Talk:Jean-François Champollion

Languages spoken by Champollion
The languages he is listed as speaking appear somewhat suspect. Champollion studied the middle east, and would have had little reason (and less opportunity) to "master" a language as sparsely taught as Chinese. I am unable to check the source for this statement. The French page lists only Amharic, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Coptic, French and Latin. I think it judicious to remove Chinese. The best non-Wiki source I can come up with online only mentions him "attempting" to learn Chinese.Szfski (talk) 02:10, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Champollion studied chinese, I confirm. A egyptolog, Richard Lebeau, said that on the french radio show "2000 ans d'histoire". --83.156.125.158 (talk) 10:44, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I've got a book titled "Gods, Graves, and Scholars" by C.W. Ceram that contains a section on Champollion, in which it says ''...studied Sanskrit, Arabic, and Persian. in sum, he immersed himself in all the oriental languages, laying the groundwork for and understanding of their idiomatic developments. Meanwhile he wrote to his brother asking for a Chinese grammar, "for amusement," as he put it.'' The book has a lot of information about him that isn't present in the article, and I plan on adding some of it later. The2crowrox (talk) 03:32, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

NPOV - Champollion, Young, and the Rosetta Stone
The section of this article on the Egpytian hieroglyphics (Rosetta Stone) is biased. It consists entirely of two paragraphs of roughly equal size (both are 12 lines long). The first paragraph is concerned almost entirely with the work of Thomas Young, with a brief mention that Young himself based his work on the work of another previous researcher, Akerblad. The second paragraph discusses the conflict between Champollion and Young over whether Young gets credit for Champollion's work. It only briefly mentions that facts that Champollion completely worked out the grammar of the Egyptian hieroglyphics and published his work. It does not discuss his work in any other way - it focuses entirely on Young's effort to get credit and Champollion's opposition to that effort.

These two paragraphs are the  entire discusion in this article about Champollion's work on the Egyptian hieroglyphics and the Rosetta Stone, apart from the brief introduction of this article (which is also partly about Young and even has a long list of other early Egypt researchers). (The "Franco-Tuscan Expedition" section of this article discusses a later visit in 1828 by Champollion to Egypt, but again does not discuss his seminal work on deciphering hieroglyphs).The Rosetta Stone translation is what Champollion is perhaps best remembered today for. His work on the Rosetta Stone is and was universally recognized and applauded - even by Young himself (as this article briefly mentions). Why is this article about Champollion concerned almost entirely with Thomas Young? Why is there only the briefest of mentions about what Champollion himself did? After all, there is a complete (not stub) wikipedia article on Young that details Young's work. This is the article about Champollion. I believe this article as written gives Champollion the least amount of credit possible (while still managing to credit him at all) and was written or edited by someone who clearly favors Young. In other words, it is biased, NPOV, and wikipedia should not used as a platform for a Young supporter to argue his case. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia of established facts. In this case, the established fact (which even Young applauded, as stated above) is that Champollion was the first individual who completely worked out the Egyptian hieroglyphics. In this article, this important fact is only briefly mentioned, buried amongst 24 lines of discussion about Young and Young's efforts to get credit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.80.196.157 (talk) 12:06, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * That's exactly my point, reading this article, somebody can think Champollion did absolutely nothing by himself, just taking Young's previous works, who exactly did the same of others' works. Quite astonishing to read a so biased article. His BBC description is better than this article. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/champollion_jean.shtml  90.9.159.52 (talk) 16:52, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

204.185.86.249 (talk) 20:09, 30 November 2009 (UTC)Love Ya204.185.86.249 (talk) 20:09, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Henry Rawlinson should be mentioned or linked to
The other big decipherer of the age was Sir Henry Rawlinson, 1st Baronet (1810–1895), a Brit, who did most of the deciphering of the Cuneiform languages. His Rosetta Stone was the Inscription of Darius at Behistun in Persia (Iran). Someone should put this in the article because Rawlison's successes were based on the earlier successes of Champollion ( ironic given that most likely, Cuneiform is the older of the two ). But you have to find some sources in print to back it up. Rawlinson was more well-rounded : he lived until 85 because he was also a physically-fit soldier. Still, without all of Champollion's devoted scholarship (especially the Chinese), Rawlinson probably couldn't have figured it out. Neither decipherment-set was a one-man thing, but if it was, it would be these two guys.

One of the key things about Champollion, and about geniuses in general, was his eccentricity or craziness. Champollion was like a nutty professor. To let him come across as a stern, level-headed Napoleon would be a disservice to eccentrics/crazy people everywhere, and via their great contributions to mankind, a disservice to humans everywhere. If Champollion was alive today, it's likely Big Pharma would medicate the genius and the contribution right out of him. That's what greed gets you.

There are just so many biographies of Champollion, on every year, it seems. But of Rawlinson, there are very few. I think it's because Egyptian is more beautiful than the ugly Cuneiform, sort of a reflection of the age-old Romance/Germanic gap.

All the texts now known of and readable are not very well appeciated or understood today, but at least Champollion is a person whose life and ways are worth a few more words than those here.

Dwarfkingdom (talk) 13:13, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Engvar
There is a problem of WP:ENGVAR with the present text. Wikipedia requires the variant of English used in an article to be that which was first established (WP:RETAIN) unless (my italics) there is a consensus to the contrary. The earliest versions where it was possible to say whether BrEng or AmEng is used use the former, but the article has been greatly expanded since then, mostly in AmEng. I suggest the most painless way to comply with WP's rules is to establish a consensus here for AmEng for the article. Comments, please, from interested editors. –  Tim riley  talk    07:01, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I,being the major contributor to the article, fully support using here AmEng henceforth.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 19:42, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Possible image for the article
I found a copy of Giuseppe Angelelli's group portrait of the Franco-Tuscan Expedition and uploaded it to Commons. I'm not sure if it can fit in here, given that it needs to be large-sized to be really legible and that the relevant area of the article has a high concentration of images, but I wanted to point out that it's available. A. Parrot (talk) 17:59, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

the Ultras?
"the chicanery of the Ultras kept him struggling to maintain his job"

Who are the "Ultras"?

The article previously mentions "ultra-roylaists", but as his allies and benefactors. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:CA10:18A0:1438:8F46:CF28:6DD1 (talk) 02:31, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

"xšāyaθiya" is Old Persian, as mentioned here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shah Could somebody add this info to the article in an appropriate way?213.216.127.96 (talk) 16:25, 8 August 2022 (UTC)