Decipher
In philology and linguistics, decipherment is the discovery of the meaning of the symbols found in extinct languages and/or alphabets. Decipherment is possible with respect to languages and scripts. One can also study or try to decipher how spoken languages that no longer exist were once pronounced, or how living languages used to be pronounced in prior eras.
Maurice Pope wrote that "Decipherments are by far the most glamorous achievements of scholarship… It is also a key to further knowledge, opening a treasure-vault of history through which for countless centuries no human mind has wandered." Pope described the three most famous as the decipherment of ancient Egyptian scripts, the decipherment of cuneiform and the decipherment of Linear B. A notable decipherment in recent years is that of the Linear Elamite script, in 2022. Today, at least a dozen languages remain undeciphered.
Historically speaking, decipherments do not come suddenly through single individuals who "crack" ancient scripts. Instead, they emerge from the incremental progress brought about by a broader community of researchers.
Decipherment should not be confused with cryptanalysis, which aims to decipher special written codes or ciphers used in intentionally concealed secret communication (especially during war). It should also not be confused with determining the meaning of ambiguous text in a known language (interpretation).
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