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that there were some decided differences between the Egyptian system 
and that of the Assyrians. The Egyptians had fewer elementary 
sounds to express than the Assyrians. Their characters which repre- 
sent complete syllables represented, generally speaking, three com- 
plete syllables, which would be distinguished in the Assyrian sys- 
tem; as the vowel of the syllable might be either a, z, or u. And, 
again, not only might the representative of two incomplete syllables be 
used to represent a complete syllable, but one or both of these represen- 
tatives of incomplete syllables might be added to the representative of 
the complete syllable; which is never the case in Assyrian. It does 
not, however, appear to me that any of these differences is inconsistent 
with there being a general conformity between the two systems in 
respect to the sounds to be represented. The elements of Assyrian writ- 
ing are not vowels and consonants, as in the writing of the Greeks ; 
but incomplete syllables, consisting of consonants (including breathings 
and semi-vowels), preceded by a vowel, or followed by avowel. Inow 
think that the elements of Egyptian writing were of the same nature, 
the only difference being that the vowel sounds included in the elemen- 
tary syllables of the Egyptians were undetermined. While the Assy- 
rians would require six characters to represent the consonant m, namely, 
the representatives of the elementary syllables am, im, um, ma, mi, and 
mus, the Egyptian would require but two. I propose to transcribe 
these by —M and M-, using the hyphen to represent an undetermined 
vowel. The former of these is the transcription of the owl or boat- 
Frame ; the latter is that of the sickle. According to this view of the 
matter, there are no vowels, properly speaking. In my former paper, 
thirteen years ago, I reduced the number of vowels to a very few. I 
now admit none whatever. The leaf which I formerly took for the 
breathing, aleph, I now consider to be an initial aleph, and represent it 
by A-, restoring that letter to its ancient power; and the eagle, which I 
formerly took for the vowel a, I now take for a terminal aleph or —A. 
The arm, which I formerly valued as ’Ayin, I now value as terminal 
"ayn, Writing it on the same principle—O. It is the same with semi- 
vowels. I consider the quail or duckling to be an initial W, and the 
knotted cord a terminal W ; and the pair of leaves to be a terminal Y. 
Thus I transcribe the name of Ptolemy, as found on the Rosetta stone, 
by -P, -T, -W, L-, M-,-Y,-S; and I would pronounce this in five 
syllables, supplying the requisite vowels as follows :—7pt-aw-lim-ay-us. 
The rules for supplying vowels are very simple. When a terminal 
consonant is preceded by an initial consonant, they are to be made to 
form one syllable, a vowel being supplied between them, as in the third 
syllable of this word Jim. When a terminal consonant is not so pre- 
ceded, it must have a vowel supplied before it, unless a terminal conso- 
nant precedes it, with which it can coalesce. An example of this 
coalescence occurs in the first syllable pt; and it is possible that the 
two last syllables may have been pronounced ays. If an initial conso- 
nant occurs without a terminal consonant to follow it, it must have a 
vowel supplied after it, and must constitute a syllable by itself. The 
mode of reading the first syllable of this word which I propose will ap- 
