評論
打印
Listen to part of a lecture in the history class, the professor has been discussing Egypt hieroglyphs.
聽一段歷史課。教授正在討論古埃及象形文字。
Egyptian hieroglyphs are the ancient Egyptian writings, found in ancient Egyptian on walls, monuments and on the inside and outside of the temples.
埃及象形文字即古埃及文字，在古埃及墻壁上、紀念碑及寺廟內外都能找到。
Hieroglyphic writing ended abruptly about 1600 years ago, and it mystified the most brilliant minds in the study of the Egyptian artifacts and archeology for many many centuries.
象形文字約在1600年前突然消亡，許多世紀以來這給那些研究埃及史前器物和考古學的一流人才帶來了很多迷惑。
Finally, the possibility of deciphering hieroglyphs came about with the discovery in 1799 of the Rosetta stone.
最后，人們在1799年發現了羅塞塔之石，破解象形文字成為可能。
The Rosetta stone is arguably the most famous archeology artifact ever discovered.
羅塞塔之石大概是有史以來人們發現的最著名的考古文物。
It contains the same exact text written in three different alphabets: Greek, demotic and hieroglyphic.
在石頭上面有以三種不同文字書寫的同一文本：希臘語，埃及通俗語及象形文字。
But we didn't even know at first that the three texts on the Rosetta stone contain the same information.
但我們在一開始并不知道羅塞塔之石上的三篇文本意思一樣。
And two of the three alphabets are ancient Egyptian scripts that stop being used, the hieroglyphic and the demotic.
三種文字中的兩種：象形文字及埃及通俗語，都是古埃及文字，已經停止使用了。
The demotic script found on the Rosetta stone, um …well, demotic was not as elaborate as the hieroglyphic writing.
在羅塞塔之石上的通俗語文字……通俗語并不及象形文字精致繁復。
It was used for more mundane matters or like administrative documents.
通俗語通常用于日常瑣事中，或是行政文件中。
These ancient Egyptian scripts were replaced by Coptic script, but eventually the Arabic language replaced the Coptic, and this cut off the linguistic link between ancient and modern Egypt.
這些古埃及文字最后被埃及古語取代了，但最終阿拉伯語取而代之，把古埃及與現代埃及的語言聯系徹底斬斷。
Now the Rosetta stone was remarkable, because as I said, on it was the same text in three different alphabets: Greek, demotic and hieroglyphic.
羅塞塔之石是非常了不起的，因為，正如我所說，在上面有用三種不同文字書就的同一文本：希臘語，埃及通俗語及象形文字。
The stone was essentially the dictionary that the scholars needed to interpret the meaning of hieroglyphs, and it took a uniquely equipped researcher to finally decipher and understand what was written on the stone.
這塊石頭基本上被想翻譯象形文字的學者當作字典來使用，而且要想破解并弄懂石頭上的文字，研究者需要有特殊的知識背景。
Thomas Yang, an English scholar, was the first to seriously attempt to decipher the symbols on the Rosetta stone.
托馬斯·楊是一位英國學者，他是第一個認真嘗試破解羅塞塔之石上的符號的人。
He suspected rightly, that the hieroglyphs were phonetic symbols that they represented sounds rather than pictures.
他的懷疑是正確的，即這些象形文字是注音符號，代表聲音而不是圖像。
Until then, all scholars assumed that the hieroglyphs were pictographs, that they symbolize objects or concepts.
此前，所有學者都認為，象形文字是圖像表意文字，即它們代表物品或概念。
Thomas Yang focused his attention on one set of hieroglyphs that he thought would probably spell out a single word, the name of a King or Queen.
托馬斯·楊集中關注一組象形文字，他覺得這組文字能拼成一個單詞，是某位國王或王后的名字。
