ORIGINAL LANGUAGE OF LYCIA. 59 



clence, which tends to show that a language dif- 

 fering from that of the Greeks was at one time 

 spoken by the inhabitants of Lycia. 



History informs us that prior to the arrival of 

 the Cretan and Athenian colonists the country 

 was occupied by a people called Solymians 

 (Herodotus, B. i. c. 173) who spoke Phoenician. 

 (Walpole, p. 532.) 



Now Mr. Sharpe, in his letter to Mr. Fellows 

 on the construction of the Language of the 

 Lycian inscriptions (Appendix, b. p. 429) says, 

 " I began with the impression that the language 

 was derived from the Phoenician, but I was soon 

 staggered in this opinion by the abundance of 

 vowels in Lycian, of which there are ten, nearly 

 corresponding to the long and short vowels of the 

 Persian and Indian languages." 



Here there appears direct proof of the peculiar 

 language on the Lycian monuments having no 

 connection with that of the earliest inhabitants of 

 the country. Whilst its close resemblance to one 

 of the Persian languages, coupled with the date 

 fixed of the earliest of the monuments upon 

 which the Lycian characters are inscribed, afford 

 strong presumptive evidence in favour of its 

 Persian origin by Mr. Sharpe's own showing. 



