Multilingual inscription
inscription that includes the same text in two languages
In epigraphy, a multilingual inscription is an inscription that includes the same text in two or more languages. A bilingual is an inscription that includes the same text in two languages (or trilingual in the case of three languages, etc.). Multilingual inscriptions are important for the decipherment of ancient writing systems, and for the study of ancient languages with small or repetitive corpora.
As means for decipherment
Examples for multilingual inscription used for deciphering ancient scripts and for studying their respective languages, indicating the languages of the inscribed texts and the scripts systems used, with the script or language it was used for deciphering pointed out.
Behistun Inscription, in Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian; used for the decipherment of cuneiform.
Karatepe bilingual, in Phoenician and Luwian; for Anatolian hieroglyphs.
Orkhon inscriptions, in Middle Chinese and Old Turkic (using the Old Turkic alphabet); for Old Turkic script.
Rosetta Stone, in Ancient Egyptian (using hieroglyphic and Demotic scripts), and Ancient Greek; for Egyptian hieroglyphic script.
Examples
Bilinguals
Important bilinguals include:
the first known Sumerian-Akkadian bilingual tablet dating to the reign of Rimush, c. 2270 BCE.
the Urra=hubullu tablets (c. 2nd millennium BCE; Babylon) in Sumerian and Akkadian; one tablet is a Sumerian-Hurrian bilingual glossary.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Multilingual inscription” is inscription that includes the same text in two languages. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Multilingual, inscription and includes, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “inscription that includes the same text in two languages” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q861809. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Multilingual inscription” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.