3 ms·
Totally tangent: One of my favorite nitpicks (some others are use of two spaces before a period, the Oxford comma, and the idea that light slows down in a mediu
by Jun8 2y ago
Totally tangent: One of my favorite nitpicks (some others are use of two spaces before a period, the Oxford comma, and the idea that light slows down in a medium) is that the Rosetta Stone is not trilingual: the two texts is Ancient Egyptian use different characters - Hieroglyphs and Demotic. The former is a stilted form mimicking Middle Egyptian while the latter would be accessible to more people.
So the two are not word for word same but are not different languages either.
For a true trilingual inscription that also helped with decipherment, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behistun_Inscription https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behistun_Inscription
- empath-nirvana 2y agoby the time the rosetta stone was written, the literary language had drifted pretty far from spoken egyptian anyway, which was well on the way to becoming Coptic.
- Affric 2y agoThis only holds if you consider written language the same as spoken language. Which I think is an interesting idea. Languages are symbolic systems of representation. Whether they map onto a spoken language, a signed language, or reality itself aren't written languages languages in their own right? Earnest thoughts from someone with no training in the philosophy of language or linguistics. EDIT: Also thanks for Behistun. Fascinating.