How were ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs eventually translated into modern languages like English?
In: 5
The [Rosetta Stone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone) provided contemporary translations to known languages. These, in turn, were translated into other modern languages.
The translation started with the Rosetta stone:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone
It has a decree written in ancient Egyptian (hieroglyphic script and Demotic script) and ancient Greek.
From that, more and more hieroglyphs made sense, and other bilingual documents were found.
And from Greek, translation to other languages is easier.
In 1799, the Rosetta Stone was found in Egypt. The Rosetta Stone had writing from ancient Egyptian, hieroglyphs, and ancient Greek on it. Since ancient Greek was easy enough to translate into modern language, they were able to read the Egyptian. They used those to develop a system to understand the hieroglyphs on the Stone. Because of that, the hieroglyphics on pyramids and artwork were able to be translated and understood.
It’s also why the Rosetta Stone is the name of one of the most successful language learning softwares out there.
They found a sign, called the Rosetta Stone, with the same message written Greek and hieroglyphics (and a third language). Knowing the message from Greek and what it translates to in Egyption, they figured out how the symbols stood for the sounds.
Latest Answers