Mythoblogia

Ignoring the truth - or what we imagine to be the truth of written language spontaneously being invented at least 3 times in human history - what are the mythological origins of language? Surely there's a god or 2 involved here!

In ancient Egypt the invention of writing is attributed to the god Thoth. Thoth was handy with words and managed to invent speech as well. Even more Dune-like was Thoth's ability to transform speech into material objects. Speak and it shall come... into being.

In Mesopotamia, among the Sumerians it was Enlil who was the creator of writing. Although during the later Assyrian and Babylonian periods it was reputedly the god Nabu who invented both speech and writing. It had to be someone, after all. Like Thoth, these Mesopotamian language gods were also able to turn words into things.

There are more, but that'll do for now.

Labels: Enlil, language, Nabu, Thoth

Not so much a myth as a mystery, the Indus Valley Civilization (c. 3300–1700 BC) was - as the name suggests - an ancient riverine civilization that flourished in the Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra river valleys in what is now Pakistan and northwestern India.

Another name for this civilization is the Harappan Civilization, after the first excavated city of Harappa (uncovered in the 1920s). Not a lot is known about this civilisation or why it vanished, although there are many theories about rivers drying up, earthquakes and just plain old invasion. Near neighbours the Sumerians may have known this civilisation as Meluhha. The languauge - largely untranslated at this stage - is a likely candidate for Proto-Dravidian (that descended into current Tamil), or perhaps Proto-Indo-Iranian (that descended into, umm, Iranian, for example) and consisted of about 400 symbols and a base-8 number system. Pretty interesting and distinctive, in fact. Plenty more to read here at AncientScripts.com and at Harrappa.com.

Labels: ancient civilisation, Dravidian, Indus valley, language