Babyloniaca, études de philologie assyro-babylonienne.

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0. E. RAVN

guishing the sonants and surds, g and k, d and t, b and p. (~~ 7-9);
in Canaanite districts we see that their idioms found their way
into the vernacular Babylonian thus the active form katal is very
often met with (~ 27 f), and in II1 kuttil (i for u) we may trace the
influence of the Western Piel, as has already been pointed out by
Prof. ZIMMERN (~~ 27 i, 31 b). Very characteristic is the flexion of
the verbs. In the first person we find the genuine Hebrew kas'adti
besides the genuine Babylonian kagdaku with kasdati as intermediate
form (~ 27 h. p.).
In the past and future tenses the Babylonian prefix i etc. is often
replaced by ja, ji, ju, (sign PI), ta by ti; as in Hebrew the third fern.
plur. has the prefix t for i, and this t even passed to the masc. p1. by
analogy; the first person was often pronounced with i or e - cf. the
Hebrew e instead of a (~ 28).
It is an interesting fact, remarks Dr. B6HL, that princes in Palestine who had lost the distinction of surds and sonants - and thus
show themselves under Hittite influence - do not use these Hebraisms.
It may be suggested therefore, that Palestine itself was occupied by
both Semites and Hittites. Such inferences, however, cannot be based
upon philology alone (~ 28 t-u.).
For Hebrew the Letters are important; the Hebrew glosses - of
which a list is given in ~ 37 - are the oldest Hebrew or Canaanitish
words known. It is obvious that at that time the Semites of Palestine
spoke a language nearly identical with classical Hebrew; a had already
passed into o (anuku, rugu etc. ~ 13 d).
In the," Schriftlehre,, I find some views with which I do not agree.
I give, therefore, some supplementary remarks to those paragraphs
of Dr. BOiL.
Concerning the spelling e-i there is not great confusion in good
Babylonian texts. Hammurabi uses i, not e in plural and genitive singular, the e only appearing after contraction, as ga-me-e from ta-ma-i
(Cod. 2. 31). It is the same in later Babylonian texts until Nebuchadrezzar I, where the ending -ati, -uti is written with i; so far as I am
aware, only in the Assyrian inscriptions, do we find -ate for -ati etc.,