Which language appears alongside Egyptian in the Rosetta Stone’s decree?

Ancient Greek appears alongside Egyptian in the Rosetta Stone’s decree.

The stone records a decree issued at Memphis in 196 BCE during the reign of Ptolemy V. The same text was written in three scripts: Egyptian hieroglyphs, Demotic Egyptian, and an alphabetic Greek form. This parallel text enabled scholars to compare the versions.

Jean-François Champollion’s work in the 1820s helped establish the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs. Greek was especially valuable because scholars could already read it, allowing them to identify royal names and connect signs with sounds and meanings.

The Rosetta Stone therefore does not contain three unrelated messages. It contains versions of one decree for different audiences and writing traditions. Demotic is Egyptian, not Greek, while Ancient Greek was the administrative and elite language of the Ptolemaic ruling dynasty.