The key to a new language: the Rosetta Stone

Have you ever been to the Egyptian section of the British Museum? If so, you will know that you can see a stone in a nice glass box, with a label saying “Rosetta Stone”. You will probably also have noticed that there is always a big crowd of people in front of this enigmatic stone, taking pictures and taking a closer look.

Why is this stone so important? As a translation company our passion is to translate your message into another language, to communicate your brand internationally.

Translation is an art which has roots very deep in the past, ever since scholars wanted to decipher ancient languages to understand the culture of a civilisation.

One of these is the ancient language of Egypt, written in hieroglyphs. Nowadays scholars are perfectly able to read and understand hieroglyphs but it hasn't always been like that and this is where our Rosetta Stone comes in the picture. 

The Stone was discovered by Napoleon’s soldiers during an Egyptian campaign in 1799 when hieroglyphs were still a mystery for Egyptologists. On it there was an administrative text in hieroglyphs, translated into Demotic and Greek.

Now you might not know what Demotic is, but you certainly know Greek. It was because of the Greek translation that Champollion, a French Scholar, was able to decipher hieroglyphs in 1822.

Through this translation, we now also know so much about ancient Egyptian culture and this is exactly what we want to achieve with our translations; not just a plain translation of words, but a localisation to the culture of the country in which you would like to communicate.

A language is not only made up of words, but it is a whole world of culture, tradition, beliefs and meanings. It is not easy to communicate a message in a different language - but it’s easier with Talking Heads.