Harappan language

The Harappan language is the unknown language or languages of the Bronze Age (c. 2nd millennium BC) Harappan civilization (Indus Valley civilization, or IVC). The Harappan script has long defied attempts to read it, and therefore the language remains unknown. The language being unattested in any readable contemporary source, hypotheses regarding its nature are reduced to purported loanwords and substratum influence, the substratum in Vedic Sanskrit and a few terms recorded in Sumerian cuneiform (such as Meluhha), in conjunction with analyses of the undeciphered Indus script.

There are a handful of possible loanwords from the language of the Indus Valley civilization. Sumerian Meluhha may be derived from a native term for the Indus Valley civilization, also reflected in Sanskrit mleccha meaning non-Vedic or native, and Witzel (2000) further suggests that Sumerian ^GIŠšimmar (a type of tree) may be cognate to Rigvedic śimbala and śalmali (also names of trees).