FORSTER'S ONE PRIMEVAL LANGUAGE. * Tile sanguine expectations which some entertain

respecting the deciphering of the ancient Assyrian and Persian inscriptions, especially since Botta's and Layard's discoveries, might be modi- fied if people reflected upon the almost insuperable difficulties of the case. Even to identify and class similar characters is a matter of attention and labour : for example, if the reading of the Roman alphabet were lost, there would be no difficulty in classing As, Es, Cs, &c., together; though we are not quite:sure that this has been thoroughly, ,done as regards the ancient wedge-shaped inscriptions. We have no proof that those ancient peoples had an alphabet at all. Colonel Rawlinson, however, has reached an alpha- bet of forty characters; while Mr. Key, in The Alphabet, says that "few [nations] have ever made use of so many [symbols] as thirty, unless indeed we include those alphabets which consist of syllabic symbols." (Page 22.)

A classified arrangement of all the separate characters of an un- known language is the first step to be taken; but, if done correctly, nothing whatever would be done towards reading the writing, till we had learned the force or power of the letters. The form of letters is arbitrary or accidental. There is nothing in form to di-

rect the pronunciation. B, for instance, would not signify its sound to a person who had never seen it. The alphabetic 0 per- haps approaches the nearest to a natural articulation of any letter, unless it be the broader sound of A ; but to a person ignorant of European alphabets, 0 would not suggest the idea of a letter, but of a hoop or circle. If he were directing his attention to the forms of writing, he might conclude that it was a sign, but to its force he would have no guide. There is among the Assyrian inscrip- tions a character exceedingly like a K, which possibly had the force of K; but we do not know it. It would, however, be diffi- cult to fix what modifying power attached to a dot and a wedgelike character which often accompanies it, or whether they had any. But if we read the inscriptions, the far harder task of getting at their meaning would remain. This can only be reached by a knowledge of the language, and of the language we know nothing, nor are we likely to acquire it. We can partially or wholly read some Oscan and Etruscan inscriptions, but we cannot satisfactorily interpret them. The Romans of the Augustan age could read, but not understand, the remains of their ancient popular literature. The Zend or Zendavesta is appealed to as true old Persian ; but on this point doctors disagree. "No amount of philological guess-work can, by any'possibility, accumu- late into a single substantive proof. The question of Zend, or Pahli, or any one or other of the various modern hill dialects, as representatives of the an- cient Persian, may be bandied by archeologists to the end of time, without the possibility of uniting them in any one opinion. The Zendavesta will continue, alternately, in one age, with Hyde, to be received as the work of Zoroaster, and its dialect as a genuine relic of the language of the Achie- menides ; in another, with Foucher or Duperron, to be rejected as the com- paratively modern fabrication, in an obscure patois of the country, of some Parsee impostor ; without the controversy resulting in any uniform convic- • The One Primaeval Language Traced experimentally through Ancient Inscriptions in Alphabetic Characters of lost powers, from the four Continents : including the Voice of Israel from the rocks of Sinai, and the Vestiges of Patriarchal Tradition from the Monuments of Egypt, Etruria, and Southern Arabia. By the Rev. Charles

Forster. RD., Rector of Stilted, Essex; Author of " Mahometanism Unveiled," &c. Published by Bentley.

tion, or any settled belief ; while the uncertainty of the application of the Zend, or any other dialect of the country now known, as interpreters of the Persepolitan inscriptions, is plainly deducible from the admissions made, the j interpreters themselves being the judges. After all is done, all still is con- jecture; and conjecture, itself, not unfrequently disturbs and unsettles the very conviction which it is its object to produce. Thus, Colonel Rawlinson; while using it as a sheet-anchor, ' conjectures the Zend to be a later lan- guage than that of the insemptions' upon the debris of which it was probably refined and systematized ; yet believes it to aposch nearer to the _Persian of the ante-Alexandrian ages, than any other dialect of the family, except the Vedic Sanskrit, that is available to modern research.

