Bahar, spring Est, Latin. Bandha, bind, Sanskrit. Sus, Hebrew. Hesht, Persic. Leb, Persic. Ber (Bo), Ionic Greek. Ver, Latin. NOTE. Here we may perceive that both the Greek and Latin words appear to be derived from Oriental sources, and that it is not necessary to suppose the existence of the Eolic Digamma to account for the formation of the Latin Ver from the Greek Ear or Er; and, as the Greek Omicron appears to have been derived from the Syriac Vau, which was both o, oo, and v, if we suppose the letter to have retained its consonant character in the early ages of Greece, there is no difficulty in reading the Greek words Ourog and Owoc, like the Latin Vicus and Vinum, without supposing the existence of any extraneous character like the Æolic Digamma. The Greek Ear appears to me to be cognate with the Hebrew Aor, light, the sun. Dou, two Toun, body ......... Also Persic. Dahum, Persic. S Ab, Hebrew and Arabic. }· Pirouzgar, victorious. ....... Djeguer, liver Jecur, Latin. Pehlvi Words. Analogies. Anita, myrtle, sacred to Venus, from Homonymy, or similarity of name. Anaitis, a name of Venus in Armenia (Strabo, lib. ii.). Anaitis, a name of Diana among the Lydians (Pliny, 33. c. 4.). Anahid, the planet Venus (Du Perron). Nahid, the planet Venus (Persic). Dihana and Dihan (Greek), from the two above words reversed. { Eretz, Hebrew. Araz, Arabic. Toum, finished......... Tora, a bull Tchipa, wood to burn Chips, English. Hes, behind ... Chthes (Greek), yesterday. Hireh, Membrum Virile ......... Hiran (Sanskrit), Siva (Linga). Shamio, Syriac. Shamaim, Hebrew. Shems, Arabic. Schemsia, the sun..... Shemesh, Hebrew. Meon (Hebrew), a name of the Sun Menu (Sanskrit), a personification Menes, the founder of the Egyptian monarchy (the sun). Minos, the lawgiver of Crete, the echo of the Indian Menu. Minos was a name of Jupiter according Mannus, the son of Tuisco (Tacitus). Mayim, Hebrew. Moloch, Hebrew. Such are the analogies with other languages, ancient and modern, which have occurred to me in going through Du Perron's Glossaries of the Zendish and Pehlvi; and whatever may be the antiquity of the works which he wishes to establish as the Zend Avesta of Zoroaster, there appears to be little doubt that they contain the words of which the precedinglists form a part; and it must be admitted that the words themselves raise some presumption of genuineness from the numerous points of resemblance they present with those languages of Asia, respecting the antiquity of which there cannot be any dispute. CHAP. XIV. ON THE LANGUAGES OF PERSIA.. "Persepolis, His city, there thou seest, and Bactra there; The drink of none but kings; of later fame, Turning with easy eye, thou mayst behold." Paradise Regained, book iii. I. RICHARDSON supposes that the present Persian Alphabet, which, with the exception of four letters, agrees with the Arabic, is not older than the seventh century, and was introduced into that country by the Arabian conquest (Prelim. Dissert. p. 7.). Sir William Jones says, the inscription behind the horse of Rustam, which Niebuhr has given us, is apparently Pehlvi, and might with some pains be deciphered. It has since been translated by the Baron de Sacy, and turns out to be almost pure Chaldee written in Cufic characters, and records the defeat and capture of the Roman emperor Valerian by Sapor, king of Persia, of the race of the Sassanidæ, who died A. D. 273. It would be difficult to say whether this distinguished Oriental scholar, by translating the inscription in question, has rendered a greater service to history, or inflicted a heavier blow on romance. Rustam, the Persic Hercules, of an indefinite antiquity, is metamorphosed into a Persian king of the third century of the Christian era! Perhaps nothing so disastrous to antiquarians has occurred since the scouring of the shield of Martinus Scriblerus; and such, I venture to predict, will be the case in every instance in which an attempt shall be made to extract authentic history from the romance of Firdousi, or the two Indian epic poems, the Mahabharat and the Ramayana. II. Plutarch, describing Alexander's visit to the tomb of Cyrus, says, after he had read the epitaph, which was in the Persian language, he ordered it to be inscribed also in Greek. It was as follows: "O man, whosoever thou art, and whencesoever thou comest (for come I know thou wilt), I am Cyrus, the founder of the Persian empire envy me not the little earth that covers my body." Both these inscriptions exist at this day at Pasargadæ, and were copied by Kerr Porter. But the Persic is in the arrow-headed character, which there is every reason for believing is hieroglyphical, and not alphabetical, at least in many instances. If Alexander, however, read it, it must have been written in the common Persic letters then in use; but minute accuracy is not to be expected in such a case as this, and perhaps we are not justified in inferring anything farther from this passage in Plutarch than that Alexander caused the inscription to be translated to him, and made himself master of its meaning.* III. Sir John Malcolm, whose intimate acquaintance both with the language and country tends to give much weight to all his opinions, has a remark in his History of Persia of extreme importance in connexion with the original language spoken there. He informs us that the inhabitants of Persia may be divided into four great classes, of which the first and most powerful, if united, are the native tribes of that nation, who continue to live in tents and change their residence with the season. The great mass of this part of the population, whose habits are pastoral and military, are to be found along the ranges of hilly country, which commencing near the entrance of the Persian Gulf, stretch parallel with its shores to Shuster, and from thence taking a north-western direction extend up the left bank of the Tigris as high as the province of Armenia. The region in question includes Kerman, almost all Fars, a part of Irak, and the whole of Kurdistan. The inhabitants of these countries are divided into many This Chapter was written long before the exertions of Lassen, and the still more recent ones of Major Wilkinson, had rendered it almost certain that portions of the arrow-headed inscriptions were written in an alphabetical character. K |