Assyrian and other Languages, especially Hebrew. 7 



12. In mnny contexts both these forms may be used indifferently; but 

 there are some in which ani alone can be used with propriety. These are the 

 cases where the pronoun, being otherwise expressed, is repeated for emphasis. 

 Such are the expressions, vaani hinneni, " and me, behold me ;" aniarii ani, " I 

 said, I ;" bi ani, " upon me, me."* According to my view of the matter, the 

 literal translation would be, " and it is my person ; behold me ;" " I said ; it is 

 my person;" " upon me ; it is my person;" ani, with the substantive verb under- 

 stood, constituting a parenthetic sentence. 



13. What first led me to take this view was my observing a similar phrase- 

 ology in Assyrian. Xei'xes says, in one of the Persepolitan inscriptions of the 

 third kind, which are in a language almost identical with the Assyrian, " King 

 Darius, cibua, attua, my father, mine ;" literally, " the father of me ; it is my 

 person." In the Behistun inscription Darius says, " eight kings ina lib jiriya, 

 dttua, among my family, mine," literally, " among the family of me ; it is my 

 person." We have here dttua, which from its form must be a nominative, occur- 

 ring after a noun in the genitive, exactly as it did in the preceding sentence after 

 a noun in the nominative. This proves that it is not in apposition to that noun, 

 but must constitute a parenthetic sentence ; which it may do, and can only do, 

 with the substantive verb understood. 



14. Now, on examining this dttua (which is here used precisely as the 

 Hebrew ani is used in the phrases that I have quoted) I find that it is an equi- 

 valent form of the same root. Ani consists of the indeclinable noun an, and the 

 affix i ; dttua (for untua, as attd for antd) consists oi ant, the feminine form of 

 an, with u, forming the nominative, and a the possessive afiix of the first per- 

 son. f The Assyrians were much more careful than the Hebrews to give the 

 feminine termination to abstract verbal nouns ; and they even annexed it to nouns 

 which were not abstract, but had in some degree the form of such. Thus, in 

 place of the Hebrew iris, " earth," they used irsit, or, as I prefer writing it, 

 irchit; in place oi bahar, "a sea, or great water," they used bahrat or bahrit, 



* These three expressions occur Gen. i. 17 ; Eccl. ii. 1 ; and 1 Sam. xxv. 24. The French moi 

 exactly corresponds to ani when thus used. 



t The exact Hebrew equivalent of the Assyrian dttua would be atti for anti. This is not used 

 as a separate pronoun ; but it may perhaps e.xplain the form lamadli for the first person singular of 

 the verb, which has completely superseded lamdoki. 



