Jitne3] SOCIETYOF BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY. [1890.^
(sin)is in Egyptian.* It is a curious circumstancethat the moongod
is designated in Accadian by a group of characters whichcontainthis
ideogramSis, «-| ESw$ ^Illj- Thisgroupis defined *-»-y<«, Sin
(4R1,29b.eta/.). Sin, the ordinary Assyrian(yet non-Semitic, because
uninflected)name of the moongod, is homophorious with sin(Sin),
brother;whichmayaccountfor the use of this ideogramin writing
his name, evenif the two rootswereoriginallyunconnected. The
group>-«-y£*m$ ^19wasrea<3nanna, according to one passage
in the documents (na-an-na: 5 R 23, 32 g.) ; but this, of course, does
not exclude otherpossiblevalues. Comparingnannawith ninni
( = nin + nin), I think nanna may be equivalent to nan -f- nan,
"great man," "lord." nan and nin maybothmean" man," for
which,in both Accadianand Chinese, we find termsdestituteof the
marks of gender, and denoting, therefore, either man or woman
(lordor lady). In Chinese, as in Accadian, terms denotingsex are
prefixed to these sexless words for the sake of precision. Jan
(=din) being "a man," which in Cantonese is pronounced yan
(=gin),in Amoy Jin (=din), in Shanghai tuang (=nin),a China
mansaysnan-Janfor a man, as opposed to a woman, nu-Jdn. But
I have already shown, by comparison of the Accadian forms,that
nan,dialecticnam, lam, ne" (=nin), andnti, dialectic nii, lu, are
themselvesoriginallyambiguousas regards gender; cp. Accadian nin,
"lord"and "lady," lam (= dam, "wife"),which,withthe prefix nita,
" male," means" husband," EJJwluj " man." mu-lu is explained
"man,""lady,"and"people"(amelu,beltu,nisu). gin is "male,"
(*~TT-^zik&ru)and gin is " maid " (^V1 amtu); cp. Chinese yin,
"a bride," dialecticyan, in, yang (=gin,in, gim : cp. Accadian fN,
"lord,"andGfMf "maid"). •£-, the common determinativeprefix
for "female," hadthe value gal,as well as sal {cp. sao, Amoy si> =
sa-1, " a woman," " a matron ") and rag (cp. la6, lu6,servant,lam,lu,
man,andChineselang,a man) ; but gal is also "man"(KJ5na<^
thissound also). Theroot-ideaof gal, " man," may have been
"great," strong," or "high": cp. £f- gal, "great," fcfyj kala,
" strong," " high;" en, " lord " = an = gan, " high;" and so on. In
Chinese we have lao, dialectic lb (=la), liau, "large," "great,"* The evidenceof this and othercommonvocables,pointsto a very early
connexionbetweenthe primitive languagesof Babylonia andEgypt; although
the latter has developed on quite independentlines,and been influencedby its
ownenvironment.
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