168 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



clumsy tools borrowed from many distant lands I have rough-hewn 

 out of the Etruscan quarries. The syllabary presented is far from 

 an ideal one, but it is certainly as perfect as that of the ancient 

 Phoenicians, who ignored vowels altogether, and hardly inferior to the 

 Hebrew syllabary, prior to the invention of the vowel points within 

 the Christian era.^^ 



Basque : iraulzi duen gatillu mai * sii inii ***** tanka bu * * * 



overtura who does vase tablet * * fire place ***** strike let * * * 



I have not hazarded a comjilete translation of this corresponding inscription. The K utz may 

 be an Etruscan form of or, whicli is now eclo. The final kumago shows the same root as magola, 

 which Van Eys (subst. makilla) supposes to be tnaJca, makatu, strike. Such a Malay-Polyne- 

 sian form as ku-mago is hardly in accordance with Basque structure. Nor can I suggest at 

 present an explanation of 710 rnamita ka. The Basque has a verb mamitu, to curdle, and another, 

 Tnamutu, to disguise one's .*elf in hide^ms fashion, derived from mamu, a spectre or hobgoblin 

 to frighten children with. The Japanese moraonjii has the same meaning as mamu. Can 

 these words connect with the oriental Mamitu, goddess of fate, in the Izdubar legends (G. 

 Smith : The Chaldsean Account of Genesis) ? 



The supposed syllabary I do not regard as such, but as an ingenious combination of characters 

 on a consistent plan, setting forth words of two syllables, which are not only individually 

 significant, but which may also have formed complete sentences in combination. The Basque 

 roots are largely dissyllabic, so that the parent Etruscan may have been a biliteral language. 

 The first character in the supposed syllabary is not h, but the replacer of V, be, bi, pe, pi. It 

 occurs in this hooked form in the Hittite inscriptions and in Asia Minor. In T I T A f V f E 

 we may find hehi cow ; hera, here, hero, the first signifying equally tender and below, the second, 

 his, her, its, and the third, hot, heat ; &ebe, probably an old form of one of the auxiliaries ; and 

 hein, once. 



/I I /I A/I- V/l-E bai, bahi ; barru, buru, barn, borra ; babe, pabe ; bane. Bai lias the 

 double meaning "yes" and "spot," haM is a pledge. Barru means "within," feitnt, head, 

 haru, fasting, and 6orra, mallet; hahe is the Etruscan for "father," and pafee is Basque help, 

 support ; hane is Etruscan join, unite. TITATVTE koi gare jabe gune in modern Basque, but 

 in Etruscan gui gure gube guue. This reads correctly " we are desiring the place of the master." 

 Similarly we might read SI8A8V8E as lohi lara labe lane, and make Basque of it as lohilla ra 

 lobe Ian, towards January the oven woi'ks. I do not profess to have read any of these lines, 

 but that they can be read consistently I have little doubt. Corresponding rhyming fragments, 

 but not so perfect in their structure as the one under consideration, are to be found in the 

 nursery lore of all civilized peoples. The reason why final i, ra, he and me were chosen for the 

 composition of the piece is tliat being postpositions they would fit into the mosaic more per- 

 fectly than other syllables. Final i is hardly a postposition, but a sign of the dative case. 



39 The poverty of the Etruscan syllabary is by no means without parallel. When the Semitic 

 peoples replaced a cumbrous hieroglyphic system by what are now known as alphabets, they 

 really adopted syllabaries as bare as that of the Etruscans. The Hebrews had only one purely 

 vowel character, namely aleph, and although they had expedients for representing long vowel 

 sounds they were very frequently omitted. Thus, as Gesenius states, one form might be read 

 qatal, qatel, qatol, q'tol, qotel, qittel, qattel, qiUtal. According to the same authority: "the 

 Phceuicians did not even indicate the long vowels, except in very rare cases; their oldest 

 monuments can hardly be said to have any designation of vowels." The Mongolian and 

 Buriatic syllabaries present similar deficiencies, the same sign representing different sounds, 

 and words quite distinct in meaning and pronunciation being written with the same characters : 

 see Encyc. Brit., 'Article Mongols. The Javanese, Batak, Tagala, and otiier syllabaries of the 

 Malay Archipelago are equally defective : see Crawford's Indian Archipelago, Vol. II., pp. 70-71. 

 The alphabet of the Tuaricks of Africa is really a syllabary having no characters whatever to 



