Briuton .] OO [April 19, 



3. The Elamites, Proto-Medes and Ansanians were of one 

 tongue. The Sumerian was totally distinct, as was the Kashite, 

 the latter possibl}^ having Aryan affinities (Hilprecht).* 



4. The Kashite (to be distinguished from the Cossfean) was 

 Semitic, as was the Accadian. The Sumerian was an independ- 

 ent stock (Lehmann).f 



5. The Kashite, identical with the Cossjiean, was nowise re- 

 lated to either Semitic, Sumerian, Elamitic or Medic (Delitzsch).| 



The " Sumerian " Question. 



In striking contrast to the above opinions. Prof. Joseph Ha- 

 levy, of Paris, has for twenty years contended that there never 

 was a Sumerian language, and that all which has been written 

 about it is a tissue of errors. The natives of Sumer, he main- 

 tains, were pure Semites. § 



This opinion claims the more attention as these alleged Su- 

 merians, according to various, eminent scholars, were the fathers 

 of the Babylonian culture, the creators, therefore, of perhaps the 

 oldest civilization of the world. Consequently, the utmost in- 

 terest attaches to their ethnic position. 



Prof. Sayce has recorded himself in these strong terms : " The 

 science, the art and the literature of Babylonia had been the 

 work of an early people, and from them it (sic) had all been 

 borrowed by the later Semitic settlers of the countiy." || In a 

 similar strain, Schrader asserts that the Sumerians were the 

 founders of Babylonian culture, and that whatever else they 

 might have been, they were positively not Semitic ; ^ and Paul 

 Haupt has emphatically stated that to this certainly non-Semitic 

 people, " the whole culture of western Asia must be traced." ** 



* Prof. Hilprecht acknowledges, however, that the Kashitic and Elamitic proper names 

 have much in common. Assyriaca, p. 95. 



t Lchmann adds further and needless confusion to the question by applying the terra 

 " Accadian " to the Semitic language of Babylon, and confining the " Kashitos" to the 

 Semitic inhabitants of Elain. See his Shamashshamukin, Konig von Babylonicn, pp. 57, 100, 

 etc. (Leipzig, 1892). 



|Delitz>ch, Die Sprache der Cossaer, Leipzig, 1884. 



§0f the numerous articles of HaK'vy it will be sufficient to refer to his " Apcr^u gram- 

 matical de I'Allographie Assyro-Babylouienne " in the Proceedings of the Sixth Iiitrrna- 

 tional Omgrcss of Orientalists. He there sets forth with entire clearness the method he 

 advocates. 



!| Introduction to the Science of Language, Vol. i, p. 3. 



1[ Schrader, 7Air Frage, etc., p. 19. 



** Haupt, "Die Sumerisch-Akkadische Sprache," in the Fifth Inttrnat. Orient. Cong., 

 p. 249. This distinguished Assyriologist informs me that he has not changed his opinions 

 in this respect. 



