# Such measures do not discriminate reliably, so the Indus question cannot be settled from the corpus…

> Most likely: Such measures do not discriminate reliably, so the Indus question cannot be settled from the corpus statistics.

Source: https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/indus-script/answers/ANS0CWY3NDC04F9/such-measures-do-not-discriminate-reliably-so-the-indus  
Publisher: Mysteries Department  
Licence: CC BY 4.0 (credit Mysteries Department and link the page)  

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[Questions](https://mysteriesdept.com/questions)[Indus script](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/indus-script)[Can statistical measures tell whether an unknown symbol system is writing?](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/indus-script/questions/QST0CWY3FA22GA4/can-statistical-measures-tell-whether-an-unknown-symbol)Answer

Answer · Indus script

# Such measures do not discriminate reliably, so the Indus question cannot be settled from the corpus…

Such measures do not discriminate reliably, so the Indus question cannot be settled from the corpus statistics.

**Most likely** Answers **1** questionPublished0

## Where it stands

**Most likely** Its tests partly supported it: one piece of evidence for, one against. It needs two reviews to be accepted.

## What it predicts

- Measures applied to corpora of real writing and real non-linguistic systems overlap.

## What would rule it out

- A measure is found that cleanly separates known writing from known non-writing at Indus corpus sizes.

## Evidence 1 for · 1 against

[Sproat's 2014 comparison across real corpora found the measures do not settle the question.](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/indus-script/evidence/EVD0CWY3NN62TEX/sproats-2014-comparison-across-real-corpora-found-the)

Supported

FOR

[Rao et al. argue that the measures were meant to be combined with other evidence, not used alone.](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/indus-script/evidence/EVD0CWY3NX05KE2/rao-et-al-argue-that-the-measures-were-meant-to-be-combined)

Suggestive

AGAINST

## The questions it answers

[Can statistical measures tell whether an unknown symbol system is writing?](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/indus-script/questions/QST0CWY3FA22GA4/can-statistical-measures-tell-whether-an-unknown-symbol)

Part of [Are the Indus signs a writing system for a spoken language?](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/indus-script/questions/QST0CWY3ETE3XCV/are-the-indus-signs-a-writing-system-for-a-spoken-language)

Most likelySuch measures do not discriminate reliably, so the Indus question cannot be settled from the corpus…

## Cite it

```
Mysteries Department. (2026). Such measures do not discriminate reliably, so the Indus question cannot be settled from the corpus… [Answer ANS0CWY3NDC04F9]. https://mysteriesdept.com/r/ANS0CWY3NDC04F9
```

Key

**ANS** 0CWY3NDC04F9

Kind

Answer · hypothesis

Origin

Published

Version

1

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