[39] MASPERO, _Histoire ancienne_, p. 134. Upon the etymology of _Turanians_ see MAX MUeLLER'S _Science of Language_, 2nd edition, p. 300, _et seq._ Upon the constituent characteristics of the Turanian group of races and languages other pages of the same work may be consulted.... The distinction between Turan and Iran is to be found in the literature of ancient Persia, but its importance became greater in the Middle Ages, as may be seen by reference to the great epic of Firdusi, the _Shah-Nameh_. The kings of Iran and Turan are there represented as implacable enemies. It was from the Persian tradition that Professor Mueller borrowed the term which is now generally used to denote those northern races of Asia that are neither Aryans nor Semites. [40] This family is sometimes called _Ural-Altaic_, a term formed in similar fashion to that of _Indo-Germanic_, which has now been deposed by the term Aryan. It is made up of the names of two mountain chains which seem to mark out the space over which its tribes were spread. Like the word _Indo-Germanic_, it made pretensions to exactitude which were only partially justified. [41] This is the opinion of M. OPPERT. He was led to the conclusion that their writing was invented in a more northern climate than that of Chaldaea, by a close study of its characters. There is one sign representing a bear, an animal which does not exist in Chaldaea, while the lions which were to be found there in such numbers had to be denoted by paraphrase, they were called _great dogs_. The palm tree had no sign of its own. See in the _Journal Asiatique_ for 1875, p. 466, a note to an answer to M. Halevy entitled _Summerien ou rien_. [42] MASPERO, _Histoire ancienne_, p. 135. [43] These much disputed terms, Sumer and Accad, are, according to MM. Halevy and Guyard, nothing but the geographical titles of two districts of Lower Chaldaea. Sec. 4.--_The Wedges._ The writing of Chaldaea, like that of Egypt, was, in the beginning, no more than the abridged and conventionalized representation of familiar objects. The principle was identical with that of the Egyptian hieroglyphs and of the oldest Chinese characters. There are no texts extant in which images are exclusively used,[44] but we can point to a few where the ideograms have preserved their primitive forms sufficiently to enable us to recognize their origin with certainty. Among those Assyrian syllabaries which have been so helpful in the decipherment of the wedges, there is one tablet where the primitive form of each symbol is placed opposite the group of strokes which had the same value in after ages.[45] This tablet is, however, quite exceptional, and, as a rule, the cuneiform characters cannot thus be traced to their primitive form. But well-ascertained and independent facts allow us to come to certain conclusions which even this scanty evidence is enough to confirm.