As means for decipherment
Examples for multilingual inscription used for deciphering ancient scripts and for studying their respective languages, indicating the languages of the inscribed texts and the scripts systems used, with the script or language it was used for deciphering pointed out. *Examples
Bilinguals
Important bilinguals include: *the first known Sumerian language, Sumerian-Akkadian language, Akkadian bilingual tablet dating to the reign of Rimush, circa 2270 BCE. *the ''Urra=hubullu'' tablets (c. 2nd millennium BCE; Babylon) in Sumerian language, Sumerian and Akkadian language, Akkadian; one tablet is a Sumerian-Hurrian language, Hurrian bilingual glossary. *the bilingual Ebla tablets (2500–2250 BCE; Syria) in Sumerian language, Sumerian and Eblaite *the bilingual Ugarit Inscriptions (1400–1186 BCE; Syria): **tablets in Akkadian and Hittite **tablets in Akkadian and Hieroglyphic Luwian **tablets in Sumerian and Akkadian **tablets in Ugaritic and Akkadian *the Karatepe Bilingual (8th century BCE; Osmaniye Province, Turkey) in Phoenician and Hieroglyphic Luwian *the Tell el Fakhariya Bilingual Inscription (9th century BCE; Al-Hasakah Governorate, Syria) in Aramaic and Akkadian language, Akkadian *the Çineköy inscription (8th century BCE; Adana Province, Turkey) in Hieroglyphic Luwian and Phoenician *the Assyrian lion weights (8th century BCE; Nimrud, Iraq) in Akkadian language, Akkadian (Assyrian dialect, using cuneiform script) and Aramaic language, Aramaic (using Phoenician script) *the Kandahar Edict of Ashoka (3rd century BCE; Afghanistan) in Ancient Greek and Aramaic *the Amathus bilingual (600 BCE; Cyprus) in Eteocypriot and Ancient Greek (Attic Greek, Attic dialect) *the Idalion bilingual inscription that helped to decipher the Cypriot syllabary, Cypro-Syllabic script *the Pyrgi Tablets (500 BCE; Lazio, Italy) in Etruscan language, Etruscan and Phoenician *the Kaunos Bilingual (330–300 BCE; Turkey), in Carian language, Carian and Ancient Greek *the Philae obelisk (118 BCE; Egypt), in Egyptian hieroglyphs and Ancient Greek *the Ptolemaic Decrees, Rosetta Stone Series, in Egyptian language, Egyptian (using Egyptian hieroglyphs, Hieroglyphic and Demotic (Egyptian), Demotic scripts) and Ancient Greek; they allowed the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs (especially the last one) **the Raphia Decree (217 BCE; Memphis, Egypt) **the Decree of Canopus (238–237 BCE; Tanis, Egypt) **the Rosetta Stone decree (196 BCE; Egypt): the Rosetta Stone and the Nubayrah Stele *the Cippi of Melqart (2nd century BCE; Malta) in Phoenician and Ancient Greek; discovered in Malta in 1694, the key which allowed French scholar Jean-Jacques Barthélemy, Abbé Barthelemy to Cippi of Melqart#Deciphering the Phoenician script, decipher the Phoenician script *the Punic-Libyan Inscription (146 BCE; Dougga, Tunisia) in Berber languages, Libyan and Punic language, Punic; from the Mausoleum of Ateban, now held at the British Museum, it allowed the decipherment of Libyan *the ''Monumentum Ancyranum'' inscription (14 CE; Ankara, Turkey) in Latin and Greek language, Greek; it reproduces and translates the Latin inscription of the ''Res Gestae Divi Augusti'' *the Stele of Serapit (150 CE; Kartli, Tbilisi) in Ancient Greek and Armazic language, Armazic (a local variant of Aramaic) *the Velvikudi inscription (8th century; India) in Sanskrit and Tamil language, Tamil *the Valun tablet (11th century; Cres, Croatia) in Old Croatian language, Croatian (using Glagolitic script, Glagolitic script) and Latin language, Latin *the Muchundi Inscription (13th century; Kozhikode, India) in Arabic and Malayalam *the ''Kalyani Inscriptions'' (1479; Bago, Burma) in Mon language, Mon and Pali language, Pali (using Burmese script) The manuscript titled ''Relación de las cosas de Yucatán'' (1566; Spain) shows the de Landa alphabet (and a bilingual list of words and phrases), written in Spanish language, Spanish and Mayan languages, Mayan; it allowed the decipherment of the Pre-Columbian Maya script in the mid-20th century.Trilinguals
