BABYLON AND PERSIA

20 MEDIA, BABYLON, AND PERSIA.4. When, on the authority of Anquetil Duperronand his first successors in the field of Eranian re¬search, the title "Zend-Avesta" was universallyaccepted, and " Zend " given asthe name of thelanguage in which the newly found books werewritten, a misnomer was unconsciously introducedwhich considerably delayed discoveries and addedconfusion to analready almost hopelessly obscuresubject.In the first place, the title, a compoundone, should be " Ave.STA-U-Zend," which may bepretty fairly translated " the Law and Commentary,"for " Zend " is not the name of a language at all, buta word, which means " explanation, commentary."In the second place, the books arc not written in oneuniform language, but in several Eranian dialects ofdifferent jDeriodsand, probably, different countries.Now that these facts are distinctly understood, it isbecoming more and more usual tO call the booksthemselves simply " AvESTA," and the language ofthe original texts " AvESTAN,"a name which doesnot committo any particular time or country,while the language in which the Zend or com¬mentary and glosses are written, and which is of farlater date, as can easily be proved from inscriptions,has been named " Pehlevi " the Persian of theMiddle Ages.5. Pehlevi is a most peculiar language, especiallyin its written form. Not so much from the differ¬ence of the characters, which is not greater than thedistance of several centuries would naturally war¬rant ; but at first sight it does not seem to bePersian at all, but rather Semitic.That is, an enor-