Talk:Rosetta Stone

Error in main section of article

Somehow the Rosetta Stone (bold, first line in page) displays as "chinese food" on the actual page in my browser. Strange, because is the source it appears normal. Can someone with a bit more understanding of wikipedia source code look at this glitch? Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.168.175.44 (talk) 22:47, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi, what you describe was a an edit by a vandal which was up less than a minute before it was reverted by ClueBot at 20:50 UTC today. Please try refreshing your browser and you should see the latest version. -- Marek.69 ^talk 22:54, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

bilingual text

Bilingual text ?? Isn't there three languages on it.Eregli bob (talk) 11:54, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Trilingual?

The languages on the stone are Greek and Egyptian. A second Egyptian script does not make it trilingual, any more than my handwriting a document in cursive and block lettering makes it bilingual. The link correctly points to the entry for "bilingual inscriptions," but the term is still misleading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.110.200.73 (talk) 01:58, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. The text was adjusted recently -- I see why it was done, but "trilingual" is not really true. I've tried another adjustment. No one is ever satisfied with this sentence :) Andrew Dalby 10:40, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Although Demotic and Hieroglyphic are often described as though they were analogous to cursive and block lettering, this is not quite true. It's a little more like, say, Latin in block letters, and Italian in cursive--see my comments at la:Disputatio:Tabula Rosettana#Demotica. Furthermore, Egyptologists themselves regularly refer to the Hieroglyphic-Demotic-Greek Synodic Inscriptions as "trilingual" (for a start, see http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=trilingual+decree ). Yes, you can argue that they are the same language, and that "trilingual" is a misnomer, but why be more exacting about this than the professionals? --Iustinus (talk) 01:34, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Probably also worth linking la:Disputatio:Tabula Rosettana#Differences between the three versions. --Iustinus (talk) 01:39, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

I think everyone knows that on the Rosetta Stone we have two languages and three scripts, and everyone is right. It's perfectly true that this is an oversimplification, and that there are linguistic differences between the hieroglyphic and demotic versions, and that to specialists these differences are really important, but in the great scheme of things -- and therefore in the first paragraph of a wikipedia page for non-specialist readers -- the fact that they are the same language outweighs the differences. Remember that the fact of their being the same language helped Young with the first steps of the decipherment: that fact has to be allowed for in this introduction, not negated. There's plenty of room for the details lower down, I think. Lower down, where footnotes are appropriate, those Egyptologists who call the Stone "trilingual" can be footnoted and their view can be justified. Andrew Dalby 18:33, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Champollion?

The article says (in the introduction): "It was 20 years, however, before the decipherment of the Egyptian texts was announced by Jean-François Champollion in Paris in 1822; it took longer still before scholars were able to read other Ancient Egyptian inscriptions and literature confidently."

Well, Champollion did never translate the Rosetta stone (in 1822 he had two, partly contradictory, copies of it; he didn't see it until 1824, and its hieroglyphic/demotic texts were not translated until the 1850s - see under Reading the Rosetta Stone/Later work). Actually the Rosetta Stone was not that important, and most of Champollion's work rested on other sources.

--Episcophagus (talk) 07:30, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but our focus in this article is the Stone. So what are you saying? That the sentence in the introduction needs rewriting? If so, how would you suggest rewriting it? Andrew Dalby 16:38, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

As the preceeding sentence says "Study of the decree was already under way as the first full translation of the Greek text appeared in 1803" (i.e. the Greek text of the stone, of course, as "we" knew how to translate Greek well before 1803) it implies that the next sentence "It was 20 years, however, before the decipherment of the Egyptian texts was announced by Jean-François Champollion in Paris in 1822" means that the Egyptian texts (i.e. the demotic and hieroglyphic texts of the stone) were deciphered by Champollion, which they weren't. English isn't my first language, so I prefer that somebody more fluent in English rewrite it... (Thanks in advance!). --Episcophagus (talk) 10:49, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

OK, you have a point, I quite agree. But it is difficult to summarize this in a few words. Champollion published in 1822 an essentially correct transliteration of the two Egyptian scripts (and the Stone had been his main focus). The work that followed was to show how the Egyptian texts, as now transliteratable, had the same meaning (in essence) that the Greek text was known to have. We might simply replace "decipherment" with "transliteration" in that sentence. Hmm, I'm still thinking ... I'll ask a friend to comment as well. Andrew Dalby 19:54, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I take it this refers to me... but I honestly don't know that much about the history here. Episcophagus, what is your first language? Chances are reasonably good that someone here knows it... maybe you want to post a proposal on the talk page, and maybe we can translate? --Iustinus (talk) 21:38, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

My first language is Swedish. I mean that the text "the decipherment of the Egyptian texts was announced by Jean-François Champollion in Paris" implies that he deciphered the Egyptian texts os the stone, but "all" he did was that he "cracked the code" (with some help from the stone, i.e. the work done by Young, but more from other sources - first of all the Philae obelisk, but then on from purely hieroglyphic sources - the stone was not interesting anymore to him). When the code was cracked, the stone could be transcribed, but that was done by others. Hope this helps. Now, please reformulate. :-) --Episcophagus (talk) 15:31, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

OK, I've made a small change. See if you think it helps at all -- and let's see if others think it's better or worse this way! Andrew Dalby 19:56, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Suspected copyright infringement

I'm afraid that the translation of Edwyn Bevan is copyrighted under British law, since 70 years haven't passed yet since his death in October 1943. Therefore, presenting such an extent piece of his work is not under fair use. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Kulystab (talk) 12:19, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Ha! You're right, then. The simplest immediate answer is to remove this long quotation totally, since the surrounding text already has a link to a full recent translation (and also to a copy of this one). I'll do that. A better answer will be to give a summary without verbatim quotation, but I don't have time right now -- maybe someone else has? Andrew Dalby 15:06, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I've taken it out now. The website from which this text was taken says that it's "in the public domain". That may well be the case in the US (where that website is hosted) but, in view of what you say, not in the UK. Other views welcome! Andrew Dalby 15:12, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Is it possible maybe to present some of it, let's say one paragraph (and not four) under fair use? I'm really not an expert in copyright issues. Kulystab (talk) 16:51, 11 March 2013 (UTC)