Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/364

Rh more to reserve to them the designation of Susiaii; and considerable confusion will arise from its extension also to the lan<rnaixe of the second column. The latter may in the system of writing and in the language the (con- nection is remote.
 * )Ossi])ly be a descendant of the true Susian, but both

The relationship of the Median is now placed almost l)eyond the s])here of controversy, ^l, Gol)ineau, who wrote in 1850, maintained indeed that it was connected with Pehlevi, half Semitic and half Aryan: and ^f. Mold still earnestly hoped that we might 'get rid of the Scythic hypothesis and all the complications it in- volves.'^ But this desire was not desthu»d to be realised, and its aHinitv to the Altaic branch of the Turanian family is now admitted. Some doubt is felt as to whether it has left anv successor, and which of the modern languages a])proaches the nearest. Oppert inclhies to Turkish: - Weisbach is more guarded, and considers that it exhibits marked difTerences from all th(* living lepresentatives of its Turanian relatives.*^

There is little doulK that it and kindred lans»uai>'es were extensively s])ken in early times throughout Susiana and the lower valley of the Eui)hrates down to the Persian (jidf. Its connection with the Old Susian lu\s never been doubted. Lenormant, Oppeit, Sayce and Honnnel have testified to its more distant relation- ship with the Akkadian, the primitive language of Bal)ylonia. Weisbach is naturally more scej)tical, for in 18!) he had scarcely emancipated himself from

' (fohinrau, Lecfiirrs dex Te.rteM cuuri/onne'i. Ifc afterwurds wrotn Traitcs des EcriturtA cfnitiformeSj 2 vols. Ih64. ^folil, up.cit. IJeport IS.')!), ii. 257.

- Major ( 'ond.T also, .7. U. A. S. (1892), xxi\ . 7:54. He tliinks Akkadian is also nearest to Turkish, thoiipfh Akkadian words siirN ive unchanged tn th<* pn'S^nt day in Finnic-Hungarian and Ugric {ih.).

' Op. cit. p. 40.