116 Rev. Epwarp Hincks on Persepolitan Writing. 
with which these different modes of reading the same characters should be 
adopted. He seems to consider the reading the two characters as one syllable to 
be rare, whereas I believe it to be the most common mode; and | read many 
words thus, without a final a, which he reads with it. I think, too, that it was 
not always a Jong i or u that was intended to be expressed. Though there are 
instances of words terminating with ¢ or w, they are very rare; and it appears to 
have been considered incorrect spelling: 7, or (as I would write the latter cha- 
racter, 16) 7y and ww, seem to me to be, for the most part, used as we should use 
i and w at the end of a simple or compound word, by no means implying that 
the vowel was to be lengthened. Thus, I read the two last syllables in Lassen’s 
dmija as one, dmi, “1 am;” and so, Sdtija, Sati, “he says;” translating both 
words as verbs in place of adjectives, as Lassen imagines them to be; and, com- 
bining this principle with the last, I read, instead of Lassen’s tjia, tyé for tyat, 
which is just the nominative plural masculine of the article or relative pronoun 
tyas, used in the Védas. Lassen does not admit that this use of 77 and ww for 
Zand % could have place in the middle of a word. Here again I differ from 
him. I read zza for wvaza, as the name of Suza; and so in some other 
instances. But, further than this, where an a is to be supplied after iy or ww, in 
the middle or end of a word, or where the a is actually written, I would drop the 
semivowel, as being a mere fulcrum for the a, necessary, according to the genius 
of I., which did not admit the possibility of 7 or « preceding a, but unnecessary 
in our mode of writing. Thus I would write martiam for “man,” and 
Udrazmis, the name of a country, without the semivowel.* The rule, then, 
which I would propose on this subject, is this: “y after ¢ and w after w are not 
to be expressed; if an a is not expressed after the semivowel, it is sometimes to 
be supplied, but by no means generally.” 
3. I distinguish the consonants of I. into two classes, primary and secondary ; 
the former were such as could be used before the vowel a, expressed or supplied ; 
* Since this was written, I have deciphered the third Persepolitan writing to a considerable 
extent; and I find that the name of this country was expressed in it by ubarasbaya, ba being the 
only mode of expressing both wa and ma ; hence I infer that 7 was sounded in this word, and 
probably 7 and y in other analogous instances. My principal reason for making this slight cor- 
rection here is, that the reader may infer that in other instances, where a correction is not made, 
the statements made in the text have been confirmed by my subsequent researches. 
