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Sumerian
eme-ĝir, eme-gi
Spoken in: Formerly spoken in Sumer 
Region: Southern Mesopotamia
Language extinction: effectively extinct from about the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC, but continued to be used as a classical language for two more millennia
Language family: Language isolate
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: sux
ISO 639-3: sux
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Sumer ( Sumerian: sux-Latn [[Ki (earth ki]]-[[EN (cuneiform en]]-'''ĝir15''', Akkadian: Šumeru; possibly Biblical Shinar Mesopotamia (from the Greek meaning "land between the rivers" is an area geographically located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers largely corresponding According to some definitions an extinct language is a Language which no longer has any speakers, whereas a dead language is a language which is no longer spoken The 2nd millennium BC marks the transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age. A classical language, is a language with a Literature that is "classical"&mdashie "it should be ancient it should be an independent tradition that arose mostly List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family A language isolate, in the absolute sense is a Natural language with no demonstrable genealogical (or "genetic" relationship with other living languages that is ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages ISO 639 -3 (ISO 639-32007 is an international standard for Language codes The standard describes three‐letter codes for identifying languages In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's

Sumerian (𒅴𒂠 EME. GIR15 "native tongue") was the language of ancient Sumer, spoken in Southern Mesopotamia since at least the 4th millennium BC. An exonym (from Greek el ἔξω exo = out el ὄνομα onoma = name is a name for a place that is not used within that place by the local Sumer ( Sumerian: sux-Latn [[Ki (earth ki]]-[[EN (cuneiform en]]-'''ĝir15''', Akkadian: Šumeru; possibly Biblical Shinar Mesopotamia (from the Greek meaning "land between the rivers" is an area geographically located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers largely corresponding The 4th millennium BC saw major changes in human culture It marks the beginning of the Bronze Age and of Writing. It was gradually replaced by Akkadian as a spoken language in the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC, but continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary and scientific language in Mesopotamia until the first century AD. The 2nd millennium BC marks the transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age. Then, it was forgotten until the 19th century. The 19th century of the Common Era began on January 1, 1801 and ended on December 31, 1900, according to the Gregorian calendar Sumerian is a language isolate. A language isolate, in the absolute sense is a Natural language with no demonstrable genealogical (or "genetic" relationship with other living languages that is

Contents

Chronology

The chronology of written Sumerian can be divided into several periods.

Alternatively, some versions of the chronology [1] may omit the Late Sumerian phase and regard all texts written after 2000 BC as Post-Sumerian. The term "Post-Sumerian" is meant to refer to the time when the language was already extinct and only preserved by Babylonians and Assyrians as a liturgical and classical language (for religious, artistic and scholarly purposes). Babylonia was an Amorite state in lower Mesopotamia (modern southern Iraq) with Babylon as its capital Early history The most Neolithic site in Assyria is at Tell Hassuna, the center of the Hassuna culture A sacred language, or liturgical language, is a Language that is cultivated for religious reasons by people who speak another language in their daily life A classical language, is a language with a Literature that is "classical"&mdashie "it should be ancient it should be an independent tradition that arose mostly The extinction has been traditionally and roughly dated to the fall of the Third Dynasty of Ur, the last predominantly Sumerian state in Mesopotamia, about 2000 BC; however, some scholars believe that Sumerian persisted as a spoken language in a small part of Southern Mesopotamia (Nippur and its surroundings) until as late as 1700 BC. The Third Dynasty of Ur refers simultaneously to a 21st to 20th century BC ( Short chronology) Sumerian ruling dynasty based in the city of Nippur (URUENLIL; Sumerian: Nibru Akkadian: Nibbur) from the Sumerian for 'lord wind' (Enlil is modern ? in Afak Al Qadisyah We are fortunate to have many literary texts and bilingual Sumerian-Akkadian lexical lists from the Late Sumerian period scribal school of Nippur. This, along with the particularly intensive official and literary use of the language in Akkadian-speaking states during the same time, is the basis for the distinction between a Late Sumerian period and all subsequent time.

Decipherment

26th century BC document listing gifts to the high priestess of Adab on the occasion of her election
26th century BC document listing gifts to the high priestess of Adab on the occasion of her election

Since Henry Rawlinson's (1810–1895) discovery of the Behistun inscriptions in 1835, Akkadian texts written in cuneiform script were gradually deciphered. The 26th century BC is a Century which lasted from the year 2600 BC to 2501 BC Adab (modern Bismaya (or Bismya Iraq) was an ancient Sumerian city between Telloh and Nippur. Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson 1st Baronet (1810-1895 was born at Chadlington, Oxfordshire. The Behistun Inscription (also Bisitun or Bisutun, Modern Persian: بیستون; Old Persian: Bagastana, meaning "the god's Year 1835 ( MDCCCXXXV) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Common

