Bilingual Inscription

In epigraphy, a bilingual is an inscription that is extant in two languages (or trilingual in the case of three languages, etc.). Bilinguals are important for the decipherment of ancient writing systems, and for the study of ancient languages with small or repetitive corpora.

Important bilinguals include:

• the Rosetta Stone, in hieroglyphic and demotic Egyptian and Greek
• the Behistun Inscription, in Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian (a later form of Akkadian)
• the Xanthos Obelisk
• the Letoon trilingual, in standard Lycian or Lycian A, Greek and Aramaic
• the Karatepe inscriptions, in Phoenician and Hieroglyphic Luwian
• the Amathus Bilingual, in Eteocypriot and Greek
• the Pyrgi Tablets, in Etruscan and Phoenician
• the Kaunos Bilingual, in Carian and Greek
• the de Landa alphabet, in Mayan and Spanish