ConceptsBilingual text
Concept · linguistics · in 11 mysteries
Bilingual text
The same text in two scripts or languages, the standard key to an unread one.
A text written twice, once in a script that can be read and once in one that cannot, so the known half gives the unknown its sounds and meanings. The Rosetta Stone is the famous one. None of the unread scripts on this site has one, which is much of why they are unread; the search for a bilingual is a next step on several of their key questions.
Where it comes up
Hattic, Kassite and the half-read languages of the cuneiform archives
Hattic is an isolate for the present corpus: no relationship can be demonstrated from about a hundred secure words, and progress must come from the bilinguals.
Q: How much of the Hattic corpus can be read, and how far can the bilinguals and quasi-bilinguals be extended?Hattic is an isolate for the present corpus: no relationship can be demonstrated from about a hundred secure words…New Hattic word meanings keep coming from bilinguals and quasi-bilinguals, not from external comparison.The Amorite bilinguals of 2022 show that an unrecognised lexical tablet can change a names-only language overnight.In the bilinguals both an- and zero occur with intransitive verbs, and Goedegebuure ties the choice to whether the…
Hurrian songs of Ugarit
For the Hurrian words, progress depends on the Boğazköy bilinguals and on new Hurrian texts, not on the song itself .
Etruscan: the readable language that cannot be fully translated
Every Etruscan meaning accepted today, from the numerals to the kinship terms and magistracies, was reached by internal comparison, bilinguals and glosses, and none by etymology.
Proto-Elamite and Linear Elamite
The values read the royal name Puzur-Inshushinak and the god Inshushinak in the Susa bilinguals, where the Akkadian gives the names.
Eteocretan and Eteocypriot
The bilinguals establish personal names, the Eteocypriot patronymic ending and probably one Eteocretan verb form (inai, "it was decided"), and confirm that the scripts carry their Greek values; they do not establish…
Iberian language and Palaeohispanic scripts
It is not Indo-European, it has no well-understood close relative, and bilingual inscriptions are few and short .
Linear A
The small size of the corpus, the lack of a bilingual text and the uncertainty about whether Linear B values apply are the three constraints that every attempt has to work within.
Artifacts 1
Cite it
Mysteries Department. (2026). Bilingual text [Concept CPT0DECW026HWD1]. https://mysteriesdept.com/r/CPT0DECW026HWD1
@misc{mysteriesdept_cpt0decw026hwd1,
title = {Bilingual text},
author = {{Mysteries Department}},
year = {2026},
note = {Concept, catalog key CPT0DECW026HWD1},
url = {https://mysteriesdept.com/r/CPT0DECW026HWD1}
}