306 Rev. Dr. Watt on the different Kinds of Cuneiform Writing 
bets are employed to represent, to that one great family which it is the custom 
(improperly enough) to designate as the Semitic; and that I leave untouched 
the great and essential question, whether the difference of character mdicate a 
difference of orthographical structure, or whether the varieties of formation are 
merely analogous to the diversity which exists between the Estranghelo and the Nes- 
torian alphabet, the printed and the cursive Hebrew, or the Cufic and the modern 
Arabic. The complicated cuneiform character, then, may, I think, be divided into 
three distinct groups,—Babylonian, Assyrian, and Elymean ; and the two former of 
these groups will again admit of subdivision into minor branches. Of the 
Babylonian there are only two marked varieties: the character of the cylinders 
[and bricks] may be considered as the type of the one; that of the third column 
of the trilingual inscriptions of Persia, of the other. The former is probably the 
primitive cuneiform alphabet. It is also of extensive application. It is found 
upon the bricks which compose the foundations of the primeval cities of Shinar, 
at Babylon, at Erech, at Accad, and at Calneh ; and, if the Birs-i-Nimrid be ad- 
mitted to represent the tower of Babel,—an identification which is supported, not 
merely by the character of the monument, but also by the universal belief of the 
early Talmudists,—it must, in the substructure of that edifice, embody the ver- 
nacular dialect of Shinar, at the period when ‘the whole earth was of one 
language and of one speech (Gen. xi. 1).’”’* 
Throughout this extract it is assumed, as a point too obvious to require any 
proof, that the several kinds of cuneatie writing,—no matter how much they may 
differ from each other in the number and complexity of the combinations of 
wedges constituting their respective elements,—are all of them alphabetic; and, in 
more than one part of it, this assumption conducts to the inference that writing of 
this description was known to mankind before the tower of Babel was erected, or 
the confusion of tongues took place in the plains of Shinar! It is unnecessary to 
urge against this extravagant conclusion the proofs I have elsewhere adduced of 
the fact, that Moses was the first man who made use of alphabetic writing ; as its 
fallacy can be exposed quite independently of the consideration of that fact. 
Had the sons of Noah possessed an alphabet, no people descended from them, 
that is, not one of the nations on the surface of the earth, could have since been 
* Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. x. part i. pp. 20-2. 
