in the triple Inscriptions of the Persians, &c. 277 
would have been written by the Greek historian Zip&ns, or Zuapéys, rather than 
Zep&ys; while it should have been recorded by him ZavapEns, to justify the 
Major’s reading of the same group. Of the use of the primary cuneiform 7, to 
express 0 and w, we have instances in the groups for ‘ Phraortis’ and * Hyrca- 
nia,"* deciphered by Rawlinson ‘ Frawartish’ and ‘ Warkana,’ but whose pro- 
nunciation by Herodotus, Ppaoprns and Ypxavia, shows that they should rather 
be transcribed ‘ Phraortish’ and ‘Urkana.’ To warrant the Major’s readings 
of those groups, the names represented by them should have been written by the 
Grecian author Ppaovaptns and Ovapkaria. 
The system of cuneiform vocalization having been subdivided into two 
kinds, one of which is closely connected, and the other absolutely identical, with 
that employed in every Asiatic species of Shemitic writing, it remains to be 
inquired which of those systems is the more ancient one. The slightest observa- 
tion, indeed, of Greek orthography would suffice to make a cuneiform writer pass 
from his ruder to his less ambiguous kind of vocalization, provided he was not 
previously long accustomed to the former, and that the whole of his alphabet was 
then only of recent formation ; but still it may be asked, with regard to the ruder 
and more imperfect kind, which are older, the cuneiform or the Shemitic matres 
lectionis? Now this question must, I apprehend, be decided in favour of the 
Shemitic class ; as their immediate derivation from Greek writing may be naturally 
accounted for, but not so that of the cuneiform set. For, supposing a Shemitic 
scribe to have introduced vowel-signs into his alphabet, from observing their use 
in Greek orthography, and to have, from force of habit, selected for this use, 
though less properly suited to it, some of his old letters, in preference to adopting 
new ones for the purpose, he would naturally be led, by the name of the Grecian 
letter for a (alpha), to attach this new value to the / of his own system, which 
had the same name, now, indeed, uttered haleph, but which there are traces of 
having been at a very remote period pronounced halpha. But the like explana- 
* The groups above referred to, written in equivalent Roman capitals, in like manner as the 
two designations previously examined, would stand thus: PhRWRTISh and WRKAN. In the 
former of these transcriptions I use the combination Ph, with its common phonetic value (not 
with that specially assigned to it when employed to express the power of one of the letters of the 
Devanagari alphabet); and, therefore, I do not see any necessity of substituting / for it, as 
Major Rawlinson has done. 
