Page:Quatrains of Omar Khayyam (tr. Whinfield, 1883).djvu/43

Rh I have also made a point of marking the izáfat wherever it occurs. "The omission of this" says Lumsden, "is undoubtedly a great defect in Persian writing, insomuch that I am not certain wliether it has not been the cause of more obscurity than would result from the omission of all the prepositions."

There is some diflference of precept and practice as to the proper way of marking the izáfat after the semi-vowels. For instance, some grammarians, speaking loosely, say that after alif, waw and silent he, the izáfat is expressed by hamza or ya. What they mean to say is, by hamza i maksúr, or ya i maksúr,—"kasra bearing" hamza or ya. One has only to scan a verse containing one of these hamzas or yas to see that they are always followed by kasra expressed or understood. For the izáfat, wherever it occurs, invariably adds a syllable to the word preceding it, and no Persian syllable consists of less than one consonant and one vowel. The fact is, the izáfat, when expressed, is always expressed by kasra. If the preceding letter be silent he, hamza is substituted for it, because, as Vullers says, silent he "tennior est quam ut voculem ferre queat." So if the preceding letter be alif or waw, used as letters of prolongation, "littera ya euphonica in fine adjicitur quœ genitivi signum i accipiat." And for this ya, hamza is often substituted.

So far the matter is pretty plain, but as regards the izáfat after words ending in ya there is more room for doubt. Lumsden says the izáfat in this case ought to be written with a kasra, Vullers with kasra, hamza being sometimes superscribed, sometimes not, Mirza Ibrahim with hamza only. Brockhaus, in his Hafiz,