Rev. Epwarp Hincxs on Persepolitan Writing. 117 
the latter were such as could not be used before a, but took the place of some of 
the primary consonants before 7, u, or r. Lassen thinks that these secondary 
consonants differed in power from the corresponding primary ones; he does not, 
indeed, give them the names of primary and secondary, nor does he recognize 
their connexion in the manner that I do; and, in particular, he supposes them 
all to be aspirated. On the contrary, I believe them to be perfectly equivalent 
in sound to their primaries, or to be modifications of them, such as necessarily 
arose from the juxtaposition of the following vowel; and I consider them to be 
remains of the syllabic mode of writing formerly in use, retained for the sake of 
distinguishing syllables with single vowels and with guna diphthongs, which it 
was necessary to distinguish for grammatical purposes, and which, nevertheless, 
could not be distinguished if only three vowels were used, and if there were no 
secondary consonants. 
The manner in which this distinction appears to me to have been made will 
be made evident by the following example. The primary form of the letter m 
was 3; but it had also a secondary form, 17, only used before 7. Lassen writes 
this m, and maintains that both m and m could be used before 2; whence he 
argues that they must express different sounds. I, on the contrary, maintain 
that his m, 3, is never used immediately before 7, but that when it appears to 
precede it, an a is always to be supplied, converting the ¢ into é ; thus, according 
to my view of the matter, while 8, 33 may be read either ni or né, 17, 33 signifies 
mi only, and 3, 33 mé only. It was necessary to distinguish these, because the 
former (with a mute y following it, as lately mentioned) is the termination of the 
first person singular present in verbs ; whereas the latter (with the same addition 
of y) is an enclitic pronoun, used for “my.” Thus, what Lassen reads « wta- 
mija khsathram,”’ and translates “tum hoc regnum,” I read “uta-mé khsha- 
tram,” and translate “meumque regnum.” I. combined the two words “and 
my” into a single word, as in Latin, but in I. the conjunction was the principal 
word, and the pronoun the enclitic, the reverse of what it is in Latin. In like 
manner dé, which Lassen writes dia, was an enclitic pronoun of the second per- 
son singular, signifying “thy.” Instead, then, of using new signs to express the 
secondary consonants, as if they expressed different sounds from the primary ones, 
I write them by the same signs, conceiving that they are sufficiently distinguished 
by their position; and I lay it down as an invariable rule, that if a primary con- 
