In epigraphy, a multilingual inscription is an inscription that includes the same text in two or more languages. A bilingual is an inscription that includes the same text in two languages (or trilingual in the case of three languages, etc.). Multilingual inscriptions are important for the decipherment of ancient writing systems, and for the study of ancient languages with small or repetitive corpora.

Examples

Bilinguals

Important bilinguals include: The manuscript titled Relación de las cosas de Yucatán (1566; Spain) shows the de Landa alphabet (and a bilingual list of words and phrases), written in Spanish and Mayan; it allowed the decipherment of the Pre-Columbian Maya script in the mid-20th century.

Trilinguals

Important trilinguals include:

Quadrilinguals

Important quadrilinguals include:

Inscriptions in five or more languages

Important examples in five or more languages include:

Modern examples

Notable modern examples include: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948; Paris, France) was originally written in English and French. In 2009, it became the most translated document in the world (370 languages and dialects). Unicode stores 481 translations as of November 2021.