152 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 
Africa. Neither have I yet been able to pay the full attention 
which I should like to give to Dr. Hyde Clarke’s extensive researches 
in the field of ancient Turanian alphabets. The inscribed whorls 
found by Dr. Schliemann at Hissarlik, to which he has recently 
been applying himself, are undeniably of the class under con- 
sideration. 
From the foregoing statement, it will be seen that the chief 
materials for determining the phonetic values of the old Turanian 
characters are the Aztec hieroglyphics, the Corean alphabet, the 
Cypriote syllabary, and the bilingual inscriptions of Asia Minor. 
The Etruscan bilinguals have, so far, been a barrier in the way of 
progress. 
THE LANGUAGE OF THE ETRUSCAN INSCRIPTIONS. 
After transliterating the first twenty lines of one of the Eugubine 
tables, I found myself among Basque constructions. The forms of 
the auxiliary verbs naiz and dut, such as bagare, guinela, balu, 
banuen, are so peculiar and recur with such frequency, that, so far as 
my knowledge of languages goes, it is impossible to mistake the 
Basque for any other tongue.” The Basque vocabulary is otherwise 
common to a large family of languages, which I have in many papers 
dealt with under the name of Khitan. I am not aware that there 
is any tradition of an Italian origin among the Basques, save that 
16 Set forth from time to time in communications to the Athenaeum, Nature, &c. See 
Athenaeum, July 25th, 1885, p. 112, for the Hissarlik whorls. 
17 Bagare, modified indicative present, 1st plural, of the verb naiz, I am. 
Paradigm. 
banaiz, bahaiz, bada—if I am, thou art, he is. 
bagare, bazarete, badire—we are, you are, they are. 
Guinela, modified indicative past, 1st plural, of naiz. 
Paradigm. 
naincela, haincela, cela—(it is said) that I was, thou wast, he was. 
suinela, cinetela, cirela—we were, you were, they were. 
Balu, modified indicative past, 3rd sing., of the verb dut, I have. 
Paradigm. 
banu, bahu, balu—if I had, thou hadst, he had. 
baguinu, bacinute, balute-- we had, you had, they had. 
Banuen, modified indicative past, Ist sing., of dut. 
Paradigm. 
banuen, bahuen, bazuen—(it is asked) if I had, thou hadst, he had. 
baguinuen, bacinuten, bazuten—we had, you had, they had. 
Lécluse, Manuel de la langue Basque, p. 59, 64. M. Lécluse gives five modified indicatives 
for each of the two auxiliaries. Of the five modifications of naiz, bagare belongs to the first 
and guinela to the fourth. Of those of dut, balu belongs to the first and banuen to the third. 
