託福奇葩背景知識系列

很多同學在做託福聽力T25L3的時候直接表示聽吐了，全都是神奇的咒語。這一篇內容難點其實在於專有名詞較多，背景知識需要理解，再加上法語人名亂入，所以今天我們以開頭提到的羅塞塔石碑為切入點，理解它在語言破譯歷史上的地位和作用。

（友情提示：被T25L3碾壓過的同學可以先看後面的中文）

Rosetta Stone, ancient Egyptian stone bearing inscriptions in several languages and scripts; their decipherment led to the understanding of hieroglyphic writing. An irregularly shaped stone of black granite 3 feet 9 inches (114 cm) long and 2 feet 4.5 inches (72 cm) wide, and broken in antiquity, it was found near the town of Rosetta (Rashīd), about 35 miles (56 km) northeast of Alexandria. It was discovered by a Frenchman named Bouchard or Boussard in August 1799. After the French surrender of Egypt in 1801, it passed into British hands and is now in the British Museum in London.

The inscriptions, apparently composed by the priests of Memphis, summarize benefactions conferred by Ptolemy V Epiphanes (205–180 BCE) and were written in the ninth year of his reign in commemoration of his accession to the throne. Inscribed in two languages, Egyptian and Greek, and three writing systems, hieroglyphics, demotic script (a cursive form of Egyptian hieroglyphics), and the Greek alphabet, it provided a key to the translation of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing.

The decipherment was largely the work of Thomas Young of England and Jean-Fran ois Champollion of France. The hieroglyphic text on the Rosetta Stone contains six identical cartouches (oval figures enclosing hieroglyphs). Young deciphered the cartouche as the name of Ptolemy and proved a long-held assumption that the cartouches found in other inscriptions were the names of royalty. By examining the direction in which the bird and animal characters faced, Young also discovered the way in which hieroglyphic signs were to be read.

In 1821–22 Champollion, starting where Young left off, began to publish papers on the decipherment of hieratic and hieroglyphic writing based on study of the Rosetta Stone and eventually established an entire list of signs with their Greek equivalents. He was the first Egyptologist to realize that some of the signs were alphabetic, some syllabic, and some determinative, standing for the whole idea or object previously expressed. He also established that the hieroglyphic text of the Rosetta Stone was a translation from the Greek, not, as had been thought, the reverse. The work of these two men established the basis for the translation of all future Egyptian hieroglyphic texts.

（資料來源：Encyclopedia Britannica）

小渣渣可以先看這裡……

羅塞塔石碑（Rosetta Stone，也譯作羅塞達碑），高1.14米，寬0.73米，製作於公元前196年，刻有古埃及國王託勒密五世登基的詔書。石碑上用希臘文字、古埃及文字和當時的通俗體文字刻了同樣的內容，這使得近代的考古學家得以有機會對照各語言版本的內容後，解讀出已經失傳千餘年的埃及象形文之意義與結構，而成為今日研究古埃及歷史的重要裡程碑。

羅塞塔石碑由上至下共刻有同一段詔書的三種語言版本，最上面是14行古埃及象形文（Hieroglyphic，又稱為聖書體，代表獻給神明的文字）句首和句尾都已缺失；中間是32行埃及草書（Demotic，又稱為世俗體，是當時埃及平民使用的文字）是一種埃及的紙莎草文書；再下面是54行古希臘文（代表統治者的語言，這是因為當時的埃及已臣服於希臘的亞歷山大帝國之下，來自希臘的統治者要求統治領地內所有的此類文書都需要添加希臘文的譯版）其中有一半行尾殘缺。

羅塞塔石碑是由一群生活於公元前、埃及託勒密王朝（Ptolemaic Dynasty）時代的祭司所製作，作為當時的國王、年僅13歲的託勒密五世加冕一周年時的紀念，其上的內容主要是在敘述託勒密五世自父親託勒密四世處襲得的王位之正統性，與託勒密五世所貢獻的許多善行，例如減稅、在神廟中豎立雕像等對神廟與祭司們大力支持的舉動。

在託勒密王朝之前、法老時代的埃及，像這般的詔書原本都是由法老頒授，等同於聖旨，但到了託勒密時代，唯一還知道埃及象形文撰寫方式的祭司們卻成為詔書的頒寫者，是一個很不一樣的特點。

在公元4世紀結束後不久，尼羅河文明式微、不再使用的埃及象形文之讀法與寫法徹底失傳，雖然之後有許多考古與歷史學家極盡所能，卻一直解讀不了這些神秘文字的結構與用法。

直到1400年之後羅塞塔石碑出土，它獨特的三語對照寫法，意外成為解碼的關鍵，因為三種語言中的古希臘文是近代人類可以閱讀的，利用這關鍵來比對分析碑上其它兩種語言的內容，就可以了解這些失傳語言的文字與文法結構。

在許多嘗試解讀羅塞塔石碑的學者中，19世紀初期的英國物理學家湯馬斯·楊（Thomas Young）是第一個證明碑文中曾多次提及「託勒密」這一人名的發音者。

至於法國學者尚-佛罕索瓦·商博良（Jean-Fran ois Champollion）則是第一個理解到，一直被認為是用形表義的埃及象形文，原來也是具有表音作用的，這個重大發現之後成為解讀所有埃及象形文的關鍵線索。

也正是因為這一緣故，羅塞塔石碑被稱為了解古埃及語言與文化的關鍵基礎。

託福重點考察詞彙

decipher 破譯

hieroglyphic 象形文字

demotic 大眾化的

phonetic 語音的

wedge 楔子，楔形的

cuneiform 楔形文字

papyrus 草莎紙

parchment 羊皮紙，牛皮紙

好的，看完以後大家可以用新的方式打開T25L3啦~