264 



The changes proposed with respect to the first kind were 

 these : 



1. The vowel a might be inserted after any primary letter, 

 before a vowel, either as a distinct syllable, or as &.guna to the 

 vowel, as well as before a consonant. 



2. W after u, and y after i, are in general, both in the 

 middle and at the end of words, absolutely mute. When not 

 so, they are to be sounded as a, which they implicitly con- 

 tain. 



3. Secondary consonants, which are only used before par- 

 ticular vowels, are to be sounded in the same manner as the 

 corresponding primary ones ; and if a secondary consonant 

 exist proper to any vowel, and the corresponding primary 

 consonant appears to precede that vowel, an a is always to be 

 supplied. If a secondary consonant be used without its pro- 

 per vowel after it, that vowel must be supplied ; r is here con- 

 sidered as a vowel. Thus the combination of the letters which 

 Lassen calls mi would be mi ; while his mi would be me, for 

 mai. Yi\%fr would be pr ; while his pr would be par. 



4. Besides his mistake in giving values to the secon- 

 dary consonants generally, diflFerent from those of their cor- 

 responding primary ones, Lassen has erroneously considered 

 the secondary consonant corresponding to d before i to cor- 

 respond to k\ i. e. ch; and he has given to three primary 

 consonants the values d, z, and z', i. e. zh ; the true values of 

 which Dr. Hincks maintains were z, zh, and^, or dzh. 



The second Persepolitan alphabet, it is here maintained, 

 consisted of characters representing nine elementary sounds : 

 viz., four vowels, a, i, u, and er, and five consonants />, k, t, s, 

 and n : and various combinations of these nine elements. In 

 most cases, two or more characters, phonetically equivalent, 

 represented the same element or con^bination. 



Westergaard supposes a much larger proportion of the 

 characters to represent elementary sounds than Dr. Hincks ; 

 and he supposes that an a might be inserted, as in the first 



