Egyptian Hieroglyphs托福聽力原文翻譯及問題答案

Egyptian Hieroglyphs托福聽力原文翻譯及問題答案

一、Egyptian Hieroglyphs托福聽力原文：

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托福聽力中文翻譯：

旁白：在歷史課上聽一部分講座。教授一直在討論埃及象形文字。女教授：埃及象形文字是在古埃及的墻壁、紀(jì)念碑和寺廟內(nèi)外發(fā)現(xiàn)的古埃及文字。象形文字大約在1600年前突然結(jié)束。許多世紀(jì)以來，它使研究埃及文物和考古學(xué)的最杰出的頭腦感到困惑。最后，隨著1799年發(fā)現(xiàn)羅塞塔石碑，破譯象形文字的可能性出現(xiàn)了。羅塞塔石可以說是迄今發(fā)現(xiàn)的最著名的考古文物。它包含用三種不同字母書寫的相同文本：希臘語、通俗語和象形文字。但我們一開始甚至不知道羅塞塔石碑上的三個文本包含相同的信息。三種字母中有兩種是古埃及文字，不再使用：象形文字和通俗文字。在羅塞塔石碑上發(fā)現(xiàn)的通俗文字，通俗文字不如象形文字復(fù)雜。

它被用于更平凡的事情，哦，像行政文件。這些古埃及文字被科普特文字取代。但最終，阿拉伯語取代了科普特語，切斷了古埃及和現(xiàn)代埃及之間的語言聯(lián)系?，F(xiàn)在，羅塞塔石碑是非凡的，因?yàn)檎缥宜f，它是三種不同字母的同一文本——希臘語、通俗語和象形文字?！妒^》基本上是學(xué)者們解釋象形文字含義所需的詞典。只有一個裝備獨(dú)特的研究人員才能最終破譯和理解石頭上寫的東西。英國學(xué)者托馬斯·楊（Thomas young）是第一個認(rèn)真嘗試破譯羅塞塔石碑上符號的人。他正確地懷疑象形文字是語音符號，它們代表的是聲音而不是圖片。在此之前，所有學(xué)者都認(rèn)為象形文字是象形文字，它們象征著物體或概念。托馬斯·揚(yáng)將注意力集中在一組象形文字上，他認(rèn)為這些文字可能會拼出一個單詞：國王或王后的名字。他猜測這些符號代表了早期埃及統(tǒng)治者托勒密的名字，因?yàn)橥欣彰芤彩怯孟ＥD語寫在石頭上的，實(shí)際上是希臘名字。楊確實(shí)證明了這些象形文字代表的是聲音而不是整個單詞。然而，奇怪的是，他同意了當(dāng)時的主流觀點(diǎn)，即象形文字是象形文字。事實(shí)上，他認(rèn)為自己的發(fā)現(xiàn)是一種反?，F(xiàn)象，因?yàn)橥欣彰芡醭窍ＥD而不是埃及。換句話說，他認(rèn)為這是一個例外。它是語音的，因?yàn)樗窍ＥD語，而不是埃及語。一個埃及人怎么能描述一個希臘名字而不是拼寫出來呢？這讓我們看到了故事中的主人公：讓-弗朗索瓦·尚波利昂。Champollion基于楊的工作，顯示了不同的象形文字拼寫國王和王后的名字，如亞歷山大或克利奧帕特拉。但他的批評者指出，這仍然不是傳統(tǒng)的埃及名字。他所做的比楊所能做的更多，因此他無法反駁占主導(dǎo)地位的理論。

然后在1822年，Champollion被展示了一組包含傳統(tǒng)埃及名字的象形文字。前兩個符號是未知的，但Champollion知道最右邊的重復(fù)象形文字象征著“S”音。然后他利用自己的語言知識來解決這個問題。

你看，與其他任何試圖破解密碼的學(xué)者不同的是，Champollion碰巧精通科普特語。他想知道，如果科普特語是羅塞塔石碑上象形文字象征的語言，這才是真正的突破。如果是這樣，那么第一個圓盤形狀符號可能代表太陽?？破仗卣Z中太陽的意思是“ra”?？吹搅藛幔?/p>

因此，如果符號是科普特語，第一個符號將是“ra”。然后是一個未知符號，后面跟著一個雙“S”音。尚波利昂想知道，這是拉美西斯的名字嗎？他最終證實(shí)了這一點(diǎn)。所以，他找到了答案。象形文字主要是語音文字，它們代表聲音，而不是圖片，底層語言是科普特語。還有很多工作要做，但Champollion已經(jīng)破解了密碼。

三、Egyptian Hieroglyphs托福聽力問題：

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托福聽力答案：

A1:正確答案：D

A2:正確答案：B

A3:正確答案：A

A4:正確答案：C

A5:正確答案：A

A6:正確答案：B

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