Page 124 - (DK) How to be a GENIUS?

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Jean François
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Champollion

Amharic is the language of the
Amhara people of Ethiopia, Africa. catch on to what is being said, learn how to reply, and
Some people have a flair for learning languages. They

are soon able to fluently read and write the language.
Jean François Champollion was a genius at this.
But he didn’t just learn the languages of his own age.
He found a way of using his skill to decipher a language
that had been long forgotten, enabling scholars to
rediscover the lost world of ancient Egypt.

Used to compose sacred text ts, Avestan
is an old language from eastern Iran.

Master of languages
Born in FFrance in 1790,, Jean François
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i 1790 J
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came from a poor family and was
eight years old before he went to
school. He quickly discovered that he
had an amazing talent for languages,
mastering a dozen by the age of 16.
He also became intrigued by obscure
languages such as Amharic, Avestan,
Sanskrit, and Chaldean. Eventually
he became an assistant professor
of history, specializing in ancient
languages that could provide a way
Sanskrit is the ancient language of
Hindu India, dating back to 1500 B.C.E. of understanding the past.

Keystone
Land of the pharaohs
In 1799, a French army captain discovered a
While Champollion was a child, the
stone slab near the Egyptian port of Rashid,
wonders of ancient Egypt were just
or Rosetta. The “Rosetta stone” was covered
being discovered. The civilization that
with writing in three languages: Egyptian
built them was a mystery, however,
hieroglyphs, another form of Egyptian writing
because no one could read the writing
called demotic, and classical Greek. But all three
found on the monuments—the
were versions of the same thing—a document
symbols known as hieroglyphs.
issued by Pharaoh Ptolemy V in 196 B.C.E. Enough
Champollion was fascinated by
the ancient Egyptians.
of the writing remained to allow the hieroglyphs
to be related to the Greek and decoded—
122 but it would prove difficult.
(c) 2011 Dorling Kindersley. All Rights Reserved.
(c) 2011 Dorling Kindersley. All Rights Reserved.