Another error, due also to the deference he professed for Zend analogies, arose from the supposition that the two letters which he took for _u_ and _w_ had together the value of _q_. He compared them to the sound of _q_ which is produced in Zend by the two letters _sv_ or _hv_, the latter being modified into _uv_ in the Old Persian.[464] Equally disastrous was his introduction of the two diphthongs _hi_ for _ê_, and _au_ for _ô_. He observed that these two letters are occasionally found together, and he concluded they must correspond to the Sanscrit diphthong _ai_ = _ê_ and _au_ = _ô_. The occurrence of an _h_ for an _a_ in one of them was a matter of small difficulty. Indeed he had actually found the _ai_ = _ê_ in Aidus = India; and suggests that _hi_ may be the form it assumes as a medial.[465] The most eccentric peculiarities of his transliteration may be traced to these unfortunate errors. His transformation of _a_ into _ng_ appears in his ‘Aurᵃngha Mᵃzdanga’ for ‘Aurahya Mazdaha.’ The diphthong _uv_ with the sound of _q_ seemed at first to yield a better result. By it he was able to read ‘Quarᵃzmiᵃh’ and ‘Arᵃqᵃtis,’ which are more suggestive of the true words Chorasmia and Arachosia than the correct forms ‘_Uv_arazamiya’ and ‘Hara_uv_atish.’[466] But, on the other hand, it led him to read ‘qan’ or ‘qwan’ (Chaonia) for ‘Uvaja’ (Susa), ‘Aqᵃ’ for ‘Ha_uv_,’ Patᵃqᵃ for ‘patuv,’ ‘Dᵃqistᵃn’ for ‘duvaishtam,’ and so forth. The diphthong _hi_ (really _yi_) for the long _ê_ produced ‘tesam’ in the place of ‘tyᵃisham.’ The diphthong _au_ (really _ku_) for the long _ô_ was still more disastrous. Burnouf, when he wrote ‘aqunuch,’ had nearly reached the correct transliteration of ‘a_ku_naush,’ but it becomes scarcely recognisable in the ‘a_ô_nus’ of Lassen. The first sign of this diphthong had been long since correctly determined by Grotefend as a _k_. But its identification depended in great measure on the belief that Murgab, where it is the first letter in the inscription, represents the ancient Pasargadae, the city of Cyrus. Lassen would by no means accept this as sufficient proof, for even upon that hypothesis the inscription might not necessarily belong to Cyrus. St. Martin read it ‘Houschousch,’ and conjectured that this name referred to ‘Ochus.’ Lassen accepted this view, and saw in the first two signs, which he took for _au_, the strongest confirmation that they had the value of the _ô_ long in Ochus. In 1845, when the result of his farther studies were published, we find that his original alphabet has undergone considerable improvement. He has suppressed the second signs for each of the vowels _a_, _i_ and _u_, and the two diphthongs for the long _ê_ and _ô_, that caused so much trouble, have disappeared. We hear no more of the double letters for _q_, nor of the second value _ng_ which he ascribed to his initial _a_, now found to be more correctly _h_. He has also struck out the two defective signs he admitted for _t_ and _û_. For