Feature Analysis of Indus Valley and Dravidian Language Scripts with Similarity Matrices

BSTRACTThis paper investigates the similarity between the Indus Valley script and the Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu scripts that are used to write Dravidian languages. The closeness of these scripts is determined by applying a feature analysis of each sign of these scripts and creating similarity matrices that describe the similarity of any pair of signs from two different scripts. The feature list that we use for the analysis of these Dravidian language-related scripts includes six new features beyond the thirteen features that were used for the study of Minoan Linear A and related scripts by Revesz. These new features are the check mark, short vertical line, dot, upper curve, parallel curves, and horizontal line features.