Eli5: how do historians learn old languages like hieroglyphics and akkadian for example ?

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If nobody was speaking those languages for a very long time, how come people managed to learn them

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Heiroglyphics was done with the Rosetta Stone. It was an announcement written in 3 languages. 2 of those were already known, and they said the same thing. That gave researchers a known message to use with the heiroglyphics.

And thats kind of what you need.

Another route is if you know a related language. If you know spanish/italian/portugese/french/romanian then you have a chance of figuring out some latin.

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