Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/403

374 Nebuchadnezzar, and how he fancied he had found 'Jeru- salem '; but these instances only serve to illustrate the great obstacles that had still to be overcome. We have alreadv mentioned the suijo'estions that were made first

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by Longperier and afterwards l)y liottawith the view of reducing the number of homophones. Hincks confesses he had not seen the essav of the former, and we have not observed that he has acknowledged his obligations to Botta, though he was evidently ac:quainted with his work, as we see from an unpleasant reference to ' a mechanical comparison of ins(*riptions.' It was, however, upon the principle these writers suggested that Huicks was now about to solve one of the greatest difficulties of the lan- guage. The solutionis ccmtained in an Appendix to the essay just reviewed, and was sent to press on January 19, 1850, the vSanie day that Major liawlinson read his first paper to the Asiatic Society. Hincks now explains that there are four distinct vowel sounds in Assvrian, <?, (/, i and u; but the diflerence between the first two was not maintained when they preceded a consonant.^ lie laid down that every sign represented a consonant either preceded or followed by one of these vowels. Therefore, each coiisonant was represented ])y seven signs, thus: m, ca, n\ ca; at\ u*, ul\ lie thought there were at least fifteen consonants, and that the syUal)ary was of Indo-Euroi)ean origin, and need not therefore, as he had at first supi)osed, ])e adjusted to the llel)rew alphabet. The principle thus amiounced has been acce[)ted with some modifications. The difference between the long and short a has not been maintained in this connection, and consequently the

epsilon (^Transactionsy\^.\0). In his list the consonants followed by a are really those followed by a, and those followed by a correspond to the consonants followed by i. His view of the four vowels dates from the paper on \'an, Dec. 1847 (./. IL A. S. 1848, vol. ix.).
 * He explained, however, that his short a corresponds to the Greek