Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/239

It occurred in a position in the geographical list that would naturally suggest that it indicated 'Armenia,' and to obtain this result it was only necessary to change the sign (𐎷) which he read i' into m. There was a farther reason that appeared to justify this alteration. In the Hamadan inscription the same sign occurs in bu i om, which he translated 'excellent'; but if it were permitted to alter the i into m we should obtain bumom, 'earth.' The meaning of the sentence would then be: 'He has given [or created] this earth; he has given [or created] this heaven,' which would be an evident improvement in the sense.^[1] He would not, however, allow that the alphabet could include more than one m and he was not prepared to sacrifice the m (𐎶) discovered by Rask in the genitive termination anam. Thus he narrowly missed adding the m (𐎷) before i to the number of his correct values. So also in line 11 there occurs a word he reads ayura but by the change of the y into th he would arrive at ' Athura,' the ancient 'Aturia.'^[2] This change was farther sanctioned by another name, which his system transliterated pryi; but by the hypothesis under consideration, it would become prthi, a manifest form for 'Parthia.' Moreover, the same alteration would introduce an important improvement in the word for 'king,' which would then read khchâhthôh (from the Zend khchathrô) in place of khchâhyôh^[3] Kotwithstanding all these probabilities, he finally rejected the alteration and lost the addition of another correct value. It is interesting also to

1. Mémoire f p. 149.
2. Ib. p. 149.
3. Ib. p. 138:

   Burnouf Correct

   𐎠 α α

   𐎰 r r

   𐎢 i m

   𐎼 o i

   𐎠 n n(α)