Egyptian Hieroglyphs托福听力原文翻译及问题答案

Egyptian Hieroglyphs托福听力原文翻译及问题答案

一、Egyptian Hieroglyphs托福听力原文：

NARRATOR:Listen to part of a lecture in a history class.The professor has been discussing Egyptian Hieroglyphs.FEMALE PROFESSOR:Egyptian Hieroglyphs are the ancient Egyptian writings found in ancient Egypt on walls,monuments and on the inside and outside of temples.Hieroglyphic writing ended abruptly about 1600 years ago.And it mystified the most brilliant minds in the study of Egyptian artifacts and archaeology for many many centuries.Finally,the possibility of deciphering hieroglyphs came about with the discovery,in 1799,of the Rosetta Stone.The Rosetta Stone is arguably the most famous archaeological artifact ever discovered.It contains the same exact text written in three different alphabets:Greek,demotic,and hieroglyphic.But we didn't even know at first that the three texts on the Rosetta Stone contain the same information.And two of the three alphabets are ancient Egyptian scripts that stop being used:the hieroglyphic and the demotic.The demotic script found on the Rosetta Stone,well,demotic was not as elaborate as hieroglyphic writing.

It was used for more mundane matters,oh,like administrative documents.These ancient Egyptian scripts were replaced by Coptic scripts.But eventually,the Arabic language replaced Coptic and this cut off the linguistic link between ancient and modern Egypt.Now,the Rosetta Stone was remarkable because as I said,on it,was the same text in three different alphabets--Greek,demotic and hieroglyphic.The Stone was essentially the dictionary that scholars needed to interpret the meaning of the hieroglyphs.And it took a uniquely equipped researcher to finally decipher and understand what was written on the stone.Thomas young,an English scholar,was the first to seriously attempt to decipher the symbols on the Rosetta Stone.He suspected rightly that the hieroglyphs were phonetic symbols,that they represented its sounds rather than pictures.Until then,all scholars assumed that hieroglyphs were pictographs,that they symbolize objects or concepts.Thomas Young focused his attention on one set of hieroglyphs that he thought would probably spell out a single word:the name of a King or Queen.He guessed that the symbols represented the name of the early Egyptian ruler Ptolemy,since Ptolemy was also written in Greek on the stone and was indeed a Greek name.And Young did actually prove that these hieroglyphs represented sounds rather than whole words.Strangely,though,he gave into the dominant thesis of the day that hieroglyphs were pictographs.He actually dismissed his own findings as an anomaly because the Ptolemaic dynasty was Greek,not Egyptian.In other words,he figured it was an exception to the rule.It was phonetic because it was Greek,not Egyptian.How else could an Egyptian depict a Greek name other than spell it out?And that brings us to the hero of our story:Jean-Francois Champollion.Champollion built on Young's work,showing that different hieroglyphs spelled the names of Kings and Queens like Alexander or Cleopatra.But his critics noted that this was still not traditional Egyptian names.He hadn't done any more than Young had been able to do,so he couldn't disprove the dominant theory.

Then in 1822,Champollion was shown a set of hieroglyphs that contain traditional Egyptian names.The first two of these symbols were unknown,but Champollion knew that the repeated hieroglyphs to the far right symbolized an"S"sound.He then drew on his linguistic knowledge to arrive at the solution to the problem.

You see,unlike any of the other scholars who had tried to crack the code,Champollion happened to be fluent in Coptic.He wondered,and this was the real breakthrough,if Coptic was the language symbolized by the hieroglyphs on the Rosetta stone.And if so,then perhaps that first disc-shape symbol might represent the Sun.And the Coptic word for Sun is"ra".See where this is headed?

So if the symbol were Coptic,the first symbol would be"ra".And then an unknown symbol followed by a double"S"sound.Was this,Champollion wondered,the name Rameses?He was eventually able to confirm that it was.So,he had figured it out.Hieroglyphs were mainly phonetic,they represented sounds,not pictures,and the underlying language was Coptic.A lot of work remained,but Champollion had cracked the code.

二、Egyptian Hieroglyphs托福听力中文翻译：

旁白：在历史课上听一部分讲座。教授一直在讨论埃及象形文字。女教授：埃及象形文字是在古埃及的墙壁、纪念碑和寺庙内外发现的古埃及文字。象形文字大约在1600年前突然结束。许多世纪以来，它使研究埃及文物和考古学的最杰出的头脑感到困惑。最后，随着1799年发现罗塞塔石碑，破译象形文字的可能性出现了。罗塞塔石可以说是迄今发现的最著名的考古文物。它包含用三种不同字母书写的相同文本：希腊语、通俗语和象形文字。但我们一开始甚至不知道罗塞塔石碑上的三个文本包含相同的信息。三种字母中有两种是古埃及文字，不再使用：象形文字和通俗文字。在罗塞塔石碑上发现的通俗文字，通俗文字不如象形文字复杂。