Till the beginning of the present century, the Western world was content to wonder at the cuneiform or arrow-headed inscrip- tions which the few Oriental travellers had presented to its gaze from Babylon and Persepolis. In 1802, a German professor of the name of Grotefend cried out " Eureka!" He considered that in two of the elder Niebuhr's drawings from Persepolis, an often- repeated inscription must signify "king." He then applied him- self to ascertain " the particular age of the Persian Kings to which the bas-reliefs of the ruins of Persepolis belonged, and thereby to discover the names applicable to them." As the theory of Profes- sor Grotefend is the basis of all that has hitherto been done except by Mr. Forster in unfolding the mystery, it will be proper to let him tell his own story in his own words. The notes of interroga- tion in the following extract are those of Mr. Forster ; 'who, having a new theory of his own to uphold, is of course interested in shaking the theories of others.

" I, in consequence, ran over the list ; and successively applied the names to the characters of the inscriptions. These names could, obviously, be neither Cyrus nor Cambyses, because the names [?] occurring in the inscrip- tions do not begin with the same letter. Cyrus and Artaxerxes were equally inapplicable, because, in reference to the characters, the first is too short and the second too long : there only remained, therefore, the minima of Darius and Xerxes ; and these latter [in their supposed length] agreed so exactly with the characters, that I could not hesitate in selecting them. Besides, in the inscription relative to the son [?] the royal title [?] was also attributed to the father, but not in the one relating to the latter [?] ; an ob- servation which holds good with regard to the Persepelitan inscriptions ge- nerally. HAVING THUS FOUND OUT MORE THAN TWELVE Larrzas, among which were precisely those composing the royal title [?] with the exception of only one, the next business was to give these names [?], hitherto merely known to us by Greek pronunciation, their true .Persian form [?] ; in order, by ascertaining the correct value of each character, to decipher the King's title, and thereby also to determine the particular language in which the In- scriptions were written. The Zendavesta of Anquetil Duperron appeared to furnish the best information on the subject, especially as the frequent use of vowels had already inclined if. 31iinter towards the Zend. From this au- thority I learned that the Greek name of Hystaspes was pronounced in Per- sian, Goshtasp, Gustasp, Kietasp, or Wistasp.* Here, then, were the seven first letters of the word Hystaspes."

It is obvious that this is hypothetical. We do not know that the sign or character assumed to be the term " king " was in reality " king." Neither can we be sure that the words and meaning were truly got at from the Zend, which may not be ancient Per- sian at all. The mere length of a word is but a feeble proof as a guide to its representation of a proper name ; not only because we may not really know the true sound of the name in Persian, but because it might be abridged, as in our " Ed." for " Edward," " Geo." for " George,"—a method carried to a far greater length in Latin inscriptions. However, Mr. Forster, with his acumen sharp- ened by rivalry, has so neatly put the objections to Professor Grote- fend's theory, and consequently of all his successors and improvers, that he may be allowed to speak for himself.

" Surely, on examination of its details, every considerate reader must per- ceive that this whole account of the process of discovery is a series, not of i proofs, but of postulates ; that there is a petitio principii throughout ; that the question is begged from beginning to end. "1. At the first step, and as the foundation of his whole structure, we are here called upon by Professor Grotefend to yield implicit assent, not to a proof, but to a bare conjecture, that the title King must occur in any in- scriptions placed over supposed portraits of supposed Kings at Persepolis.

" 2. We are required to receive as proof, a second bare conjecture, ground- ing itself upon the first, that an unknown word, of the most frequent occur- rence in the inscriptions in question, must be this title of King. This con- jectural proof is so vital in his argument, that it claims, in fairness, to be repeated in his own words= Supposing, with Tychsen, that we must look for the titles of Kings in the inscriptions :placed over their portrait., I felt convinced that the word so often repeated MUST BE KING.' " 3. Upon this double assumption (for it is plainly nothing more) the un- known word, thus deciphered as 'king,' is further and forthwith `recog- nized' AS THE KEY OF THE WHOLE ALPHABET.

