Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/400

Rh instances of the existence of ideograpliic and non- phonetic determinative signs. ^ In 1849 lie added for the first time the true i)lionetic vahie (an) for the sign for ' god '; ^' and in the present essay he shows the various uses to which ideograi)hi(* signs may be applied. He ex])Uiins that many phonetic characters also express words; these may be considered as abbreviations, though ])ossibly some 'originally denoted ideas and thence, in process of time, the initial sounds in the words which express tliem/ A sec*ond class resemble the mixed signs of the Egy})tians: they may re])resent words l)y tliemselves, but they sometimes i-equire the addition of complements. Another class never have complements, nor any phonetic value except in com- pcmnd nouns, of which the word they represent forms an integral part. The ideograms, however, that give rise to the most interesting speculation are those that have phonetic values, but where the words that denote the ideas they expi'ess have no phonetic relationship to the phonetic value of the ideogram. For example, we now know that the phonetic value of the ideogram for Assyrian word foi* ' nod,' which is il-ii. A ixlance over any table giving the syllabic values of ideograms will show how extensively this peculiarity prevails: and its recognition soon led llincks to the important deduction that the writing was boi'rowed from some other people where the phonetic* value of the ideograms was in some sort of agreement with the initial sound of the word they represei»ted.'^ Hincks dwelt on the great difficulty
 * god ' is (tn; but this syllable forms no portion of the

' TransactioiiSy xxi. 241, 247.

2 lb. xxii. 828; AthentBum, Sept. 21, 1850, p. 1000.

^ * It will appear/ lie says later on, * that I consider the syllabarv to be of Indo-European origin.* In 1852 he adds: * The characters all repres<'nt syllables, and were originally intended to represent a non-Semitic language/ Transactions y xxii. 57; ib. p. 295.

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