192 Rev. Epwarp Hincxs on the Number, Names, and Powers 
as we have seen, represented by y. This appears from III. 2, and IV. 6. That 
this letter, when initial, represented the hamza, or sound produced by opening 
the larynx, and not the vowel A, appears from its being frequently omitted at 
the beginning of words, which a vowel would not be likely to be; from its being 
represented in Coptic words by all kinds of vowels, as in aitk, “1” (Heb. 123); 
€9,€, “a cow ;” HpM, “ wine;” o&e, “thirst,” also written er&e and s&1; and 
uoite, “a stone;” from its being interchanged, when accompanied by a mouth, 
R, with the eye, which is known to represent the word sps (see Pap. Pl. 161, 
1.8, 9, e¢ passim) ; and from its being followed by different vowels, when but one 
syllable seems to be expressed. It takes for its expletive the setting figure touch- 
ing his mouth, implying that its name was sounded as the interjection used in 
addressing a person, which we must presume was O. For this siting figure the 
quail is substituted, and some might think that the /eaf and quai then constituted 
a diphthong, as a and w, when united, express 0 in Sanscrit. But I cannot accede 
to such an opinion. I consider this combination equivalent to the Hebrew in; 
and we shall presently see reason for thinking that the quail represented O as 
well as U, the Egyptians, like the ancient Hebrews, not distinguishing these 
sounds. I represent this letter by a Hebrew aleph ; it appears in the alphabet as 
s1:s 1. Atthe end of words I conceive that it was sounded as wh, or as our 
a, when unaccented, generally is. Thus, Tx, the name of the purse, should be 
pronounced Tuh, or as Tur would be pronounced by most persons in London. 
This character is used in the first age on the tomb of Teta. 
24, The eagle, (A. 1; a. 1) is considered by Chevalier Bunsen as equivalent to 
the two preceding, but in good texts no two of them are interchanged ; and in 
their use as expletives they are uniformly placed after different letters. I cannot 
then consent to class them together; and as the two others have been appropri- 
ated to different values from that of the vowel A, and as we cannot conceive that 
this was wanting in the Egyptian language, I give this value to the eagle. It 1s 
worthy of notice that it is used to express the initial letters in the names of 
Artaxerxes, Alexander, and Arsinoe, and the two alphas in the name of KAco- 
maTpa, as written on the pronaos at Edfu, where it is expressed by nine charac- 
ters, evidently intended to correspond to the nine Greek ones. It is not used in 
ancient transcriptions, except as an expletive. In the transcription of an Egyptian 
word in which it occurs, I. 5, the Hebrews represented it by 8, but this is no 
