42 The Rev. Edward Hincks on a Tablet in the British Museum. 



vocabularies. I think, however, that it is pretty obvious that the forms for 

 " five" are in construction khumish and khamishat ; khamishti or khamitti 

 being the genitive of the latter. The difference between the ordinal and the 

 cardinal is here that the former has 3, and the latter D, for the second radical. 



The themes of the three ordinals answering to " sixth," " seventh," and 

 "eighth," begin with fe, D, while in all the cognate languages these numerals 

 begin with tt*. I feel confident that the cardinals in Assyrian would begin 

 with this latter, and that this was one distinction between them and the ordi- 

 nals; whether or not it was the only distinction, I cannot say; I have never met 

 with any of these forms ; and for " nine" I have met neither cardinal nor 

 ordinal. 



" Ten" is expressed by Hsir . 'isirat, as I have already stated. 



Of the combinations requiring the numbers between " ten" and " twenty" I 

 know no more than that Colonel Rawlinson gives !!-< T-^« "^ tTTT from a syl- 

 labary as " fifteen." He reads this kha?nis sirat, so divided ; but I question 

 the correctness of the division. I consider the above to be one word, a con- 

 traction for khamish 'isirat. So, the Chaldee form "10^"!.^! replaces "IDJL? ^"1?!. 



" Twenty" is, according to Colonel Rawlinson's Tablet, «^ tj:|y ^^ which 

 he, most unaccountably, reads sinra (with a dot under the s), and connects 

 with ^5^ " two," as if " two tens." Surely the true reading is is . ra . ya., or 

 is . ra . a, the plural of isir, " ten." The Assyrians had no dual ; and the deri- 

 vation of ' ' twenty" from " ten," and not from " two," is in accordance with the 

 usage of all the cognate languages. 



Colonel Rawlinson gives silasa, irhaya (or irha), and khansa, as the cardinals 

 corresponding to "thirty," "forty," and "fifty." In the second of these we have 

 the final T! interchanged with t^Tri which leads me to suspect that it should be 

 pronounced ya in every instance at the close of these numerals; unless, indeed, 

 a u should precede it. If this view be correct, these forms should be read — 

 shilashaya . irbaya, and khanshaya. At any rate, it will be observed that there 

 is great inconsistency in their derivation. The last of them is plainly connected 

 with the ordinal theme. The second would seem to be connected with the 

 cardinal theme, having, like it, a prefixed X; but the change of the first vowel 

 is not in accordance with the ordinary rules of derivation. Shilashaya deviates 

 still further from the ordinal theme shalish; while, if the cardinal theme be 