By 1850, Edward Hincks (1792–1866) came to suspect a non-Semitic origin for cuneiform. For the game see 1850 (board game. 1850 ( MDCCCL) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link The Reverend Edward Hincks ( August 19, 1792 &ndash December 3, 1866) was an Irish clergyman best remembered as an Assyriologist In Linguistics and Ethnology, Semitic (from the Biblical " Shem " Hebrew שם translated as "name" Arabic: ساميّ Semitic languages are structured according to consonantal forms, whereas cuneiform was a syllabary, binding consonants to particular vowels. In the terminology used to discuss the grammar of the Semitic languages and some other Afro-Asiatic languages, a triliteral ( Arabic: جذر ثلاثي A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate Syllables which make up Words A symbol in a syllabary typically represents an optional Furthermore, no Semitic words could be found to explain the syllabic values given to particular signs.

In 1855 Rawlinson announced the discovery of non-Semitic inscriptions at the southern Babylonian sites of Nippur, Larsa, and Erech. Year 1855 ( MDCCCLV) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Common year Nippur (URUENLIL; Sumerian: Nibru Akkadian: Nibbur) from the Sumerian for 'lord wind' (Enlil is modern ? in Afak Al Qadisyah Larsa (also Larag or Larak, modern Tell as-Senkereh, Iraq, possibly the Biblical Ellasar) was an important city of Erech ( Hebrew name ארך meaning 'to extract or draw out' was an ancient city in the land of Shinar, the second city built by king Nimrod (later Amraphel Julius Oppert suggested that a non-Semitic, "Turanian" language had preceded Akkadian in Mesopotamia, and that this language had evolved the cuneiform script. Julius Oppert ( July 9, 1825 - August 21, 1905) French - German Assyriologist, was born at Hamburg, Tūrān ( is the ancient Iranian name for Central Asia, literally meaning "the land of the Tur"

In 1856, Hincks argued that the untranslated language was agglutinative in character. Year 1856 ( MDCCCLVI) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Leap year An agglutinative language is a Language that uses Agglutination extensively most Words are formed by joining Morphemes together The language was called "Scythic" by some, and wasn't differentiated from Akkadian by others. In 1869, Oppert proposed the name "Sumerian", based on the known title "King of Sumer and Akkad". Year 1869 ( MDCCCLXIX) is a Common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year If Akkad signified the Semitic portion of the kingdom, Sumer might describe the non-Semitic annex. Sumer ( Sumerian: sux-Latn [[Ki (earth ki]]-[[EN (cuneiform en]]-'''ĝir15''', Akkadian: Šumeru; possibly Biblical Shinar

Ernest de Sarzec (1832-1901) began excavating the Sumerian site of Tello (ancient Girsu, capital of the state of Lagash) in 1877, and published the first part of Découvertes en Chaldée with transcriptions of Sumerian tablets in 1884. Ernest Choquin de Sarzec (1832-1901 was a French archaeologist to whom is attributed the discovery of the civilization of ancient Sumer. Lagash ( is modern Tell al-Hiba, Iraq. Located northwest of the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and east of Uruk

The University of Pennsylvania began excavating Sumerian Nippur in 1888. The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn) is a private University located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

A Classified List of Sumerian Ideographs by R. Brünnow appeared in 1889.

Credit for being first to scientifically treat a bilingual Sumerian-Akkadian text belongs to Paul Haupt (1858-1926), who published Die sumerischen Familiengesetze (The Sumerian family laws): in Keilschrift, Transcription und Übersetzung : nebst ausführlichem Commentar und zahlreichen Excursen : eine assyriologische Studie (Leipzig : J. Hermann Hugo Paul Haupt (b 25 November[[ 858]] in Görlitz; d C. Hinrichs, 1879).

The bewildering number and variety of phonetic values that signs could have in Sumerian led to an unfortunate detour in understanding the language—a Paris-based orientalist, Joseph Halévy, argued from 1874 onward that Sumerian was not a natural language, but rather a secret code (a cryptolect), and for over a decade the leading Assyriologists battled over this issue. Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city Oriental studies is the academic field of study that embraces Near Eastern and Far Eastern societies and cultures languages peoples history and archaeology in recent Joseph Halévy (born December 15, 1827 in Adrianople; died 1917 was a Jewish - French Orientalist and traveller Cryptography (or cryptology; from Greek grc κρυπτός kryptos, "hidden secret" and grc γράφω gráphō, "I write" Cant is an example of an Argot or cryptolect a characteristic or secret language used only by members of a group often used to conceal the meaning from those outside the group For a dozen years, starting in 1885, even the great Friedrich Delitzsch accepted Halévy's arguments, not renouncing Halévy until 1897. Friedrich Delitzsch ( September 3, 1850 - December 19, 1922) was a German Assyriologist who was a native of Erlangen.

