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 Karatepe Bilingual (8th century BCE) in Phoenician and Hieroglyphic Luwian
• the Tell el Fakhariya Bilingual Inscription (9th century BCE) in Aramaic and Akkadian
• the Çineköy inscription (8th century BCE) in Hieroglyphic Luwian and Phoenician
• the Assyrian lion weights (8th century BCE) in Akkadian (Assyrian dialect, using cuneiform script) and Aramaic (using Phoenician script)
• the Kandahar bilingual Edicts of Ashoka (3rd century BCE) in Ancient Greek and Aramaic
• the Amathus Bilingual (600 BCE) in Eteocypriot and Ancient Greek (Attic dialect)
• the Pyrgi Tablets (500 BCE) in Etruscan and Phoenician
• the Kaunos Bilingual (330–300 BCE), in Carian and Ancient Greek
• the Philae obelisk (118 BCE), in Egyptian hieroglyphs and Ancient Greek
• the Rosetta Stone Series, in Egyptian (using Hieroglyphic and Demotic scripts) and Ancient Greek; they allowed the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs (especially the last one)
  • the Raphia Decree (217 BCE)
  • the Decree of Canopus (238–237 BCE)
  • the Rosetta Stone decree (196 BCE): the Rosetta Stone and the Nubayrah Stele
• the Cippi of Melqart (2nd century BCE) in Phoenician and Ancient Greek; discovered in Malta in 1694, the key which allowed French scholar Abbé Barthelemy to decipher the Phoenician script
• the Punic-Libyan Inscription (146 BCE) in Libyan and Punic; from the Mausoleum of Ateban, Dougga, now held at the British Museum, it allowed the decipherment of Libyan
• the Monumentum Ancyranum inscription (14 CE) in Latin and Greek; it reproduces and translates the Latin inscription of the Res Gestae Divi Augusti
• the Armazi stele of Serapit (150 CE) in Ancient Greek and Aramaic
• the Valun tablet (11th century) in Old Croatian (using Glagolitic script) and Latin
• the Muchundi Inscription (13th century) in Arabic and Malayalam
• the Kalyani Inscriptions (1479) in Mon and Pali (using Burmese script)

The manuscript titled Relación de las cosas de Yucatán (1566) shows the de Landa alphabet (and a bilingual list of words and phrases), written in Spanish and Mayan; it allowed the decipherment of the Pre-Columbian Maya script in the mid-20th century.

Important trilinguals include:

• the Behistun Inscription (522–486 BCE) in Old Persian, Elamite and Akkadian (Babylonian dialect); it allowed the decipherment of cuneiform script
• the Xanthos Obelisk (500 BCE) in Ancient Greek, Lycian and Milyan
• the Van Fortress inscription (5th century BCE) in Old Persian, Akkadian (Babylonian dialect), and Elamite; it allowed the decipherment of Old Persian.
• the Letoon trilingual (358–336 BCE), in standard Lycian or Lycian A, Ancient Greek and Aramaic
• the Ezana Stone (356 CE) in Ge'ez, Sabaean and Ancient Greek
• the Monumentum Adulitanum (3rd century CE) in Ge'ez, Sabaean and Ancient Greek
• the Galle Trilingual Inscription (1409) in Chinese, Tamil and Persian
• the Yongning Temple Stele (1413) in Chinese, Mongolian and Jurchen
• the Shwezigon Pagoda Bell Inscription (1557) in Burmese, Mon and Pali

Important quadrilinguals include:

• the Myazedi inscription (1113) in Burmese, Pyu, Mon and Pali; it allowed the decipherment of Pyu

Important multilinguals include:

• the Sawlumin inscription (1053–1080) in Burmese, Pyu, Mon, Pali and Sanskrit (or Tai-Yuan, Gon (Khun or Kengtung) Shan; in Devanagari script)

Notable modern examples include:

• Peace poles (since 1955) around the world, displaying each one the message "May Peace Prevail on Earth" in multiples languages
• the Georgia Guidestones (1980), with two multilingual inscriptions
  • a short message at the top in four ancient languages, i.e., in Akkadian (Babylonian dialect; using cuneiform script), Ancient Greek, Sanskrit (using Devanagari script) and Egyptian (using Hieroglyphic script)
  • the ten guidelines on the slabs in eight modern languages, i.e., in English, Spanish, Swahili (using Latin script), Hindi (using Devanagari script), Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese (using Traditional characters) and Russian (using Cyrillic script).