8 The Rev. Edward Hincks on the Personal Pronouns of the 



■whence the fjenitive singular hahrti. The feminine form of an was, however, 

 not confined to the Assyrians. It was used to form all the Coptic and old 

 Egyptian pronouns of the second and third persons : antok, "thy person;" 

 antov^ "his person;" antos, "her person;" antoten, "your persons;" where the 

 ancient and the more recent language agree ; as well as those other forms in 

 which they differ. It is my belief that in these Egyptian forms, the short 

 vowel in the second syllable marks the singular, and the long vowel the plural; 

 but on this point I would not be positive. The Behistun inscription has dttunu 

 for " our persons," which differs from dttua only in the affix. 



15. I cannot speak with confidence as to the analysis of the pronoun of the 

 first person plural, not having yet met with it in its Assyrian form. I conjec- 

 ture, however, that the Hebrew anakhnu consistsof the same verbal root which 

 oommences anoH, a noun signifying " a society, or company," and the posses- 

 sive affix, nu, " our." It would thus literally represent, " Here is our company." 

 The Arabic form nakhnu, which is also occasionally met with in Hebrew, is a 

 contraction of this. The akhnu of some Syrian dialects may be a further con- 

 traction of the same ; or it may be, " our company," simply, without the verb. 

 In support of this conjecture, I observe that the Arabic and Chaldee root akha 

 actually signifies " to connect ;" and that the only Egyptian pronoun of the first 

 person plural, which has yet (so far, at least, as I am aware) been discovered, is 

 a noun with afiix, " our body ;" the word implying a union of members, and the 

 compound being consequently very similar in its meaning to akh-nu, interpreted 

 as it is interpreted by me. 



16. I have already said that the pronouns of the third person are also used 

 to express the remote demonstratives that and those. They are for the singular 

 in Assyrian siihii, contracted su, and sihi, contracted si ; in Hebrew Am, Ai, in 

 Arabic hua, Ma. The resemblance of these to the Greek ho, hi, the Maso- 

 Gothic sa, su, the old Persian huwa or hii in the masculine, not found in the 

 leminine, the Zend ho, hd, and the Sanskrit sa, sd, has been already noticed by 

 many. It is indeed quite obvious. In the plural the resemblance is less close; 

 the plural forms being derived from the singular ones according to the genius 

 of the different languages. I need only state that the Assyrian forms are sunu 

 and sina ; the Hebrew, him or himma and hmna ; and the Arabic hum and 

 hunna. 



