Chapter 6 - 1

Chapter 6

Reference Questions

01 History

Ancient Egyptian Languages

For quite some time after European historians began studying ancient Egyptian ruins, the writing found there was undecipherable.

Many ancient Egyptian artifacts and tombs were engraved with letters from the ancient civilization’s alphabet.

What they actually meant remained unknown.

While it was relatively easy to deduce certain things about ancient Egyptian ways of life, not having an understanding of their language severely hindered any historical research.

The Egyptian alphabet is a combination of two distinct written language types.

The first, alphabetic, is most common in contemporary languages.

Each glyph represents a sound.

Glyphs are combined into strings to form words.

Words, then, contain a concept.

Logographic languages, on the other hand, are written so that a single glyph represents a concept.

Occasionally, glyphs are strung together to create a more complex concept.

Ancient Egyptian writing used both, and, as such, it remained a mystery to modern linguists.

When French explorers unearthed the Rosetta Stone by the Mediterranean coast in, 1799, they unwittingly opened up the ancient Egyptian alphabet.

When it was discovered, French scholars immediately suspected that they had found something valuable.

In a historically unclear series of events, the Rosetta Stone eventually fell into the hands of the British, who went about translating the text on the large stone tablet.

They finished the translation around 1824.

The Rosetta Stone, written around 195 BCE, actually presents the same decree in three different languages.

The message itself is relatively mundane, ordering the repeal of various taxes and requesting the construction of statues in temples.

Even though the message remains a simple bureaucratic edict, it is written in Ancient Greek and two Egyptian written languages, hieroglyphic and demotic (Coptic).

Linguists were already quite familiar with the Greek and had a working knowledge of Coptic, which was used by later Egyptian states.

The translation of the hieroglyphic text involved honing linguistic understanding of the Coptic language by comparing it to the Greek language, which was relatively well known.

The subsequent understanding of Coptic would be compared to the written hieroglyphic text on the tablet.

By working out the definition of particular hieroglyphs and then inferring the meaning of others, translators were able to effectively decode the ancient Egyptian writing system.

The impact of the Rosetta Stone is undeniable.

For years before its discovery, scholars had been attempting to translate hieroglyphs with no success.

The discovery of the Rosetta Stone was pivotal, as the meaning of hieroglyphs could be discerned.

The subsequent insight, into Egyptian culture was vast-large retellings of historical events were inscribed on the walls of Egyptian structures.

Being able to read them offered an unprecedented understanding of the ancient Egyptian people.

Given its impact on language, the term “Rosetta stone” has worked has worked itself into our own language as an idiom for a key to a decryption process or puzzle.

It is arguably one of the most important known historical artifacts.