The one primeval language traced experimentally through ancient inscriptions in alphabetic characters of lost powers from the four continents Volume 1 - Softcover

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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. 1852 edition. Excerpt: ...the correct value of each character, error--u I do not affect to consider my translations as unimpeachable; those who expect, in the present paper, to see the cuneiform inscriptions rendered and explained with as much certainty and clearness as the ancient tablets of Greece and Rome, will be lamentably disappointed;" he thus proceeds,--"It must be remembered that the Persian of the ante-Alexandrian ages has long ceased to be a living language; that its interpretation depends on the collateral aid of the Sanskrit, the Zend, and the corrupted dialects which, in the forests and mountains of Persia, have survived the wreck of the old tongue; and that, in a few instances, where these cognate and derivative languages have failed to perpetuate the ancient roots, or where my limited acquaintance with the different dialects may have failed to discover the connection, / have been obliged to assign an arbitrary meaning, obtained by comparative propriety of application, in a very limited field of research," &c. Let the reader reflect only for a moment on these sources and materials of dccypherment, and he must surely see, that this entire scheme of decyphcrment is based wholly on conjecture. The ancient Persian, it is conceded, has been long lost and unknown. That the Sanskrit, an Indian dialect, should prove its interpreter, is an assumption, not only without proof, but against all antecedent probability. For the Zend, indeed, there is the plea, that it not only belongs to the country, but that it is a Persian dialect consecrated by its association, in the Zendavesta, with the laws and religion of Zoroaster; but this plea is annulled by the conjecture of Colonel Iiawlinson himself, that "the Zend is a later language than that of the...

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