Page:History of Early Iran.pdf/29

Rh the native name for Elam, Haltamti, by the Elamites themselves.

As in English, the noun does not distinguish between masculine and feminine, though the difference between person and thing, as "king" and "kingdom," is usually marked. One remarkable characteristic of the language is a double genitive construction in which the suffix of a noun is repeated at the close of the genitival phrase, together with all its modifying elements. Thus such a phrase as "in the temple of Shimutta, the god of Elam," is expressed in this order: "temple, Shimutta, the god, Elam, of, of, in."

The verbal forms are by far the most troublesome elements. In addition to the fact that the root meaning of the verb has often been unknown, failure to identify a subordinate verb as such, even when the root meaning of the verb was clear, frequently has led students of the language to an impossible translation or to a hopeless impasse. Fortunately, the subordinate verb is, almost without exception, clearly recognizable; our main problem now is a more accurate definition of the meanings of the verbal roots.

Many of the elements characteristic of Elamite seem common to those of a linguistic group found today in the Caucasus area only and referred to as the "Caucasian" family of languages, although certain phonetic and grammatical parallels with the Tamil dialect of Dravidian in southern India have been noted.