"4. This 'key-word of the whole alphabet,' thus problematically obtained, is at once employed as the Professor's master-key in the work of decipher- ment. And by its aid, an inscription is translated, in which, as indubitable; the word REX, four times repeated, very properly forms the staple ; while its accessories, 11AuNus and ACH2EMENES, as confessed conjectures, are mo- destly marked with queries. Why his notes of interrogation are omitted in Fnius and STIE.PS, renderings obviously in the same category, the Pro- fessor has not informed us, nor is it easy to perceive. REX, however, is the acknowledged stock-word of the decipherment ; and the value of its satel- lites is ascertainable only by the fact that the reading REX itself rests, wholly and solely, upon the authority. of a double conjecture. "5. A system based on conjecture is naturally prolific of results. Accord- ingly, as his next step in advance, Professor Grotefend conjecturally dis- covers 'two kings," father and son,' in Niebuhr's two inscriptions. 'I was thus naturally led [i.e. by his own translation] to infer, that these two kings must be father and son, because the king in Niebubr's P1. G. was called [i.e. by the Professor himself] the eon of the king in PL B. ; and because in both the translations of [in] the other kinds of writing, there existed the same connexion between the two names.' "

It may be alleged that different persons working at different places, and unknown to each other, have arrived at the same con- clusion. This amounts to nothing ; persons using the same lead- ing signs and the same dictionary (the Zend) could scarcely do otherwise. The fact that different persons often differ not in single

• " What reader of The Antiquary can fail to be reminded, here, of ' the Piker, of lidhabur,ck l Pichtar, .Piaghtar, or Peughtar,' of his old and pleasant friend Jonathan

points, which was to be expected, but fundamentally and utterly, is of more weight on the other side. Even the same interpreter differs from himself as to the same inscription at different times; which is sufficient to throw doubt on the present state of the science. An illustration from Colonel Rawlinson, furnished by Mr. Forster, may be quoted in point. At the same time, he does justice to the energy, enterprise, and courage of the gallant officer as a traveller, while all must admit his ingenuity and his zeal in the cause of ancient Oriental learning.

"If we might judge by announcements long before the public, nothing would seem easier than the decipherment, and nothing more interesting than the contents, of this monument. Thus, in Dr. La yard's first publica- tion, we read, 'Since writing the above, I have learnt from Major Rawlin- son that he has succeeded in deciphering the inscription on the obelisk described in the preceding pages. It contains, according to him, the annals of the reign of the son of Ninus. He has obtained, moreover, fifteen royal names.' In his last publication, we have a wholly different reading, and wholly different date : 'The earliest king of whose reign we have any de- tailed account was the builder of the North-west palace of Nimroud, the most ancient edifice hitherto discovered in Assyria. It is important to as- certain the period of the accession of this early Assyrian king, and we ap- parently have the means of fixing it with sufficient accuracy. His son, we know, [9 built the centre palace at Nimroud, and raised the obelisk, [?] now in the British Museum, inscribing upon it the principal events of his reign. [?) He was a great conqueror, and subdued many distant nations. The names of the subject kings who paid him tribute are duly recorded on the obelisk; [?] in some instances, with sculptured representations of the various objects sent. Amongst those kings, was one whose name reads, 'Jehu the son of Khumri ; and who has been identified by Colonel .72awlinson with Jehu, Ring of Israel.'

"Now here are two accounts, by the same writer, of the same monument, as different and opposite as two accounts can be. A chronological gap of more than eleven centuries must be bridged over before we can bring these antagonist accounts into contact at all : for the son of Ninus flourished about m.o. 2000; Jehu, about B.C. 884."

The object of Mr. Forster's work, (of which the third and con- cluding part is now before us,) is to identify inscriptions sculp- tured on rocks or the walls of buildings, or impressed on bricks, &c., in the New as well as in the Old World, with "one pri- meval language," and also to translate them. His principles are broad and intelligible enough. They perhaps have more con- sistency and probability than those of his opponents ; but we must confess they appear to be equally hypothetical, equally devoid of satisfactory proof. According to Mr. Forster, the confusion of tongues at the building of Babel was dialectic only : the language remained fundamentally the same ; the people were scattered be- cause they could not understand each other's dialect. Grant this proposition, and it follows probably, but not conclusively, that the writing of each nation would continue to differ no further than its discourse, which, however, must have been considerable to involve dispersion. To support this leading idea, Mr. Forster, in the first part of his work, has constructed upwards of forty alphabets, which he exhibits in juxtaposition. The greater part are early Asiatic ; but amongst them will be found Etruscan, Carthagenian, Abyssinian, Celtiberian, and an alphabet from the rained cities of Central America.

