Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/359

330 himself a certain latitude in the application of this rule, and he sliows a decisive preference of w to iti, Weisbach follows the uniform practice of transcribing the gutturals, dentals and labials by the tenues; he always uses z for the Persian <*, ^and c, and for the Babylonian z and s; and, contrary to Oppert, he prefers

ill to //'.

Oppert recognises the five vowels a, e^ i, o and u; and, following De Saulcy, he admits y^, ya and ah in his list, among vowels. Weisbach excludes the o, for he considers there was no difference of sound between it and a; the?/ he includes among the semi-vowels, with both /• and /. ^lltliough Oppert found that all the five vowels follow the consonant to form the single syllable, he considered that only a^ i and n> precede it. Both writers agree to limit the consonantal sounds to about eleven. Oppert was the first to treat the grammar with elaborate care, and when he claimed that his work was • une creation entierement nouvelle,' the statement was probal)ly more strictly accurate than he imairined.

The nouns do not admit of anv distinction of gender, and have only the singular and plural number. Oppert distinguishes no fewer than twelve different cases, indic^ated by sufiixes, a })rfiision limited by Weisl)acli to eight, viz. nominative, genitive, accusa- tive, dative, aljlative, allati^'e. locative and comitative.

Oppert, however, did good service in unravelling the mysteries of the verb, though his passion for svstematisinii' and M'estoration ' has (*arried him too far; and his verb, declhied tlu'ough all its moods and t(^nses, |)res(Mils a very diflerent appearance from the skeleton whic^h, accordhig to Weisbach, is all that can be strictlv collected from the texts themselves. For example, we are presented with the six persons of a