Page:Herodotus and the Empires of the East.djvu/101

Rh an inscription tells us that the bull was buried with customary rites, in which Cambyses also took part.

Herodotus says that Persian proper names correspond to the personal appearance and rank of each individual; and they terminate, without exception, in the same letter, which the Dorians call "sail" and the lonians "sigma." (I., 139.) This statement is untrue, since Persian nominatives of a-stems (I. Eur.o-s) have lost final's. In fact only stems in i and u retain the sibilant in the nominative—e. g., Gaumāta, Bardiya, beside Dārayava(h)ush, Caishpish, etc. (Spiegel, § 24; Tolman, " Persian Inscriptions," § 16; Brugmann, I., §§ 556, 3, 558, 4.) The Greek form of these names probably influenced this supposition of Herodotus.

The following will serve as examples of the meaning of Persian names: Dāraya-va(h)ush, Darius, (dar, "hold;" va(h)u, "wealth") "possessing wealth" (cf. Hdt. VI., 98); Vahyaz-dāta cf. Avestan, Vaňhazdāh, " giver of the best;" Khshayārshan, Xerxes, (khshaya, "ruler;" arshan, "male"); Hakhamanish, Achaemenes (Skt., sákhā, "friend").

The Old Persian language belongs to the Aryan group of the great Indo-European family. The chief representatives of this group are the Indian—i. e., the Vedic dialect and the classical Sanskrit and the Iranian—i. e.the Old Persian (West Iranian) and Avestan, sometimes called Zend (East Iranian). A common characteristic of this Aryan group is the failure to observe that distinction between a,e,o, which