Why read Lost Languages?

Book cover of Lost Languages: The Enigma of the World's Undeciphered Scripts

Book description

Beginning with the stories of three great decipherments - Egyptian hieroglyphs, Minoan Linear B and Mayan glyphs - Lost Languages moves on to dissect the most well-known and enigmatic undeciphered scripts from around the world.

These include the Etruscan alphabet of Italy, the Indus Valley seal script, Rongorongo from…

Explore

Topics

Genres

History

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked Lost Languages as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

James Clackson

Author

Andrew Robinson has written an excellent biography of Michael Ventris and also of Champollion, the man who deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs. In this book he gives overviews of three decipherments and surveys of as undeciphered languages and languages that we can read but not necessarily understand (one of my favourite languages, Etruscan, falls into this category). This book is a great jumping-off point if you want to plunge into the waters of decipherment, and has excellent illustrations.

From James' list on The best books about decipherment and lost languages.