It should be mentioned that François Thureau-Dangin working at the Louvre in Paris was a reliable scholar who made significant contributions to deciphering Sumerian with publications from 1898 to 1938, such as his 1905 publication of Les inscriptions de Sumer et d’Akkad.

In 1908, Stephen Langdon summarized the rapid expansion in knowledge of Sumerian and Akkadian vocabulary in the pages of Babyloniaca, a journal edited by Charles Virolleaud, in an article 'Sumerian-Assyrian Vocabularies', which reviewed a valuable new book on rare logograms by Bruno Meissner. Subsequent scholars have found Langdon's work, including his tablet transcriptions, to be not entirely reliable. In 1944, a more careful Sumerologist, Samuel Noah Kramer, provided a detailed and readable summary of the decipherment of Sumerian in his Sumerian Mythology, accessible on the Internet. Samuel Noah Kramer (1897–1990 was one of the world's leading Assyriologists and a world renowned expert in Sumerian history and Sumerian language.

Friedrich Delitzsch published a learned Sumerian dictionary and grammar in the form of his Sumerisches Glossar and Grundzüge der sumerischen Grammatik, both appearing in 1914. Delitzsch's student, Arno Poebel, published a grammar with the same title, Grundzüge der sumerischen Grammatik, in 1923, and for 50 years it would be the standard for students studying Sumerian. Poebel's grammar was finally superseded in 1984 on the publication of The Sumerian Language, An Introduction to its History and Grammatical Structure, by Marie-Louise Thomsen.

The difficulty in translating Sumerian can be illustrated by a quote from Miguel Civil of the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute, regarding a tablet for making beer:

"Two previous attempts, by J. Miguel Civil is an assyriologist and a scholar of Sumerology He is also editor of the lexical series Materials for the Sumerian Lexicon (MSL D. Prince in 1919 and M. Witzel in 1938, had produced less than satisfactory results. A line that now even a first year Sumerian student will translate "you are the one who spreads the roasted malt on a large mat (to cool)," was translated "thou real producer of the lightning, exalted functionary, mighty one!" by the first author, and "stärkest du mit dem Gugbulug(-Tranke) den Gross-Sukkal" ["strengthen thou with the Gugbulug (drink) the large Sukkal"] by the second. Malting is a process applied to Cereal grains in which the grains are made to Germinate by soaking in water and are then quickly halted from germinating further "

"Two developments during the fifties made possible a better understanding of Sumerian literature. In Chicago, Benno Landsberger was editing the Materials for the Sumerian Lexicon. Benno Landsberger ( 21 April 1890 &ndash 26 April 1968) was one of the most important German Assyriologists Early In Philadelphia, where I had been working before 1963, Samuel Noah Kramer was busy making available to scholars as many literary tablets as possible from the collections in Philadelphia, Istanbul, and Jena. Philadelphia (ˌfɪləˈdɛlfiə Istanbul (historically Byzantium and later Constantinople; see the other Names of Istanbul) is the largest city of Turkey Jena (pronunciation ˈjeːna is a university City in central Germany on the river Saale. "

Landsberger worked to publish important bilingual Sumerian-Akkadian lexical tablets from the Old Babylonian period, which have greatly helped our knowledge of Sumerian vocabulary. Kramer and Thorkild Jacobsen both increased our understanding of Sumerian by publishing and translating Sumerian literary texts.

Transcription, in the context of cuneiform, is the process in which an epigraphist makes a line art drawing to show the signs on a clay tablet or stone inscription in a graphic form suitable for modern publication. Not all epigraphists are equally reliable, and before a scholar publishes an important treatment of a text, the scholar will often arrange to collate the published transcription against the actual tablet, to see if any signs, especially broken or damaged signs, should be represented differently.

Transliteration is the process in which a Sumerologist decides how to represent the cuneiform signs in Roman script. Depending on the context, a cuneiform sign can be read either as one of several possible logograms, each of which corresponds to a word in the Sumerian spoken language, as a phonetic syllable (V, VC, CV, or CVC), or as a determinative (a marker of semantic category, such as occupation or place). A logogram, or logograph, is a Grapheme which represents a word or a Morpheme (a meaningful unit of language See the article Transliterating cuneiform languages. Some Sumerian logograms were written with multiple cuneiform signs. These logograms are called diri-spellings, after the logogram 'diri' which is written with the signs SI and A. The text transliteration of a tablet will show just the logogram, such as the word 'diri', not the separate component signs.

