The Persian Cuneiform Inscription at Behistun, Decyphered and Translated Volume 1; By Major Henry Creswicke Rawlinson. Chapter 1 - 5

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1846 Excerpt: ...correspondent. Ha»A iyani. I cannot give the etymology of this word. NitAida; nish is probably for fipc, as dush is for. The.same substitu tion occurs in Zend. In all those words which contain the groupe TT // k'hsh, and of which, as I have enumerated an extensive list in my observations on the letter TT, I need not multiply examples, we may believe the aspiration in each character to be developed by the mutual influence of the guttural and sibilant. The combination of ks or k'hs we may consider to be as foreign to the language of the inscriptions, as would be that of ksh, and in such a restriction therefore of orthography, we may perceive the operation of two distinct laws, viz. the Zend aspiration of a guttural preceding a sibilant, and the Sanskrit aspiration of a sibilant subjoined to a guttural. That the Cuneiform alphabet did not, at the same time, acknowledge the application of the Devanagari rule of conversion to the semi-vowels as well as to the gutturals, is shown by the orthography of Parsa and tarsa, which, according to Sanskrit sandhi should be Parsha and tarsha. I will now consider the // as the first member of a compound letter, deriving its aspirative development from the preceding vowel or the following consonant. We have in the first place the superlative termination in ishla, as in Math is/it a, Sans. IffigV, Zend Ajomjjjaj, which I believe should be pronounced mazishta rather than mazista; DhuwisAtam, Sans. %fag, "longest," "farthest;" Abis/ttam, apparently a superlative of abi, Sanskrit nff, signifying "superiority;" where the aspiration, common, as I think, both to the Zend and Sanskrit, is owing to the influence of the vowel i. We may compare also the following examples, where the sibilant coalesces ...