Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/365

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336
CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS

the heresy of Ifab^vv, who dr)iil)te(l the exi>teiice of Akkadian as an inclej^endent laiiLniaL'"eJ Sayce and his disr-iple Hommel added the speecli of the Kos.saeans to the same ^/rriup.- They were hideed disposed to create anew faniilv of LaiiLiuat/es whioh they called Alarodian,^ and included within it the Elaniite. eniljracinir New ajid Old Susian, Kassite. ^ Hittite "^ and Vannic.^ They considered that the nearest modern representative of this lanjnia;/e is the TTeoririan and liasque, an opinion which, it will be remembered, had somewhat fascinated both Wester^^aard and liawlinson. The propriety of this elassificatif)!! was, however, doubted by Lenormant, and it has never Ijeen satisfactorilv esta])lished."

' W»^isbucli, ftp. fit. pp. 13, 45. He has since given in his adhe-^lon to the ortliodov ^ i«'W. See Xtfr Ijimt/wf fhr Sumerischen Fraye (Leipzig, 1897 )^ pp. 16, .*i6.

'^ 7'ranjf. *S'. /A A. iii. 460.

"^ Knwlinson was the first to show that the Alarodians of Herodotus (iii. 94, \ ii. T-i) were probably the L'radhians or people of Ararat of the Assyrian texts. See Sayc«; on Van, •/. Ii. A. S. 18Hi^, vol. xiv.

' The knowledge of Kas>ite is limited to about fifty words found in a lexicon list (Hommel, p. 47, note 3). Delitszch denies their relationship to Susian.

•' Ofllittiteit could still be said in ls93, * So far we know nothing whatever about the Hittite language' {J. It. A. S. 1893, p. 404). Cf. Condi-r's not«*s in tlu- same volume, p. 823.

' Mr. Sayce succeeded in deciphering the Vannic in 1893 and 18i>4 (./. n. A. 6'. 1H!>4, p. 699).

' Conder on Lycian, J. 11. A. S. 1891, p. 614.