Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/404

Rh syllabic representation of eadi consonant is reduced from seven to six. His statement that the difference between surd and sonant is maintained at the beginninef l)ut not at the end of the syllable has also been admitted. We have thus separate signs for 6a, bi^ bu and pa^ pi, pit ; but the signs for ap, ip and up answer for both. Ilincks's (consonants have been accepted with- out material change. Ilis y has been omitted and h added; z has been substituted for^. Two signs for k to represent Caph and Koph, and two for t to represent Teth and Tau have been added, where Hincks only had one for each, so that the number of consonants is now raised to seventeen. Not onlv did Ilincks arrive at a correct theory of the simple syllables, l)ut he identified correctly a very large number of the signs correspond- ing to them. Of the seventy-one he gives in his Table at least fifty-seven are accurate, and possibly even more. lie closed the essay with a brief specimen of a translation from the Khorsabad ins(*ription.

This Essay of Hincks exercised a decisive influence upon the future study of Assyrian. It demonstrated that, although the language was Semitic, the mode of writing was not Semitic ; and for a time it divided scholars into two opposing camps. Those wlio fohowed Hincks maintained tiiat the language was syllabic, and that each sign expressed a consonant associated with an inherent and invariable vowel. Those, on the contrarv, who souoht to assimilate it to the Hebrew system were of opinion that the signs represent simple consonants that might be preceded or followed by any vowel. We have noted the gradual recognition of the syllabic nature of the Assyrian writing. The earliest opinion was that the signs were both syllabic and alphabetical, and we have seen that Grotefend in his transliteration treated them in this manner. Ilincks