16 Feb. 1863.
Dear Sir
I received yours of the 13th on Saturday night, and of the 14th this morning, <1> and will answer both now. Many thanks for your offer of copy & translation of Hammurabi, which I will take care of and return speedily. I distrust my own copy in parts. I have been inclined to read nukhus nisi, an "experiment" of the people; a new invention of a canal, from [Hebrew] see in Gen. xxx.27 & I Kings xx.33. We have [cuneiform] in Tig. Pil. viii.28, & [cuneiform] in E.I H slab iv. 58, & in the Hamadan Inscription which I think has in Persian shiyati, but I fear we can get nothing from the comparisons.
I do not quite despair of the "remaining fourth", but seeing how unsuccessful Hebrew scholars have been in many passages after centuries of hard labour, I have doubts. If I should ever publish what I call my dictionary, <2>(rather an index, like that at the end of the [Delphin?] classics), somebody of more leisure might make discoveries by the comparisons afforded. I have no talent at guessing, and my memory fails me, so that I do not easily catch at analogies, but I have industry and a year or two more before I am seventy, when I shall be too old to work, but I shall still continue jotting down as I go on. My plan is to put everything down in the order of the Hebrew Alphabet, & in the verbs, under the root, as an example take the root zabat which is open before me, I have [cuneiform] in NR. l. 8. Tig. Pil. v.18, 46, Sen. v.59, [illegible] 44 l 27 [Obelisk?] 38. Botta 152.9. Sand. i.109, and in each can I give the passage (or intend it) from the inscription. I go on with izbal, izbut, izbatu, azbata, azabat, izbatuni huzabita, huzalbita, husabbit, [husagbita?], [husazbitu?] azzabat, izzabit, izzabdi? izzabtu, [uzzabbitu?], zabit zabetu zabtat, & several where the monogram [cuneiform character] is used; in all between 70 & 80 examples. You see my plan is ambitious, but it may be carried out long after I am gone, and my hope is that some young student will take it up.
Your comparison of quarry & carrow is very probable. I know the Breton Corr which becomes Corrik and Corrigan, but hardly see the connection with the island; perhaps the island may have the form of a dwarf, which is the original meaning of corr. Marha ezion, must be Marketjew. So the Marg Marketjew street in Penzance leading to Marazion, observe that the market is not on Thursday but Saturday, that Thursday is called Jeu, and that the Jews were the great factors of tin before they were banished from England. I still stick to wee and wean. The Gaelic is beag, not ban[illegible]. Donald bane is Donald White, pronounced bawn, as in Colleen bawn, the fair lassie. You are right I believe as to [Greek text], but our [biggals?] are little rocks, where a goose would not pick up a livelihood, much less a sheep.
Callimaz must be calends. I am told by a Breton servant, who never heard of Calends, that Kal้ is used in many parts for the beginning of a month.
I am persuaded that Pictish was a Welsh Dialect, British I mean, and I am inclined more and more to believe that Cornish and Breton represent the general language which the Hengst and Horse of our legends found here?, than [sic] does the Welsh, which was probably at that time a rustic mountain dialect, and preserved to this day for that very reason.
I am Dear Sir Yours faithfully
Edwin Norris
&c &c I have my old excuse for my wretched scrawling.
[envelope:]
H. Fox Talbot Esq
N. 11 Great Stuart Street
Edinburgh.
Notes:
1. Letters not located.
2. Norris, Assyrian Dictionary (London: Williams and Norgate, 1872).