Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/360

Rh complete past tense, where Weisbacli can only find anthority for three; and we get a complete imperfect, altliougli only one termination is really known, viz. that of the first person singular. With no less con- fidence we find two verbs — a reciprocative (' je me sus '), and an ' intensive ' (' savoir bien ') — of which Weisbacli can see no trace; and the same remark may be applied to his desiderative ('je veux savoir ') and his factitive (' je fais savoir').^

Both writers agree as to the personal pronouns; but in the possessive Weisbacli can only find the third person singular and the first person plural, while Oppert supplies us with the series complete.-

Weisbacli calls attention to the dialectical differences in the Xaksh-i-Eustam inscriptions, and to the evidence of decay visible in the language of Artaxerxes at Susa.

For the reasons already mentioned there is con- siderable diversity observable in the transliterations made by the two writers, but so far as we have observed they are in substantial agreement with regard to the meaning of the text, as may be seen by a comparison of their rendering of the unilingual inscrip- tion.^ Occasionally, however, Weisbacli finds himself unable to follow the more ima<>inative fli<>'hts of his predecessor. He will have nothing to do with the ' restoration ' of the concluding paragraph of the Suez inscription of Darius.-* lie is equally unable to accept the interesting completion of the detached inscription at Behistun, marked L by Xorris. Norris reads: ' I made another tablet hi the Arian language, such as did not exist before, and I made a large .... and a large . . . . and .... and. . . .' This not very promising

' Oppert, pp. 77, 81-4. Weisbach, pp. 51,53.

- Oppert, p. 02. Weisbacb, p. 50. ' Oppert, p. 196. Weisbach, p. 77.

•* Oppert, p. '2lo. Weisbach, p. 79.