AN ASSYRIAN GRAMMAR. INTRODUCTORY. THE Assyrian language was spoken in the countries watered by the Tigris and Euphrates. It was bounded on the north by the Aryan populations of Armenia and Media, and on the east by the Turanian dialects of Elam. With the exception of one or two doubtful words preserved in classical writers, such as Tavdoûpa (Pollux, iv. 60), Armalchar (Plin. H. vi. 30), all that remains of it is to be found in the cuneiform inscriptions. These, though fragmentary, are copious, and are met with in Assyria (1), in Babylonia, and in Persia. The Semitic character of the language is unmistakable (2); indeed, the fulness, antiquity, and syllabic character of its vocabulary and grammar would claim for it the same position among the Semitic tongues that is held by Sanskrit in the Aryan family of speech (3). It has borrowed its syllabary from the primitive Turanian inhabitants of Chaldæa; and this, though not without grave inconveniences, has yet had the fortunate result of preserving the vocalic pronunciation of the Assyrians. Every character is syllabic, as in Ethiopic. The Semitic dialects to which the Assyrian shows most affinity are the Hebrew and Phoenician. It agrees with these in its preservation of the sibilants (4), which are not changed as in Aramaic, in its fuller expression of the vowels (5), in its want of an Emphatic State, in its construct plural, in the forms of the personal pronouns, in the possession of a Niphal, and in the general character of its vocabulary (6). Next to Hebrew, it has most affinities with Arabic. Like the latter, it retains the primitive case-endings of the nouns, though these in the later inscriptions have begun to lose their strict value (7), and agrees with it in the variously modified forms of the imperfect (8), in the use of the participle (9), in the conjugations (10), in the possession of a dual by the verb, in the mimmation which replaces (as in Himyaritic) the Arabic nunnation, in the simplicity of the vocalic system, and in the formation of the precative (11). It does not possess, however, any broken plurals (12). Its points of resemblance to the Ethiopic are not so great as might have been expected from the similar position of the two languages-outposts, as it were, of the Semitic family, in constant contact with non-Semitic populations, whom they had dispossessed of their former country, and using a syllabic mode of writing which ran from left to right. Like the Ethiopic, the Assyrian has split up its imperfect into two tenses (13), has chosen the guttural form of the first personal pronoun in the Permansive tense (14), has no article, has borrowed many foreign roots (15), and has adopted several peculiar prepositions (16). Of all the branches of the Semitic family, the Aramaic is furthest removed from the Assyrian. In the one the vowelsystem is very meagre, in the other it is correspondingly simple and full (17). They stand in much the same relation to one another that the Sanskrit does to the Latin. The only points of likeness are the existence of a shaphel and an aphel (18), the use of ana with the accusative as in Aramaic (compare 2 Chron. xvii. 5; Ezr. viii. 16), and the formation of the precative. Peculiar to the Assyrian is the change of a sibilant into a liquid before a dental (19), as well as the form of the third personal pronoun,-which is, however, met with in South Arabic (20); the extended use of the secondary conjugations with an inserted dental (21), the division of the imperfect into an aorist, present, and future (22), and the adverbial ending (23). The Assyrians seem to have dispossessed the Turanian population of their cities and country in the sixteenth century B.C. (24), and the oldest inscriptions which we have written in the language are two or three centuries later. The original home of the Semitic people was apparently Arabia (25), whence the northern branch moved into Palestine, and then into Mesopotamia and Assyria. About B.c. 1270 (26), under the name of Assyrian casidi, "conquerors") (27), the Assyrian Semites took possession of Babylonia, subduing the Sumiri (?) or Cassi (Cush), and the Accadi or "highlanders," the inventors of the cuneiform system of writing, who claimed kindred with the Turanian Elamites. A peaceful Semitic population had already been settled in Chaldæa for some centuries, in subordination to the dominant Turanian race. One of the first Babylonian Semitic inscriptions of which we know belongs to Khammurabi (? Semiramis) (28), and records the construction of the Nahr-Malka, the great canal of Babylon, whose two towers were called after the names of the king's father and mother. The Assyrian and Babylonian dialects differed in several respects. Thus the Assyrian p becomes b in the Southern dialect (e.g. Sardanapalus and Merodach-Baladan, u-se-pi-sa Assyrian, and u-se-bi-s Babylonian, episu Assyrian, and ebisu Babylonian); & like the sharper סרגון and בלשאצר becomes ah (compare pronunciation of the northern Ephraimites, Judg. xii. 6); k is changed into c and g (as in katu "hand" Assyrian, gatu Babylonian, sanaku "chain" Assyrian, sanagam Babylonian); sometimes replaces ✯ ('), e.g. ri-e-su for ri-‘i-su “head,” er-zi-tiv for ir-tsi-tiv "earth," which is also an instance of the interchange of and ; represents the third person singular and plural aorist Kal of verbs in Babylonian, while in Assyrian the first and third persons are identical (beginning with e); lu is used before substantives as in vulgar Assyrian; and generally the Babylonian presents us with a much greater fulness of vowel-sounds, and has a preference for the mimmation. The Assyrian itself varies slightly in the oldest and the latest inscriptions (29). Thus Nabiuv became Nabuv, and Assur-bani-pal's inscriptions present us with such grammatical irregularities as sal-la-ti ("spoil") for sal-la-at, and ic-su-du for the dual ic-su-da. The doubling of letters is frequently omitted (30). Masculine verbs are even found with feminine nouns, e.g. Istaru yu-sap-ri "Istar disclosed." The language also in the mouths of the common people was to some extent corrupted, and these corruptions may occasionally be detected in private tablets, and even in the royal inscriptions. Dr. Oppert instances kham-sa by the side of khan-sa "five"; and we may add e-rab-bi for i-rab-bi or i-rab-bi-u, ippalaceita for ippaleita, i-ta-tsu for it-ti-si, sa used without any antecedent, as in ina sa Gar-ga-mis for ina mana sa, 66 according to the standard of Carchemish," umma, "thus" "that," inserted |