Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/244

Rh Bumouf dropped one letter entirely out of his alphabet (, No 13): the n that completed the bun or 'stirps' of Grotefend. Since Rask had found the true sign for u, a second n might well seem to be redundant; and this supposition was confirmed by finding the sign written at Hamadan with three horizontal wedges instead of with two: a difference that transformed it into a p. Burnouf accordingly thought the other form was an error of the copyist, and he read pup upon which he confesses neither Zend nor Sanscrit could throw any light; though from the context it evidently means 'son,' and may therefore possibly be a monogram for the Zend puthra. He trusted, however, that future research would re-establish the ejected sign; in which case he proposed to give it the value of th, and to read puth. It was, in fact, afterwards found to be a genuine sign entirely distinct from p and it has received the value of tr or thr which has completed the transformation of bun or pun into puthra.

To sum up: of the thirty-three different cuneiform signs in Niebulir's list for which values have been ultimately found, Burnouf knew only sixteen correctly (two from Münter, a and b; ten from Grotefend; two from Rask and two from himself), or not quite one half. Yet with such imperfect materials to work with he was able to render important service in the matter of translation. It is obvious that, according as the letters became known, and the words of the new language began to be made out, the task of finding their meaning would depend upon the knowledge of