"Perhaps ancient Egyptians also beheld the world in speech."

And herein is exactly the problem with Champollion and modern linguists. Sure, they were all correct about the need to understand day to day life in ancient Egypt to solve Dendera et al, but they needed the mathematics of Thomas Young to solve the older writing and Young did little work on hieroglyphs after the Rosetta Stone was solved. I believe the ancient Egyptian mind anthropomorphized reality itself and this was the very basis of not only reality but of speech. As such Ancient Language was metaphysical and obeyed the same laws of nature as could be discerned through simple observation and a language that reflected the logic of the very wiring of the brain and reality itself.

We don't see the basis of the pyramid builders' genius because we can't even conceive of the existence of a language based not in abstraction or thought but based in the knowledge of the individuals who used it. We can't conceive of a language that obeyed the laws of nature as deduced by a very primitive science. We can't conceive of a world built not on beliefs and abstractions but on expediency, efficiency, and effectiveness. We can't conceive of a culture that is wholly alien to the way we think no matter how many gods have snakes for heads.

Champollion did the world a great disservice. It wasn't entirely his fault of course and his work was genius but later people had a far easier time misapplying his findings than they would have had misapplying Young's work. The world he created that is more than two centuries old is a far poorer world than if Young had won the day.

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Man fears the pyramid, time fears man.