eli5: How did philologists (people who study ancient languages) learn to decipher ancient texts, if there was no understandable translation available upon discovery?

Question

To me it seems like this would be similar to trying to learn to read Chinese with absolutely no access to any educational materials/teachers.

In: 5

Answer 1

Great podcast on the jordan harbinger shower about this! On spotify labled “finiding the wprlds great secrets, how?” I believe it gives you a lot of wonderful insight. The chinese language actually helped a bit in deciphering egytptisn hieroglyphics