Median.
Properly the language of the ancient Medes, a people of the high country between Mesopotamia and the Persian desert, only known through names and a few words, which show it to have been Aryan, and closely allied to ancient Persian. The term “Median” was at one time applied to the language of the third column of Achæmenian cuneiform inscriptions, but it is now admitted that this was a misnomer. On the real Median language, see Rawlinson: “Ancient Monarchies,” Media, vol. iii., pp. 137-156. G. R.
Medo-Persian.
Class name for the branch of Aryan speech, with slight differences, common to the ancient Medes and Persians. G. R.
Medo-Scythian.
Dr. Hincks’ name for the language of Scythic tribes dwelling in Media and Persia, known to us by a peculiar form of inscriptions in cuneiform.
⁂ The best account of the language, which is decidedly Turanian, will be found in Norris’s “Scythic Inscriptions of Behistun,” “Jnl. of R. As. Soc.,” vol. xv. G. R.
Mefur.
Negritic: dialect of Papuan, vernacular in New Guinea.
Meherrin.