Important trilinguals include: *the trilingual Aphek-Antipatris inscription (1550–1200 BCE; Tell Aphek, Israel) in Sumerian, Akkadian and Canaanite language, Canaanite; it is a lexicon *the trilingual Ugarit Inscriptions (1400–1186 BCE; Syria): **a dictionary (13th century BCE) in Sumerian language, Sumerian, Akkadian language, Akkadian and Hurrian language, Hurrian. **a literary text in Sumerian language, Sumerian, Akkadian language, Akkadian and Hittite language, Hittite; it was imported from Hattusa. *the Achaemenid royal inscriptions inQuadrilinguals
Important quadrilinguals include: *the quadrilingual Ugarit Inscription (c. 14th century BC; Syria) in Sumerian language, Sumerian, Akkadian language, Akkadian, Hurrian language, Hurrian and Ugaritic. *the Myazedi inscription (1113; Bagan, Burma) in Burmese language, Burmese, Pyu language (Burma), Pyu, Mon language, Mon and Pali language, Pali; it allowed the decipherment of Pyu. *the Yongning Temple Stele (1413, Tyr, Russia) in Chinese language, Chinese (using Traditional Chinese, Traditional characters), Jurchen language, Jurchen, Mongolian language, Mongolian (using Mongolian script) and Classical Tibetan language, Classical Tibetan; the Buddhist mantra ''Om mani padme hum'' is transcribed from Sanskrit using 4 scripts arranged vertically on sides, and there is another Chinese text engraved on the front with abbreviated Mongolian & Jurchen translations on the back.Inscriptions in five or more languages
Important examples in five or more languages include: *the ''Sawlumin inscription'' (1053–1080; Myittha Township, Burma) in Burmese language, Burmese, Pyu language (Burma), Pyu, Mon language, Mon, Pali language, Pali and Sanskrit (or Northern Thai language, Tai-Yuan, Gon (Khun or Kengtung) Shan; in Devanagari script) *the Cloud Platform at Juyong Pass inscriptions (1342–1345; Beijing, China) in Sanskrit (using the Tibetan variant of Ranjana script called Lanydza script, Lanydza), Classical Tibetan language, Classical Tibetan, Mongolian language, Mongolian (using 'Phags-pa script), Old Uyghur language, Old Uyghur (using Old Uyghur alphabet, Old Uyghur script), Chinese language, Chinese (using Traditional Chinese, Traditional characters) and Tangut language, Tangut; it engraves two different Buddhist dharani-sutras transcriptions from Sanskrit using 6 scripts, another text ("Record of Merits in the Construction of the Pagoda") in 5 languages (without Sanskrit version), and a Chinese & Tangut summary of one dharani-sutra. *the Stele of Sulaiman (1348; Gansu, China) in Sanskrit, Classical Tibetan, Mongolian, Old Uyghur, Chinese and Tangut (like the inscriptions at Juyong Pass); the Buddhist mantra ''Om mani padme hum'' is transcribed from Sanskrit using 6 scripts (last 4 arranged vertically), below another Chinese engraving.Modern examples
Notable modern examples include: *the cornerstone of the UN headquarters (1949; New York, USA) in English, French language, French, Chinese (using Traditional characters), Russian and Spanish; the text "United Nations" in each official language and "MCMXLIX" (the year in Roman numerals) are etched on stone. *Peace poles (since 1955; around the world), displaying each one the message "May Peace Prevail on Earth" in multiple languages (4–16 each one) *the Georgia Guidestones (1980, Elbert County, Georgia, USA), with two multilingual inscriptions **a short message at the top in four ancient languages, i.e., in Akkadian language, Akkadian (Babylonian dialect; using cuneiform script), Ancient Greek, Sanskrit (using Devanagari script) and Egyptian language, Egyptian (using Egyptian hieroglyphs, Hieroglyphic script) **the ten guidelines on the slabs in eight modern languages, i.e., in English language, English, Spanish language, Spanish, Swahili language, Swahili (using Latin script), Hindi (using Devanagari script), Hebrew language, Hebrew, Arabic language, Arabic, Chinese language, Chinese (using Traditional Chinese, Traditional characters) and Russian language, Russian (using Cyrillic script). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948; Paris, France) was originally written in English and French. In 2009, it became the most translated document in the world (370 languages and dialects). Unicode stores 481 translations as of November 2021.See also
* Digraphia * Parallel text * Polyglot (book)References
External links
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Multilingual inscription Multilingual texts, Bilingualism