120 Rev. Epwarp Hincks on Persepolitan Writing. 
made. It should be observed that the breathing, 21, expressed by h, was a very 
slight one. When initial it was scarcely, if at all, distinguishable from 30 (a) ; 
and when medial it indicated a fresh emission of the voice after an interruption, 
like the Arabic hamza. 
THREE VOWELS: 
30. @, a Soni ae 20: U, ul. 
NINETEEN PRIMARY CONSONANTS: 
2 semivowels, 169, y 2 w, w. 
2 breathings, Q1h,h 27 kh, kh. 
2 labials, 35 p, p 6 b, b. 
2 dentals, Wrente 28 d, d. 
2 gutturals, 13k, k 25 g, g. 
2 palatines, 29 k’ ch ? 
4 sibilants, 14 ¢, 5 ? 
32 s, sh ? 
3 liquids, 3mm 8n,n 91, 7. 
ELEVEN SECONDARY CONSONANTS, YIZ. : 
4 before 2 31 v, w 10 kh, d 17 m, m 67, ? 
6 before u lly, kh 20dh,t 23 dh, d. 
24q,k 22 gh, g 57,1. 
1 before r 19 f, p. 
The characters 12, z, 1, 2’, and 18, $, as Lassen denotes them, are the soft 
sounds of ch, s, and sh; but it is a difficult question to decide which represents 
the soft sound corresponding to each letter, as well as to which 6, 7, corresponds. 
In the inquiries which I am about to make, I will use Lassen’s values of these 
four letters, till I establish my own in lieu of them. I remark, in the first place, 
that it seems hopeless to attempt the solution of this problem by the etymology 
of words. All the words in which any of these letters occur, the etymological 
relations of which I have been able to ascertain, seem to have had, in their origi- 
nal forms, a hard g, which has been capriciously softened down into all these 
letters, just as the hard & has been into s, sh, and ch. The word zandnam 
points to the Greek root yev, in Sanscrit jan. The first syllable in wazarka is a 