His principles of deciphering are also plain and broad, though equally hypothetical. It is a fundamental maxim of Mr. Forster, that " characters of the same known forms are to be assumed to possess the same known powers." So that wherever we meet with a sign resembling the Hebrew beth—or to speak truly, wherever we meet anything which we fancy resembles it—there we have the equivalent of the Hebrew letter. Another maxim is, that all single strokes are vowels or vowel points. A third, that the ar- row-headed or wedgelike form of the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian inscriptions, has nothing to do with the character or power of the letters. They are mere ornaments or flourishes, taken from the national weapon the arrow. A fourth maxim is, that when an inscription accompanies a figure or pictorial representation, the picture is the subject of the inscription. A principle of Mr. Forster, equally fundamental with the choice of the Zend by Grotefend and his followers, is that the language of Babylonia or Assyria is identical with the Hamyaritic or old Arabic. Into Arabic cha- racters be resolves the letters, to the Arabic lexicons he goes for his words, and by this means (he thinks) arrives at a true solution of the mystery which has so long puzzled the world. The present volume deals with the Persian and Assyrian inscriptions, grown into a popular question by the discoveries of Layard. The two preceding parts were devoted to Egypt, Sinai, Etruria, &c. Into the particulars of Mr. Forster's interpretations this is not the place to enter : it could not be done intelligibly without plates and characters—" the legend and device." But we may indicate some of the salient points. In the first place, if Mr. Forster's in- terpretation is true, it is not worth having. The celebrated rock pictures and inscriptions of Behistan, as rendered by Rawlinson, appear as a great state document, worthy of the monarch, of the occasion, and the cost. Darius tells the world and posterity the story of his reign and his conquests, his right to the throne by blood, thetion which he displaced, and the national exist- ence he restore while over the monarch hovers in the air the deity he worships. There may be onesidedness in the story, such as Henry the Seventh might have recorded about the house of York, or Louis Napoleon about the Republic or preceding govern- ments : the interpretation may have been prompted by a foregone conclusion on the part of the decipherer : but everything is con- sistent and appropriate. According to Mr. Forster, the mysterious figure floating over the king's head is the artist suspended at his work ; the puzzling paraphernalia is the machine in which he was suspended; his action is that of the said artist in his cups, triumphing at the execution of his work. According to Mr.

.

Forster, the subject of the inscriptions is twofold; " one object being to celebrate the work ; the other, to celebrate the execution of the prisoners." The " contents" of the inscriptions are de- scribed by him as " puerile," so much so that he declines to en- cumber his text with them. According to his interpretation, they consist of frequent repetitions of the same idea on the work and the prisoners—nearly analogous to the improvised ditties of the Negroes.

Of the inscriptions translated, it may be said generally, that the conversion of the Assyrian into the Arabic characters seems forced and arbitrary. Almost any sign could by the same process be turned into any other sign. The coincidences between single words of the inscriptions and the pictures are often very striking ; nay, it may be said, in lawyer language, they almost "prove too much." The alleged sense is trifling to a degree, after every al- lowance is made for languages of different structure, the propriety of a literal translation of single words without attempt at connexion, and the mental difference which England and Asia and three thou- sand years imply. This paucity of result Mr. Forster, would readily admit, and ascribe the fact to the inscriptions being the work of a " mindless and barbarous people." As regards art, com- merce, power, and a certain degree of material civilization, his- tory and the monuments both contradict this harsh conclusion; though we incline to agree with our author, that if these inscrip- tions should ever be deciphered they will be far more barren than many suppose. Still it is difficult to conceive, that any nation which had writing, arts, and a settled government, should only in- scribe over representations of considerable artistic merit, even in eyes that have been trained to judge by the examples of classic and Italian art, writings which describe the picture less effectively, save in one or two curious details, than the picture tells its own story. The sign-dauber's inscription, " This is a red cow," seems, according to Mr. Forster, to have been the principle of the Assyrian artists, though their work did not require the explana- tion.