Why would a bilingual inscription help scholars decipher the Indus script?

A bilingual inscription would be a vital tool for scholars attempting to decipher the Indus script because it would provide a known reference point for an unknown writing system.12

When a text is written in two languages—one of which is already understood—scholars can compare the known language to the unknown script to identify corresponding words, names, or grammatical structures. This method was famously successful with the Rosetta Stone, which featured the same decree in hieroglyphics, demotic script, and ancient Greek. Because researchers could read the Greek portion, they were able to bridge the gap and begin translating the Egyptian hieroglyphs.123

Currently, the lack of such bilingual keys, combined with the extreme brevity of the surviving Indus inscriptions, remains a primary obstacle to decipherment. Without a bilingual text to confirm the meaning of the signs, researchers are forced to rely on internal analysis or speculative connections to other languages, none of which have achieved widespread scholarly agreement.12