TY - JOUR

T1 - On statistical measures and ancient writing systems

AU - Rao, Rajesh P. N.

AU - Lee, Rob

AU - Yadav, Nisha

AU - Vahia, Mayank

AU - Jonathan, Philip

AU - Ziman, Pauline

PY - 2015/12

Y1 - 2015/12

N2 - An article published in Language (Sproat 2014a) questions our findings on the Indus script and Pictish symbols published in the journals Science (Rao et al. 2009a), PNAS (Rao et al. 2009b), IEEE Computer (Rao 2010), and the Proceedings of the Royal Society (Lee et al. 2010a,b). Sproat’s article does not accurately present our methods and findings, and its conclusions are based on what appears to be a misunderstanding of our proposed approach. For example, the article’s results on entropic measures seem to favor, rather than contradict, the inductive hypothesis that the Indus script may represent writing. The article selects results to draw a particular set of conclusions and convey a specific viewpoint. In light of these issues, we stand by our original findings.

AB - An article published in Language (Sproat 2014a) questions our findings on the Indus script and Pictish symbols published in the journals Science (Rao et al. 2009a), PNAS (Rao et al. 2009b), IEEE Computer (Rao 2010), and the Proceedings of the Royal Society (Lee et al. 2010a,b). Sproat’s article does not accurately present our methods and findings, and its conclusions are based on what appears to be a misunderstanding of our proposed approach. For example, the article’s results on entropic measures seem to favor, rather than contradict, the inductive hypothesis that the Indus script may represent writing. The article selects results to draw a particular set of conclusions and convey a specific viewpoint. In light of these issues, we stand by our original findings.

U2 - 10.1353/lan.2015.0055

DO - 10.1353/lan.2015.0055

M3 - Journal article

VL - 91

SP - e198-e205

JO - Language

JF - Language

SN - 0097-8507

IS - 4

ER -