History Main / LostLanguage

Stone is a tablet with the same text in three languages. If you're trying to decipher a lost language, this is like finding a dictionary.[[/note]]

In fiction, lost languages are commonly used as a seemingly impenetrable puzzle for characters to face, with writings in this language typically containing vital clues to attaining a certain end goal. Thus, a good portion of the plot is dedicated to finding a means of deciphering these lost languages, be it through the discovery of a surviving speaker or a hidden Rosetta Stone. [[note]]The Rosetta

In fiction, lost languages are commonly used as a seemingly impenetrable puzzle for characters to face, with writings in this language typically containing vital clues to attaining a certain end goal. Thus, a good portion of the plot is dedicated to finding a means of deciphering these lost languages, be it through the discovery of a surviving speaker or a hidden Rosetta Stone [[note]]The Rosetta
Stone is a tablet with the same text in three languages. If you're trying to decipher a lost language, this is like finding a dictionary. [[/note]].

* Literature/TheBrightestShadow: Many ruins around the world are covered in writing that doesn't match any modern language. Worse, most of them aren't even using similar alphabets.

* ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'': The people of Adai village follow a religion that Father Magin preaches from an ancient holy book. At the end of the episode, it's revealed that Magin made up the entire religion to control the village and he can't even read the "holy book". He gives it to Rossiu as they leave, saying that maybe it will be of some importance. Ten years later, Rossiu returns and reveals that... [[spoiler:there is no record of the "holy book's" language in any of Lordgenome's files. Whatever the book actually says is lost to time.]]

* The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript Voynich Manuscript]] is one of the famous examples, other than that the book ''isn't'' complete, the writing is still not deciphered. It is thought to be a medical book for women on using plants and water to cure sickness, although it isn't confirmed.

* Ancient Egyptian remains a partial example. Since the discovery of the Rosetta Stone (a routine tax proclamation written in multiple languages, allowing scholars to work out a translation guide for Egyptian because they knew the sections written in languages they could understand were saying the same thing), we now know what the words mean, but we aren't entirely sure how the ancients would have pronounced them. Just for one thing, the hieroglyphic writing system didn't represent vowels at all--we only know what ''consonants'' Egyptian words included.

* Another example is [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_A Linear A]], which was used as the written form of the Minoan civilization's spoken language. To date, no Linear A texts have been deciphered.

* The modern Romance languages include Spanish, French, Italian, etc. ... but at one time Romance languages were ''also'' spoken throughout central Europe, the Balkans, and north Africa. Various invasions and migrations replaced them, though, leaving virtually no written records behind.