Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/416

Rh divined the existence of some such principle is by no means clear, but we have no doul)t that when he read his first paper to the Society he was still of opinion that the alphabetical system entered largely into the Assyrian language. ' Many of the characters,' he then said, ' can only Ije explained as single consonants.' ' In accordance with this view, when he had occasion to refer to the Assyi'ian characters, he uniforndy gives them purely al[)ha])etical values, although in many cases their correct syllal)ic values had been already definitely fixed in ilincks's Essay. - Hincks himself pointed this out in one notal)le case. In I80O, Rawlinson said that the suffix of the third })erson plural is a simple n; but soon afterwards Hincks sliowed that the consonantal termination is fol- lowed by ff. This o])inion Eawlinson adopted in 1851, and remark(Ml of the word ' Yatipsu,' * the termination in (r marks, of eU]-se, the plural nund)er like the Hebrew.' ^ 'When,' says Hincks, ' the connnentary was ])ublislie(l [u\ 1850^ no u could be discovered. The siixn he now reads su was a simple s.' ^ These facts are not suffi- cientlv accountcnl for 1)V the exi)lanatin liawlinsoii

' TliH rej)ort of his lecture, given iu the Athcmcfiun, leaves no doubt on this point. It says: * Major liawliuson could not admit that the phonetic .sy*^teiu was entirely syllabic, as had been sometimes stated. There was no doubt an extensive syllabarium, and the literal characters, moreover, required a vowel-sound either to precede or follow the consonant: hut a^uch vowel jioioifl wa^ rarely imiform. lie preferred, thenfore, distinguishing the literal signs as sonant and complement al, (md leariny the rotrels to he sujiplied (levordint/ to the rcf/uiremeyits <>f the lanrjunge' {Athenreum, March:?, 1850). And in August of the .same year he vindicated the use o^ bona Jide letters, in o]>positin to Hincks, wdio nuiintained that * th»' characters had all definite syllabic values' (Athenffum, Aug. 24, I80O).

' For e\am])le, he describes the signs for ut and ti as t; for hu and bil as b; for la and li as /; ^v/ as «, and ha as k (J. li. A. S. xii. 40o, 4(Hj, 4:24, 43o). Hincks already knew that the signs indicated tijbu, la, li and ka.

^ Cf. J. It. A. S. xii. 413, xiv. p. xi.

./. 11. A. S. xii. 40r».
 * Hincks, Trans. II. I. Aead. 1852, xxii. 306, note. Cf, Rawlinson,

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