很多同学在做托福听力T25L3的时候直接表示听吐了，全都是神奇的咒语。这一篇内容难点其实在于专有名词较多，背景
知识需要理解，再加上法语人名乱入，所以今天我们以开头提到的罗塞塔石碑为切入点，理解它在语言破译历史上的地位和作用。
Rosetta Stone, ancient Egyptian stone bearing inscriptions in several languages and scripts; their decipherment led to the understanding of hieroglyphic writing. An irregularly shaped stone of black granite 3 feet 9 inches (114 cm) long and 2 feet 4.5 inches (72 cm) wide, and broken in antiquity, it was found near the town of Rosetta (Rashīd), about 35 miles (56 km) northeast of Alexandria. It was discovered by a Frenchman named Bouchard or Boussard in August 1799. After the French surrender of Egypt in 1801, it passed into British hands and is now in the British Museum in London.
The inscriptions, apparently composed by the priests of Memphis, summarize benefactions conferred by Ptolemy V Epiphanes (205–180 BCE) and were written in the ninth year of his reign in commemoration of his accession to the throne. Inscribed in two languages, Egyptian and Greek, and three writing systems, hieroglyphics, demotic script (a cursive form of Egyptian hieroglyphics), and the Greek alphabet, it provided a key to the translation of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing.
The decipherment was largely the work of Thomas Young of England and Jean-Fran ois Champollion of France. The hieroglyphic text on the Rosetta Stone contains six identical cartouches (oval figures enclosing hieroglyphs). Young deciphered the cartouche as the name of Ptolemy and proved a long-held assumption that the cartouches found in other inscriptions were the names of royalty. By examining the direction in which the bird and animal characters faced, Young also discovered the way in which hieroglyphic signs were to be read.
In 1821–22 Champollion, starting where Young left off, began to publish papers on the decipherment of hieratic and hieroglyphic writing based on study of the Rosetta Stone and eventually established an entire list of signs with their Greek equivalents. He was the first Egyptologist to realize that some of the signs were alphabetic, some syllabic, and some determinative, standing for the whole idea or object previously expressed. He also established that the hieroglyphic text of the Rosetta Stone was a translation from the Greek, not, as had been thought, the reverse. The work of these two men established the basis for the translation of all future Egyptian hieroglyphic texts.
罗塞塔石碑（Rosetta Stone，也译作罗塞达碑），高1.14米，宽0.73米，制作于公元前196年，刻有古埃及国王托勒密五世登基的诏书。石碑上用希腊文字、古埃及文字和当时的通俗体文字刻了同样的内容，这使得近代的考古学家得以有机会对照各语言版本的内容后，解读出已经失传千余年的埃及象形文之意义与结构，而成为今日研究古埃及历史的重要里程碑。
罗塞塔石碑由上至下共刻有同一段诏书的三种语言版本，最上面是14行古埃及象形文（Hieroglyphic，又称为圣书体，代表献给神明的文字）句首和句尾都已缺失；中间是32行埃及草书（Demotic，又称为世俗体，是当时埃及平民使用的文字）是一种埃及的纸莎草文书；再下面是54行古希腊文（代表统治者的语言，这是因为当时的埃及已臣服于希腊的亚历山大帝国之下，来自希腊的统治者要求统治领地内所有的此类文书都需要添加希腊文的译版）其中有一半行尾残缺。
罗塞塔石碑是由一群生活于公元前、埃及托勒密王朝（Ptolemaic Dynasty）时代的祭司所制作，作为当时的国王、年仅13岁的托勒密五世加冕一周年时的纪念，其上的内容主要是在叙述托勒密五世自父亲托勒密四世处袭得的王位之正统性，与托勒密五世所贡献的许多善行，例如减税、在神庙中竖立雕像等对神庙与祭司们大力支持的举动。
在托勒密王朝之前、法老时代的埃及，像这般的诏书原本都是由法老颁授，等同于圣旨，但到了托勒密时代，唯一还知道埃及象形文撰写方式的祭司们却成为诏书的颁写者，是一个很不一样的特点。
在公元4世纪结束后不久，尼罗河文明式微、不再使用的埃及象形文之读法与写法彻底失传，虽然之后有许多考古与历史学家极尽所能，却一直解读不了这些神秘文字的结构与用法。
直到1400年之后罗塞塔石碑出土，它独特的三语对照写法，意外成为解码的关键，因为三种语言中的古希腊文是近代人类可以阅读的，利用这关键来比对分析碑上其它两种语言的内容，就可以了解这些失传语言的文字与文法结构。
在许多尝试解读罗塞塔石碑的学者中，19世纪初期的英国物理学家汤马斯·杨（Thomas Young）是第一个证明碑文中曾多次提及“托勒密”这一人名的发音者。
至于法国学者尚-佛罕索瓦·商博良（Jean-Fran ois Champollion）则是第一个理解到，一直被认为是用形表义的埃及象形文，原来也是具有表音作用的，这个重大发现之后成为解读所有埃及象形文的关键线索。
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