[Symbol] [Symbol] [Symbol] [Symbol] "bird." [Symbol] [Symbol] [Symbol] [Symbol] "sheep" (probably a sheep-fold). [Symbol] [Symbol] [Symbol] [Symbol] "ox." [Symbol] [Symbol] [Symbol] [Symbol] "to go," "to stand." [Symbol] [Symbol] [Symbol] [Symbol] "hand." [Symbol] [Symbol] [Symbol] [Symbol] "man." [Symbol] [Symbol] [Symbol] [Symbol] "dagger." [Symbol] [Symbol] [Symbol] [Symbol] "fish." [Symbol] [Symbol] [Symbol] [Symbol] "reed." [Symbol] [Symbol] [Symbol] [Symbol] "reed." [Symbol] [Symbol] [Symbol] [Symbol] "corn" ("ear of corn"). [Symbol] [Symbol] [Symbol] [Symbol] "god," "heaven." [Symbol] [Symbol] [Symbol] [Symbol] "constellation," "star." As an illustration bearing upon the specimens set forth in the table we have the ideogram of Nineveh [Symbol].The archaic form of this character [Symbol] proves that it was compounded of the ideographic picture of a house, enclosing the ideogram of the fish [Symbol], thus preserving record of the instructive fact that imperial Nineveh was at first, as its name implies (_nun_, "fish," is the name of the fourteenth letter of the Semitic alphabet), a collection of fishermen's huts (_cf._ Taylor, i. 41). The frequent mixture of old and new forms in cuneiform writings and the different values sometimes given to the same sign, have increased the difficult task of interpretation. As in the earlier stages of other languages, determinatives were used; _e.g._ all names of men were preceded by a single upright wedge, of countries by three horizontal wedges, and so on. But in the examples given in the table, the gradual conventionalising of the signs is seen, as in that for "ox," wherein the modification of the head and horns of the animal into the phonogram is obvious, while the Behistun inscription exhibits well-defined stages of approach to simplification. The cumbrous cuneiform which fills the third column has five hundred symbols, ideograms, phonograms, and homophones; the Medic, which occupies the second column, is written in ninety-six pure syllabic signs; while the Persian tells the same story in thirty-six alphabetic signs, four only of the primitive ideograms being retained. This survival of use of ideograms, it may be noticed in passing, has illustration among ourselves in many ways. As certain parts of the body, _e.g._ hand, foot, bosom (in Anglo-Saxon _fæthem_, _i.e._ "fathom," or the space of both arms extended), and forearm (Latin _ulna_, Anglo-Saxon _eln_, whence "ell"), became and remain standards