Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/388

Rh signs for the three principal vowels, a, i and u (Nos. 1, 4 and 7); a second siofn for w, used in the late Ba])ylonian, is also ('orreetly identified. The breathing sign is rendered with approximate correctness by ya (Xo 2; cj\ King 220), and the two diphthongs ai and ia figure as;/;/, and ya (9 and 3). The list of consonantal sounds is, of course, far from complete; but it is remarkable that in the great majority of cases the signs are presented to us as syllabic^ They even include two cimipound syllables, 'bar' and ' sar.' They are distri- buted among twenty-one different sounds: r or er^ ra^ ru; n^ na^ iiu^ ana; />a, bu^ bar; ak^ ka^ kii; ta^ da; 5, a^, 7is; 5a, w«, saf\ and the signs for the plural. It will be seen that this affords a remarkable anticipation of a later discovery. A careful examination will show that, so far as the consonantal sounds are concerned, there are extremely few errors. Indeed, out of fifty-five signs, we have only found twelve radical mistakes in this respect. On the other hand, he was able to give to many signs their al)Solutely correct syllabic value. At the time of writing he was of opinion that the distinction between i and ii was not observed; and he a(!(*ordingly classifies together the syllabic ending in either of these vowels. He thought that the same confusion existed among the (consonants. He con- sidered that the language did not admit of distinction between r and /, or ])etween b and />, or w and m; nor between the gutturals k, tj and kh; nor between the siljilants; and that ch is expressed by 5, and j by k. lie identified the personal pronoun I — a-na-ku; and he read the name and titles of Nebuchadnezzar in various inscriptions which Grotefend had mistaken for forms of prayer. He saw (clearly the ideographic and determinative value of some of the signs, and fixed cor- rectly upon those for ' and,' ' son,' ' great,' ' earth,' ' one,'