This Essay of Hincks exercised a decisive influence upon the future study of Assyrian. It demonstrated that, although the language was Semitic, the mode of writing was not Semitic; and for a time it divided scholars into two opposing camps. Those who followed Hincks maintained that the language was syllabic, and that each sign expressed a consonant associated with an inherent and invariable vowel. Those, on the contrary, who sought to assimilate it to the Hebrew system were of opinion that the signs represent simple consonants that might be preceded or followed by any vowel. We have noted the gradual recognition of the syllabic nature of the Assyrian writing. The earliest opinion was that the signs were both syllabic and alphabetical, and we have seen that Grotefend in his transliteration treated them in this manner. Hincks in his first Essay followed the same method, but he found the vast majority of the signs were syllabic, and his Table shows only four that are purely alphabetical. Then came the discovery that the language itself was Semitic, and the inference naturally followed that the writing was so likewise. Under the influence of this conviction, Hincks drew up his Second Table, showing only the consonantal value of the signs, and leaving them to be associated indifferently with the vowel sounds. But he remained in this opinion for a comparatively short time, and in the end of the same year he had reverted to his original view. The effect of the present essay was to establish the absolute syllabism of the language; and in a paper read shortly afterwards before the British Association ‘On the Language and Mode of Writing of Assyria’ (August 1850), he ‘maintained, in opposition to all other writers, that the characters had all definite syllabic values, there being no consonants, and consequently no necessity or liberty of supplying vowels.’ In this opinion he then stood alone. Rawlinson, in reply, expressed his belief that the signs had a syllabic origin, but that they were ‘subsequently used to express a mere portion of a syllable.’ ‘He could,’ he says, ‘adduce numerous instances where the cuneiform signs were used as _bona fide_ letters.’[815]