SZE;MA TSIEN, the father of Chinese history.
SZU or Azes Scythians. Ili is a valley and town in Central Asia, from which Lassen sup poses the Szu Tartars were expelled by the Yue tchi or White Huns, B.C. 150. The Szu Tartars he supposes to be Saem, and the Yue-tchi to be the Tochari. After occupying Tahia or Sogdiana for a time, they are stated by the Chinese to have been driven thence, also, by the Yengar, some years afterwards, and to have established them selves in Kipen, in which name Lassen recognises the Kophen valley in the Kohistan. The great Kirghiz horde is adjacent to Ili and Tarbagatai. It is under the dominion of China, and exchanges large quantities of cattle on the frontier for silk goods.
T. The alphabets of the Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Sanskrit, I I ind Mahrati , G ujerati, Bengali, Uriya, Telugu, Karnatica, Tamil, and Malealam, all contain letters with the sound of the English letter t ; and the Arabic, Persian, and Urdu each have two letters with the power of the English letters th. This letter of the English alphabet has, in English, but one sound, its in tan, ten, tin, tone, tun, tyne ; but in combination with the English letter 11, it assumes two compound sounds, a softer one, as in than, thus, then ; and a harder sound, as in thicken, thief, thong, thrall, thumb, and thwart. Th, with the sound
of the English letter as in thief, and of the Greek letter theta, occurs in Telugu, Uriya, and Karnatica, but this sound is not frequent in other of the eastern tongues, though a t with the aspirated h occurs in most of them, in which h liasi the sound of an aspirate, pronounced after the t, and should be written t'b, and pronounced hatt'hiar.
There are many examples of the Chaldman transformation of the sh or s into t, and the following may be adduced :—Hebrew, Shekel, to weigh, becomes Tekel in Chaldee ; Ileb., Sheber, to break,—Chald., Teber ; lieb., Seraphim,— Chald., Teraphim, the Babylonian counterfeit of the divine Cherubim or Seraphim ; Arab., Sup phon, a serpent,—Chald., Tuphon or Typhon. In Egypt, the s frequently passed into t. Thus we read in Bunsen, Tet, who is also called Set,' and many other similar examples. The Turanian tongues also alter the s to t, and thus sir-band or head-band becomes turband, and sarposh, a head-covering, becotnes in Egypt tarbosh, as the Arabs have no letter p.