Omnilingual

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Omnilingual is a science fiction short story written by H. Beam Piper.

It made its first appearance in the Feburary 1957 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and has been reprinted in a number of anthologies. They are:

Prologue to Analog (1962, Doubleday)
Analog Anthology (1965, Dobson)
Great Science Fiction Stories About Mars (1966, Fredrick Fell)
Apeman, Spaceman (1968, Doubleday)
Mars, We Love You (1971, Doubleday)
Where Do We Go from Here? (1971, Doubleday)
The Days After Tomorrow (1971, Little Brown)
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow... (1974, Rinehart & Winston)
Science Fiction Novellas (1975, Scribner)
Federation (1981, Ace)
The Great SF Stories: 19 (1957) (1989, Daw)
The World Turned Upside Down (2005, Baen)

[edit] Synopsis

An expedition to Mars discovers the remains of an advanced civilization, which died out many thousands of years ago. They recovered books and documents left behind, and are puzzled by their contents. The team eventually finds their "Rosetta Stone": the language of science and mathematics.