它被用于更平凡的事情，哦，像行政文件。这些古埃及文字被科普特文字取代。但最终，阿拉伯语取代了科普特语，切断了古埃及和现代埃及之间的语言联系。现在，罗塞塔石碑是非凡的，因为正如我所说，它是三种不同字母的同一文本——希腊语、通俗语和象形文字。《石头》基本上是学者们解释象形文字含义所需的词典。只有一个装备独特的研究人员才能最终破译和理解石头上写的东西。英国学者托马斯·杨（Thomas young）是第一个认真尝试破译罗塞塔石碑上符号的人。他正确地怀疑象形文字是语音符号，它们代表的是声音而不是图片。在此之前，所有学者都认为象形文字是象形文字，它们象征着物体或概念。托马斯·扬将注意力集中在一组象形文字上，他认为这些文字可能会拼出一个单词：国王或王后的名字。他猜测这些符号代表了早期埃及统治者托勒密的名字，因为托勒密也是用希腊语写在石头上的，实际上是希腊名字。杨确实证明了这些象形文字代表的是声音而不是整个单词。然而，奇怪的是，他同意了当时的主流观点，即象形文字是象形文字。事实上，他认为自己的发现是一种反常现象，因为托勒密王朝是希腊而不是埃及。换句话说，他认为这是一个例外。它是语音的，因为它是希腊语，而不是埃及语。一个埃及人怎么能描述一个希腊名字而不是拼写出来呢？这让我们看到了故事中的主人公：让-弗朗索瓦·尚波利昂。Champollion基于杨的工作，显示了不同的象形文字拼写国王和王后的名字，如亚历山大或克利奥帕特拉。但他的批评者指出，这仍然不是传统的埃及名字。他所做的比杨所能做的更多，因此他无法反驳占主导地位的理论。

然后在1822年，Champollion被展示了一组包含传统埃及名字的象形文字。前两个符号是未知的，但Champollion知道最右边的重复象形文字象征着“S”音。然后他利用自己的语言知识来解决这个问题。

你看，与其他任何试图破解密码的学者不同的是，Champollion碰巧精通科普特语。他想知道，如果科普特语是罗塞塔石碑上象形文字象征的语言，这才是真正的突破。如果是这样，那么第一个圆盘形状符号可能代表太阳。科普特语中太阳的意思是“ra”。看到了吗？

因此，如果符号是科普特语，第一个符号将是“ra”。然后是一个未知符号，后面跟着一个双“S”音。尚波利昂想知道，这是拉美西斯的名字吗？他最终证实了这一点。所以，他找到了答案。象形文字主要是语音文字，它们代表声音，而不是图片，底层语言是科普特语。还有很多工作要做，但Champollion已经破解了密码。

三、Egyptian Hieroglyphs托福听力问题：

Q1:1.What’s the lecture mainly about?

A.The history of language in ancient Egypt

B.The process that was used to create hieroglyphic writing

C.The competition between two scholars to solve an archaeological puzzle

D.The circumstances that led to the solution of an archaeological puzzle

Q2:2.What was demotic script used for in ancient Egypt?

A.Decorations on temples and monuments

B.Administrative documents

C.Illustration for stories

D.Representations of objects

Q3:3.Why was ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic writing difficult for scholars to interpret?

A.The language that it was based on was no longer used.

B.The same words were often represented by several different symbols.

C.It consisted of a mixture of three different languages.

D.Only fragments of it were found.

Q4:4.What is the professor’s opinion about Thomas Young’s work with hieroglyphs?

A.She feels that Young has not received the credit he deserves.

B.She is amazed that Young’s conclusion about hieroglyphs was correct.

C.She is surprised that Young did not recognize his own accomplishments.

D.She thinks that Young’s work was not careful enough to be taken seriously.

Q5:5.According to the professor,what led to the decoding of the Rosetta Stone?

A.A hieroglyph that represented the name of a person

B.A written and oral description of a historical event

C.The realization that each hieroglyph represented a different object or concept

D.The discovery that the word for“Sun”is written the same way in Greek,demotic,and hieroglyphics

Q6:6.How did Young’s and Champollion’s studies of hieroglyphs differ from earlier studies of hieroglyphic writing?

A.Young and Champollion had access to large collections of hieroglyphic writing.

B.Young and Champollion both guessed that hieroglyphs were symbols for sounds.

C.Young and Champollion both spoke Greek and Coptic.

D.Young and Champollion shared their research with one another.

四、Egyptian Hieroglyphs托福听力答案：

A1:正确答案：D

A2:正确答案：B

A3:正确答案：A

A4:正确答案：C

A5:正确答案：A

A6:正确答案：B

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