Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/286

Rh however, the edition of the Yaçna published by Burnouf in 1833 placed the study upon an entirely different footing; and the progress made by Bopp and many others in Sanscrit was also of material service. It thus happened that concurrently with the improvement of the cuneiform alphabet the chief obstacles to the translation of the language were removed. When Burnouf and Lassen wrote their Memoirs in 1836, little progress had been made in that direction beyond the identification of the names of the Achaemenian kings, and of a few simple words. The attempt to go beyond rested chiefly upon conjecture and frequently resulted in absurdities of which the constellation of Moro is the typical instance.

Progress was at first considerably retarded by a misapprehension of the relation between the Old Persian of the inscriptions and the language of the Zend-Avesta. Grotefend for a long time thought the two were absolutely identical, an opinion which, however, he subsequently modified. Both Burnouf and Lassen, especially the latter, were at first inclined to suppose too close a resemblance between them. We have already pointed out some of the errors that resulted, especially with regard to the long and short vowels and the diphthongs. But this error was speedily corrected, and Lassen afterwards showed that the relation they bore to each other was that of descent from a common parent; and although Old Persian is historically more modern, it continued to retain some of the primitive forms which Zend had changed. While he recognised that they were two distinct dialects, he admitted that they closely resembled each other, and hence the great assistance he derived from the Zend in the interpretation