Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/292

Rh Holtzmann is also credited ' with having sUorhtlv improved the value of 28 (^^y^), the z of Jacquet, by <(iving it the sound of (j — presumably // soft, but as it always precedes a the reader would naturally assume it to be hard, as in ' gadija,' ' aga mija,' etc. It is in fact j before a,

Holtzmann has the merit also of rectifvintjf several of Lassen's verbal errors. For example, he showed that ' hada,' which Lassen thoucfht siij^nified ' continu- ally,' in reality means *with.'- Of more importance was his treatment of the word then read ' Paru-ja ' (' parauvaiy '). Eawlinson had already annihilated two of Lassen's provinces — Uscangha (the Uxii) and Drangha (the Drangii) ^ — and Holtzmann now disposes of the third — Paru-ja — which Lassen still cherished in 1845. Lassen derived the word from the Sanscrit 'parvata,' ' hill,' and thought it was a mountain district called Parutia, near the Persian frontier. Holtzmann had recourse to the Sanscrit ' purva ' (easterly), and trans- lated the sentence ' the land of the east,' meaning the eastern provinces whose names followed."* When Holtzmann attempted the correction of longer sentences he was not always so successful. For example, he rendered the words that were then transliterated 'jak'hija awama (ma)nijahja hak'a anijana ma r^am imam Par(^*am,' ' Wlien one goes — from Anijana to the ocean, this land they call Persia ' ! — the real meaning being ' Wenn Du so denkst vor Xiemanden muchte ich zittern — so schlitze dieses Persis(*he Heer.'^ Another instance of ingenuity is the rendering of the line ' hak'a

' By Spiegel, p. 142, who erroneously says lie valued it as^. '^ Lassen, Second Memoir, p. 28 ; Holtzmann, p. 74.


 * First Memoir, p. 152 ; Second Memoir, p. 52.


 * Lassen, Second Memoir, pp. 53, 64 ; Holtzmann, p. 120.

' I Inscription, lines 20—4 ; Second Memoir, p. 176; Holtzmann, p. 63; Spiegel, p. 51.