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The languages spoken by early Europeans are still shrouded in mystery. There is no
linguistic continuity between the languages of Old Europe (a term sometimes used for
Europe between 7000 and 3000 B.C.) and the languages of the modem world, and we
Line cannot yet translate the Old European script, Scholars have deciphered other ancient
5 languages, such as Sumerian, Akkadian, and Babylonian, which used the cuneiform
script, because of the fortuitous discovery of bilingual inscriptions, When cuneiform
tablets were first discovered in the eighteenth century, scholars could not decipher them.
Then inscriptions found in baa at the end of the eighteenth century provided a link: these
inscriptions were written in cuneiform and in two other ancient languages, Old Persian
10 and New Elamite--languages that had already been deciphered. It took several decades,
but scholars eventually translated the ancient cuneiform script via the more familiar
Old Persian language:
Similarly, the hieroglyphic writing of the Egyptians remained a mystery until French
troops unearthed the famous Rosetta stone in the late eighteenth century. The stone carried
15 the same message written in ancient Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and Egyptian hieratic,
a simplified form of hieroglyphs. The Rosetta stone thwarted scholars' efforts for several
decades until the early nineteenth century when several key hieroglyphic phrases were
decoded using the Greek inscriptions. Unfortunately, we have no Old European Rosetta
stone to chart correspondences between Old European script and the languages that
20 replaced it.
Tim incursions of Indo-European tribes into Old Europe from the late fifth to the
early third millennia B.C. caused a linguistic and cultural discontinuity. These incursions
disrupted the Old European sedentary farming lifestyle that had existed for 3,000 years
As the Indo-Europeans encroached on Old Europe from the east, the continent underwent
25 upheavals. These severely affected the Balkans, where the Old European cultures
abundantly employed script. The Old European way of life deteriorated rapidly, although
pockets of Old European culture remained for several millennia, ~ new peoples spoke
completely different languages belonging to the Indo-European linguistic family. The
Old European language or languages, and the script used to write them, declined and
eventually vanished.
22. What does the passage mainly discuss?
(A) Reasons for the failure to understand the written
records of Old European culture
(B) Influences on the development
of Old European script
(C) Similarities between
Old European script and
other ancient writing systems
(D) Events leading to the
discovery of Old European
script
答案是D,我总认为是A更合理切题.各位XDJM看看了. | 
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发表于 2005-5-10 01:28:00
