# Lost languages rediscovered at ancient library



## Brian G Turner (Sep 6, 2017)

A project to look more closely at ancient texts has apparently discovered unknown Greek poetry - and writing in a couple of barely known languages:

Lost Languages Discovered in One of the World's Oldest Continuously Run Libraries      |     Smart News | Smithsonian


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## hej (Oct 5, 2017)

Neat.

I checked out the article, and I found most interesting the preciousness of paper/parchment/whatever they were re-using (hence the palimpsests). That value continued past the day of Bach. After he died, his music was often seen as waaay over the hill, and his sheet music tarred and pasted on apple trees to protect them from the frost. At least that's what a music professor claimed.

By the way, a _much_ older lost language, that linguists have reconstructed and I have found very helpful for my stories, is Proto-Indo-European. According to the Kurgan Hypothesis, upon which I base the setting in my manuscript and another WIP (not quite ready), it is the language that peoples from the Pontic-Caspian steppe brought with them as they spread into Europe -- thousands of years ago.

As many may know, PIE is important b/c is it the mother tongue of European languages (excepting Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian).

I find the resurrection of dead languages (excepting Latin owing to its continued, albeit fragmentary, use) to be strangely compelling.


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## Harpo (Feb 27, 2022)




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