semantic may be cited, again, in the context of the bronze-age.  

There are two compounds: milakkhu rajanam 'copper-coloured' (Pali), 

mleccha mukha 'copper' (Samskrtam).


Why mleccha mukha? I think the lexeme mukha isa substrate lexeme
mūh 'face, ingot' (Munda. Santali etc.); it is possible that mleccha mukha may
refer to 'copper ingot'. mũhã = the quantity of iron produced at one time in a
native smelting furnace (Santali) Mleccha, language. Mleccha, copper. 




How do semantic associations occur in human interactions as languages evolve? 

The other meaning of mūh 'face' (CDIAL 10158) explains why a face glyph gets 

ligatured in Indus writing to clear composite hieroglyphs to create mlecchitavikalpa 

(cipher mentioned by Vātsyāyana) 




See, for example,  Seal m0302 (Mohenjo-daro) which shows a 'human face'
ligatured to an 'elephant trunk' etc. See other examples on Seals m1179 and
m1186A (Mohenjo-daro). The seal m0302 also has the uniquitous fish glyphs
denoting ayo 'fish' (Munda stream). ibha 'elephant' (Samskrtam) ibbho
'merchant' (Hemacandra Desināmamāla -Gujarati) ib 'iron' (Santali). There is a
Railway station, a village called Ib near Bokaro (with a steel plant in the iron
ore belt) on the Howrah-Mumbai rail-route :)--




I do not have the competence to suggest dates for the lexemes which were absorbed
into various languages of the language union. Some call them borrowings, some
call them substratum. Who knows?  




Reconstructing mleccha (meluhha) beyond identification of glosses is a very tall order and I
have no competence whatsoever to take up the task. I have, however,
produced a comparative lexicon for the India sprachbund with over 8000 semantic
clusters. If it is validated, it could be a beginning to suggest phonetic and
morphemic evolution and formation of languages such as Marathi or Bengali or
Oriya. Syntax can only be inferred based on evidences provided in early
Samskrtam-Prakrtam dramas of the type mentioned in Bharata's Nāṭyaśāstra.
Bloch has done pioneering work on Marathi.




Similar work has to be done for all languages of the language union which ancient India
nurtured on the banks of River Sarasvati. She is vāgdevi and mleccha was a
vācas.  One thing is clear: if the lexemes related to metalware and
metalwork are found as substratum lexemes, the date should be subsequent to the
4th millennium BCE of the bronze-age when tin-bronzes and zinc-bronzes
supplemented arsenical bronzes; this was a veritable revolution of the times.
Given the rich treasure,Bharata nidhi of ancient Hindu texts such as those of
Patanjali or Bhartrhari, we have the work cut out for us to re-evaluate and
sharpen our understanding of Bharatiya vāk, the ancient spoken idiom.



m1179

 m1186A

m0302


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