Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/314

Rh its use and pronunciation with those of other languages. He can draw a weahh of illustration at ])leasure from the kindred languages of Sanscrit, Zend, Pehlevi, Persian, as well as from Pali, Deva- nagari, Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, and Turkish; and although he displays an amount of knowledge that is truly surprising, he defers with unaffected humility to ' the more experienced philologist.' ^ He classifies Old Persian as belonging to ' the Arian type, resembling Sanscrit very closely in its grammatical structure; but in its orthographical development more nearly ap- proximating to the Zend: while in the peculiarity of organisation which requires the juxtaposition of certain consonants with certain vowels it exhibits something of a Scythic character.' - He was not disposed to admit the antiquity then begimiing to be claimed for Zend. He thought that in comi)arison with Old Persian it was modern. He imagined that the latter became gradually extinct after the age of Alexander, and that it was succeeded by Zend and Pehlevi, the former as a hieratic and the other as a demotic lanj^fuaije but both derived from it.^ He was clear at least that Old Persian could never have descended from Zend, though lie reluctantly admits the possibility of their contem- porary existence. His unwillingness to allow the antiquity of Zend was due in great measure to the lewndary character of the Zenda vesta, a l)Ook which he considered could not liave been written till after the cuneiform Persian had been entirely forgotten. therwise, he said, ' the priesthood could neither liave hnd the audacity nor the desire to darken authentic history l)y the distorted and incomplete allusions lo Jemshid and the Kavanian monarchs which

1 J. i?. A. S. \. 83. '• lb. p. 40. ' Id. p. 50.