Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/392

Rh upon; ^ while lliiicks and I)e Saulcy, with the addition of the Naksh-i-Kustani inscription, had fort}'. From the Behistun and other sources now available to Kawlinson, the number OTadually rose to ninety-four:- and with these before him, he l)egan to apply himself to ' the determination of the phonetic powers of the characters/ Amonji: the new names was that of Nebuchadnezzar, which he at once recognised was the same as occurred so frequently on the bricks at Hillah. Tliis discovery was made quite independently of Dr. Ilincks; and Layard is hiclined to think that, in ac^tual date, the precedence is due to llawlinson.^ He was al)le already (1847) to announce that he had 'obtained a tolerably extensive alphabet from the orthography of the* proper names'; but he adds: 'I have left the grammar and construction of the language hitherto untouched.' lie had, however, been greatly struck by the number of signs with apparently equivalent sounds.** He found it difficult to admit the existence of variants in the same inscription, except such as were caused l)y slight changes ui the writing of the same character. He saw, however, that no such explanation would cover all the difficulties of the case, for some of the substitutes were obviouslv totally distinct in form. In this case he did not believe that they were ' lemtimatelv inter- changeable/ He thought the 'phonetic organisation of the lanouaiiv was so minute and elaborate that althout^^h each form was designed to represent a disthict and specific sound, yet the artist was perpetually liable to confound the characters.' He sucfiiested also that each consonant had a different sign to express the surd and sonant; and in some cases one mii>'ht be substituted for

• E.rposr^ p. 10, note. '• Ilonimcl, GfMc/tic/itCf \). 1)8. •' Layard, yincL-r/i and iftt RemainXj ii. 17' J.


 * J. Ii'. A. S. X. 29.