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

One example is [the Rosetta Stone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone). It had a text in multiple languages, therefore it was possible to decipher them from one another.

Also, some languages have continued through the centuries and evolved into other languages. For instance Latin is the precursor of modern Italian, and Ancient Greek the precursor of modern Greek.