2 
38 MAJOR C. R. CONDER, D.C.L., B.E., 
unchanged in Akkadian. It is natural, therefore, to look to 
these two languages to help us with Hittite, and I may say 
that in this view I am supported by Mr. Bertin, a good 
Akkadian scholar; and that Mr. Pinches also believes an 
Akkadian-speaking people to have lived near Carchemish, in 
Northern Syria. 
I have carefully compared together not only the Medic and 
Akkadian, but also the vocabularies of the oldest Turkic 
dialects, of the Ugric and Finnic languages, of the Etruscan 
and of Buriat (the oldest Mongol dialect), and Cantonese (the 
most archaic Chinese dialect) ;* and after about two years of 
such study, I find that the nomenclature of the Hittites is 
most easily explained on a Turkic-Ugric basis. It is that of 
a language akin to Akkadian and Medic, and chiefly illus- 
trated by the Turkic dialects of ancient Bactria,—the very 
region where already, in the second century A.D., we find 
the Khitai noticed by Ptolemy as an important tribe. These 
Khitai, of whose language Mr. Howarth has collected the 
remains, and who became famous under Prester John, and 
gave their name to Cathay, were a Mongolic people, and their 
vocabulary contains words which occur also in Akkadian. 
I would here give a list of some of the more remarkable 
translations of the town names in Syria, as known in 1600 
B.C. These begin at No. 120, Karnak lists, and go down to 
No. 282, but out of these some may be Semitic, and a good 
many are mutilated. 
The list has been investigated by Rev. H. G. Tomkins 
geographically, and the ordinary transliteration is here 
followed :— 
No. 120, Pil-taw (now Baldeh) from pil, “ hill” and ta, 
“mountain” or “high.’ The first is widely spread and 
* The following list of books may be useful to other students, as they are 
easily obtainable. I have read them all. 
F. Lenormant, La Magie chez les Chaldéens. 
E. de Chossat, Répertoire Sumérien. 
O. Bohtlingk, Uber die Sprache der Jakuten. 
H. Vambéry, Worterbuch der Turko-Tartarischen Sprachen. 
O. Donner, Vergleichendes Worterbuch der Finnisch Ugrischen Sprachen. 
G. Bertin, Languages of the Cuneiform Inscriptions, 
J. Oppert, Le Peuple et la Langue des Medes. 
J. Chalmers, English and Cantonese Dictionary. 
M. Brosset, Eléments dela Langue Georgienne. 
M. A. Castren, Versuch einer Burjatischen Sprachlehre. 
I. Taylor, Etruscan Researches. 
I must also express my thanks to Dr. Isaac Taylor for advising me in 
the choice of the Finnic, Tartar, and Mongolian vocabularies. 
