Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/257

228 in his inscripticnu and which he conduded was Çapardia, or the Sapeires of Herodotus. We have seen that Burnouf was led to the same inference from the appearance of such forms as 'izrk' and 'Aurmzda. Lassen also observed instances, such as the word 'imam/,' where the word is sometimes written with and sometimes without the α. He at length laid down the rule that an α is only distinctly expressed at the beginning of a word, and in the middle before h or another vowel. On all other occasions, he says, it is inherent in all the consonants, unless distinctly excluded by the occurrence of another vowel. This rule he afterwards applied more distinctly to the short α, and adds that it is expressed when it follows the long â , never after i or u. In his transliterations he assumes the truth of this rule, and he invariably separates two consonants by the interposition of an α.

We have said that he may indisputably claim to have added six new values correctly to the alphabet, i, t, m, d, g (25), g (44). The sign i is the second letter in 'Hystaspes,' and it had been variously giventhe value of o by Grotefend and y by St. Martin, according as they followed the form 'Goshtasp or 'Vyschtaspo.' But Lassen pointed out that the correct Zend form is 'Vistaçpa,' and he consequently preferred i, a rendering ccmfirmed by the word 'imam,' 'this," which corresi)onds exactly to the Zend and Sanscrit word. This alteration not rid of Burnouf's