Editing Rosetta Stone (section)

==Idiomatic use==
Various ancient bilingual or even trilingual [[epigraphical]] documents have sometimes been described as "Rosetta stones", as they permitted the decipherment of ancient written scripts. For example, the bilingual [[Greek script|Greek]]-[[Brahmi]] coins of the [[Greco-Bactrian]] king [[Agathocles of Bactria|Agathocles]] have been described as "little Rosetta stones", allowing [[Christian Lassen]]'s initial progress towards deciphering the [[Brahmi script]], thus unlocking ancient [[Indian epigraphy]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Aruz |first1=Joan |last2=Fino |first2=Elisabetta Valtz |title=Afghanistan: Forging Civilizations Along the Silk Road |date=2012 |publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art |isbn=978-1-58839-452-1 |page=33 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p4_it5yw9WsC&pg=PA33 |language=en}}</ref> The [[Behistun Inscription]] in Iran has also been compared to the Rosetta stone, as it links the translations of three ancient [[Middle-Eastern]] languages: [[Old Persian]], [[Elamite language|Elamite]], and [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Dudney |first1=Arthur |title=Delhi: Pages From a Forgotten History |date=2015 |publisher=Hay House, Inc |isbn=978-93-84544-31-7 |page=55 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OQ6fCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT55 |language=en}}</ref>

The term ''Rosetta stone'' has been also used [[idiom]]atically to denote the first crucial key in the process of decryption of encoded information, especially when a small but representative sample is recognised as the clue to understanding a larger whole.<ref name="OUP">[[#OUP|''Oxford English dictionary'' (1989)]] s.v. "[http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/findword?query_type=word&find=Find+word&queryword=Rosetta+stone Rosetta stone]"  {{webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20110620211021/http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/findword?query_type=word&find=Find+word&queryword=Rosetta+stone |date=June 20, 2011 }}</ref> According to the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'', the first figurative use of the term appeared in the 1902 edition of the ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'' relating to an entry on the chemical analysis of [[glucose]].<ref name="OUP"/> Another use of the phrase is found in [[H. G. Wells]]'s 1933 novel ''[[The Shape of Things to Come]]'', where the protagonist finds a manuscript written in [[shorthand]] that provides a key to understanding additional scattered material that is sketched out in both [[longhand]] and on [[typewriter]].<ref name="OUP"/>

Since then, the term has been widely used in other contexts. For example, [[Nobel laureate]] [[Theodor W. Hänsch]] in a 1979 ''[[Scientific American]]'' article on [[spectroscopy]] wrote that "the spectrum of the hydrogen atoms has proven to be the Rosetta Stone of modern physics: once this pattern of lines had been deciphered much else could also be understood".<ref name="OUP"/> Fully understanding the key set of genes to the [[human leucocyte antigen]] has been described as "the Rosetta Stone of immunology".<ref>[[#International|"International Team"]]</ref> The flowering plant ''[[Arabidopsis thaliana]]'' has been called the "Rosetta Stone of flowering time".<ref>[[#Simpson02|Simpson and Dean (2002)]]</ref> A [[gamma-ray burst]] (GRB) found in conjunction with a [[supernova]] has been called a Rosetta Stone for understanding the origin of GRBs.<ref>[[#Cooper10|Cooper (2010)]]</ref> The technique of [[Doppler echocardiography]] has been called a Rosetta Stone for clinicians trying to understand the complex process by which the [[left ventricle]] of the [[human heart]] can be filled during various forms of [[diastolic dysfunction]].<ref>[[#Nishimura98|Nishimura and Tajik (1998)]]</ref> The [[European Space Agency]]'s ''[[Rosetta (spacecraft)|Rosetta]]'' spacecraft, launched to study the [[comet]] [[67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko]] in the hope that determining its composition will advance understanding of the origins of the [[Solar System]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Rosetta's Comet Target 'Releases' Plentiful Water |url=https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/rosettas-comet-target-releases-plentiful-water/ |access-date=2024-11-19 |website=NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) |language=en-US}}</ref>

The name is used for various forms of [[machine translation|translation software]] and services. "[[Rosetta Stone (software)|Rosetta Stone]]" is a brand of language-learning software published by Rosetta Stone Inc., who are headquartered in [[Arlington County, Virginia|Arlington County]], US. Additionally, "Rosetta", developed and maintained by [[Canonical Ltd.|Canonical]] (the Ubuntu Linux company) as part of the [[Launchpad (website)|Launchpad]] project, is an online language translation tool to help with localisation of software. One program, billed as a "lightweight dynamic translator" that enables applications compiled for [[PowerPC]] processors to run on [[x86]] processor [[Apple Inc.]] systems, is named "[[Rosetta (software)|Rosetta]]". The [[Rosetta@home]] endeavour is a [[Distributed computing|distributed computing project]] for predicting protein structures from amino acid sequences (i.e. ''translating'' sequence into structure). [[Rosetta Code]] is a wiki-based [[chrestomathy]] website with algorithm implementations in several programming languages. The [[Rosetta Project]] brings language specialists and native speakers together to develop a meaningful survey and near-permanent archive of 1,500 languages, in physical and digital form, with the intent of it remaining useful from AD 2000 to 12,000.{{Citation needed|date=January 2024}}