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 Cippi of Melqart, in Ancient Greek and Carthaginian discovered in Malta in 1694, the key which allowed French scholar Abbé Barthelemy to decipher Phoenician
• 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 bilingual Punic-Libyan Inscription from the Mausoleum of Ateban, Dougga, now held at the British Museum
• the de Landa alphabet, in Mayan and Spanish
• the Tell el Fakhariya Bilingual Inscription in Aramaic and Akkadian
• the Çineköy inscription in Hieroglyphic Luwian and Phoenician