托福听力常考知识点剖析：埃及象形文字

托福听力涉及话题多样，尤其是偏向于学术课堂场景的讲座类，经常考到一些我们并不熟悉的学科，适当的掌握一些背景知识和常考考点有助于我们更迅速精准地听懂听力内容。埃及象形文字是托福听力常考的知识点之一，无论是机经真题还是托福官方真题Official都能见到它的身影，下面我们就来了解一下托福听力中会如何考察埃及象形文字类的内容吧。

Introduction：

Egyptian Hieroglyphs

距今 5000 多年前,古埃及出现了象形文字,后来被欧洲人称作 Hiérpglyphe——这是希腊语 “神圣”与“铭刻”组成的复合词,即“神的文字”。古埃及人认为他们的文字是月神、计算与学问之神图特(Thoth)造的,和中国人“仓颉造字”的传说很相似。古埃及语属于闪-含语系埃及-科普特语族。这个语族最早的语言是古埃及语,就是我们见到的象形文字所记载的语言,到大约 4 世纪,它演变为科普特语。现在,科普特语还用在宗教仪式上。

Background information：

Egyptian hieroglyphs were a formal writingsystem used by the ancient Egyptians that combined logographic and alphabeticelements. Egyptians used cursive hieroglyphs for religious literature onpapyrus and wood. Less formal variations of the script, called hieratic anddemotic, are technically not hieroglyphs.

Hieroglyphs consist of three kinds ofglyphs: phonetic glyphs, including single-consonant characters that functionlike an alphabet; logographs, representing morphemes; and determinatives, whichnarrow down the meaning of logographic or phonetic words.

As writing developed and became morewidespread among the Egyptian people, simplified glyph forms developed,resulting in the hieratic (priestly) and demotic (popular) scripts. Thesevariants were also more suited than hieroglyphs for use on papyrus.Hieroglyphic writing was not, however, eclipsed, but existed alongside theother forms, especially in monumental and other formal writing. The RosettaStone contains three parallel scripts – hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek.

Knowledge points：

1. 埃及象形文字是由古埃及人使用的一种正式书写系统,包含了语标和字母元素。2. 纸莎纸和木头上的宗教文学埃及人会使用草书的象形文字。其他非正式的手迹,被称为通俗文字,一般不被认为是象形文字。

3. 象形字包含三种类型:语音象形,语标象形以及定性象形。

4. Rosetta 石头上有三种手迹:象形文字,通俗文字以及希腊语。

Vocabulary prediction：

Hieroglyph 象形文字

Demotic 古埃及通俗文字

Decipher 破译

Alphabet 字母表

Phonetic 语音的

Coptic 埃及古语

Test Point – 官方真题Official25L3

Egyptian Hieroglyphs are the ancientEgyptian writings found in ancient Egypt on walls, monuments and on the insideand outside of temples. Hieroglyphic writing ended abruptly about 1600 yearsago. And it mystified the most brilliant minds in the study of Egyptianartifacts and archaeology for many many centuries. Finally, the possibility ofdeciphering hieroglyphs came about with the discovery, in 1799, of the RosettaStone.

The Rosetta Stone is arguably the mostfamous archaeological artifact ever discovered. It contains the same exact textwritten in three different alphabets: Greek, demotic, hieroglyphic.

But we didn't even know at first that thethree texts on the Rosetta Stone contain the same information. And two of thethree alphabets are ancient Egyptian scripts that stop being used: thehieroglyphic and the demotic. The demotic script found on the Rosetta Stone,well, demotic was not as elaborate as hieroglyphic writing. It was used formore mundane matters, oh, like administrative documents. These ancient Egyptianscripts were replaced by Coptic scripts. But eventually, the Arabic languagereplaced Coptic and this cut off the linguistic link between ancient and modernEgypt.

Knowledge points

埃及象形文字是在古埃及墙壁上,纪念碑和寺庙的一种书写形式。

1799 年,Rosetta 石头发现为破译象形文字提供了新的可能。

古埃及通俗文字没有象形文字复杂详细,通俗文字用于行政文件。

最终阿拉伯密码代替了埃及古语,切断了古代和现代之间的语言连接。