Killyleagh
21st Feby 1862
Dear Sir,
I am quite in the dark about nu (<cuneiform>). I should take it for a word, because in the passage you refer to, it occurs before in the line <between?> two known words. If so, what can its meaning be? It is sometimes not: but that would not well suit the context. Till this be settled I can offer no confident opinion as to the man. Oppert’s double conjecture that the characters <cuneiform> and <cuneiform> should be read Nish and ruk is a very bad one; there being no evidence, so far as I know, that either has such a value, independent of this one word. By the way you say that Rawlinson remarked that the words signify domus aquæ. When? and where? I interpreted it so in the 23 vol of the Irish Acady transactions in 1854.
<cuneiform> was valued as ru first I believe by myself: Oppert made it rum with no reason that I can think of but to make it differ from <cuneiform> as he does not admit homophones. The value is clear for the tablets. It occurs in many Assyrian words there used; but I don’t recollect reading it in any of the great inscriptions.
Ménant’s denial that single syllabic signs can be polyphonous is quite absurd. Not only <cuneiform> but <cuneiform>, <cuneiform>, <cuneiform> & its occasional <illeg> <cuneiform> and a host of others are polyphonous. The last has <these?> values all single syllables (besides kum & pil) ni, dha and ab, <cuneiform> is gat as is the phonetic element in a word as well as in the signification ‘hand’ <cuneiform> is nul as well as ik and <cuneiform> zhi has some other value tho’ I am not sure what, as has <cuneiform> in the word for living shil</shul> or zhil</zhul> – I am not sure which of the four. There are names in favo<u?>r of each.
I have positive proof of the falsehood of Opperts view respecting <cuneiform> and <Hebrew> in the Birs nimroud inscription. I <aim?> to publish it in full.
Believe me Yours vy truly
Edw Hincks
H. F. Talbot Esqre