138 REPORT—1857. 
these languages, declined to express a positive opinion. As respected his arguments 
in this paper, it was of no consequence whether the Accadian language was repre- 
sented by one or more living languages, or whether it had died away, like the Egyp- 
tian, leaving no representative on the tongues of men. He was inclined to think, 
however, that all the Turanian languages were descended, if not from the Accadian, 
from its parent the Japhetic, which is hereafter to be noticed; though from the long 
- period which must have elapsed before these languages were reduced to writing, and 
from the barbarism and nomadic habits of most of the nations who spoke them, 
there can be little hope of the descent being traced in a satisfactory manner. It had 
been noticed, several years ago, that the Egyptian language was connected with the 
Semitic languages in respect to its glossary. The connexion was so manifest, that, 
notwithstanding the structural difference of the languages, Bunsen and others have 
classed the Egyptian among the Semitic languages. A glossarial resemblance 
between the Indo-European languages and either the Semitic or the Egyptian had 
also been remarked in some words. In the present paper, the author endeavours 
to establish this glossarial affinity between the three languages or families of lan- 
guages that have been named, and the Accadian. The latter he regards as more 
closely connected with the Indo-European languages than with the other two. 
He supposes it to be a sister language to the primitive Indo-European lan- 
guage, from which all the existing languages of this stock are descended; and 
he supposes that the common parent of these two (and possibly of other Turanian 
languages), which he calls the Japhetic language, was a sister to the Semitic 
and Egyptian languages. The linguistic pedigree, according to the author’s view, 
is found in fig. 6. It is inferred from a number of verbal pedigrees, such as that of 
the second numeral in fig. 7, in which it is to be observed that each word in the 
verbal pedigree is to be referred to that language, the name of which occupies a cor- 
responding position in the linguistic pedigree. It is to be observed also that the 
Egyptian and Accadian words are directly obtained from inscriptions ; but all the 
other words in the pedigrees are obtained by inference from what is otherwise known. 
The author’s principle is, that when of the corresponding words in two sister lan- 
guages, one is known, and a number of descendants of the other are also known, 
this other may be in general inferred with certainty. His mode of proceeding is 
illustrated by the numeral for ‘‘two.”’ The Egyptian word is given in fig. 8. It 
occurs, Select Papyri, pl. 27. 1. 11, where it follows the word PUY, and implies that 
it should be doubled. Elsewhere it is found doubled. The identity of the word in 
both its forms is unquestionable from the peculiar monstrous bird which it signifies, 
by a representation of which it is followed. The first character in the hieroglyphic 
name might be read indifferently T, TH or D; the others represent W and Y, one of 
which at least must be read as a vowel. The Egyptians introduced vowel letters 
much earlier than the Phoenicians or Hebrews did; and these last probably learned 
the use of them from them. The Accadian word is used, like the Egyptian word, 
to denote duplication. The plural of the word signifying a city is written, for 
example, in three ways; and it should be observed that the Accadian plural was 
formed by doubling the singular. These are exhibited in fig. 9. The character is 
doubled; or the syllable mi is added; or a character is added, which has been 
called the plural sign. It is, however, composed of one of the forms for mi and 
is; and in the Syllabary, K. 110, it is directed to be pronounced mis. It might 
be argued, indeed, that the Accadian value of this word was rather “many” 
than ‘‘ twice ;” but the use of it in fig. 10 proves decisively that this was not 
the case. Some preliminary explanation is, however, required before the force 
of the argument drawn from this use of it can be seen. It has been stated that 
Accadian words were used in Assyrian inscriptions, in place of Assyrian words, 
When the words were verbs, it was customary to add to the Accadian verbal root 
the termination of the Assyrian verb. Thus the Accadian root signifying ‘‘ to go”’ 
was du; and we have in the upper line of fig. 10 the equivalent forms (du) ku 
and illiku, both of which are found written interchangeably, but the latter of which 
was always read. The corresponding English verb would be ‘‘ he has gone ;” the 
final w not being a sign of the plural number, but of the preterperfect tense. In the 
following line we have three forms used interchangeably, which represent the corre- 
sponding frequentative verb tttalaku, “he has gone repeatedly.” The Accadian 
ee ee 