Classification

Sumerian is the first known written language in the Middle East. The Middle East is a Subcontinent with no clear boundaries often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East. Its script, called cuneiform, meaning "wedge-shape", was later also used for Akkadian and Elamite. Elamite is an Extinct language, which was spoken by the ancient Elamites. It was even adapted to Indo-European languages like Hittite. Hittite or Nesili is the Extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who created an empire centered on ancient Hattusas (modern Other languages, such as Ugaritic and Old Persian, were written using different and much simpler writing systems based on cuneiform shapes (but without Sumerian logographic signs). The Ugaritic language, discovered by French archaeologists in 1928 is known only in the form of writings found in the lost city of Ugarit, near the modern The Old Persian language is one of the two attested Old Iranian languages (besides Avestan)

Ancient Mesopotamia
Euphrates • Tigris
Cities / Empires
Sumer: Eridu • Kish • Uruk • Ur • Lagash • Nippur • Ngirsu
Elam: Susa
Akkadian Empire: Akkad • Mari
Amorites: Isin • Larsa
Babylonia: Babylon • Chaldea
Hittites • Kassites • Hurrians/Mitanni
Assyria: Assur • Nimrud • Dur-Sharrukin • Nineveh
Chronology
History of Mesopotamia
History of Sumer • Kings of Sumer
Kings of Assyria
Kings of Babylon
Mythology
Enûma Elish • Gilgamesh
Assyro-Babylonian religion
Language
Sumerian • Elamite
Akkadian • Aramaic
Hurrian • Hittite

Sumerian is an agglutinative language, meaning that words could consist of a chain of more or less clearly distinguishable and separable suffixes and/or morphemes. Mesopotamia (from the Greek meaning "land between the rivers" is an area geographically located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers largely corresponding The Euphrates ( ( Arabic: ar نهر الفرات; Turkish: tr Fırat Syriac: syr ܦܪܬ; Hebrew: he פרת The Tigris is the eastern member of the two great Rivers that define Mesopotamia, along with the Euphrates, which flows from the mountains of southeastern Sumer ( Sumerian: sux-Latn [[Ki (earth ki]]-[[EN (cuneiform en]]-'''ĝir15''', Akkadian: Šumeru; possibly Biblical Shinar Eridu (URUNUNKI; Sumerian:eridug Akkadian: ?) from the Sumerian for 'mighty place' is modern Tell Abu Shahrain, Iraq Uruk ( URU UNUG, Sumerian: unug Akkadian: uruk) from the Akkadian rendering of the Sumerian Toponym 'unug' is modern Ur ( Sumerian:urim; Akkadian: ?) is modern Tell el-Mukayyar, Iraq, and was a city in ancient Sumer. Lagash ( is modern Tell al-Hiba, Iraq. Located northwest of the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and east of Uruk Nippur (URUENLIL; Sumerian: Nibru Akkadian: Nibbur) from the Sumerian for 'lord wind' (Enlil is modern ? in Afak Al Qadisyah Ngirsu (cuneiform? Sumerian:Ĝirsu Akkadian: ?) is modern Tell Telloh, Dhi Qar Governorate, Iraq, and it was a city of Elam is the name of an ancient civilization located in what is now southwest Iran. Susa ( Biblical שושן ( Shushan) also Greek: Σοῦσα Transliterated as Sousa; Latin Susa) Mari (modern Tell Hariri, Syria) was an ancient Sumerian and Amorite city located 11 kilometers north-west of the modern town of Amorite ( Sumerian MARTU, Akkadian Tidnum or Amurrūm, Egyptian Amar, Hebrew ’emōrî Isin (modern Ishan al-Bahriyat was a city of lower Mesopotamia, which flourished during the 20th century BC. Larsa (also Larag or Larak, modern Tell as-Senkereh, Iraq, possibly the Biblical Ellasar) was an important city of Babylonia was an Amorite state in lower Mesopotamia (modern southern Iraq) with Babylon as its capital Babylon was a City-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which can be found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq Chaldea (from Greek grc Χαλδαία Chaldaia; Akkadian akk māt Kaldu Hebrew כשדים Kaśdim, "the Chaldees" of the The Hittites were an ancient Anatolian people who spoke a language of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family and established The Kassites were an Ancient Near Eastern tribe who gained control of Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire after ca The Hurrians (also Khurrites; cuneiform Ḫu-ur-ri 𒄷𒌨𒊑 were a people of the Ancient Near East, who lived in northern Mesopotamia Mitanni ( Hittite cuneiform, also Mittani) or Hanigalbat ( Assyrian Hanigalbat Khanigalbat cuneiform) Early history The most Neolithic site in Assyria is at Tell Hassuna, the center of the Hassuna culture Assur also spelled Ashur, from Assyrian Aššur, was one of the capitals of ancient Assyria. Nimrud is an ancient Assyrian city located south of Nineveh on the river Tigris. Dur-Sharrukin ("Fortress of Sargon" present day Khorsabad, was the Assyrian capital in the time of Sargon II of Assyria. Nineveh ( Akkadian: Ninua; Aramaic: ܢܝܢܘܐ Hebrew נינוה Nīnewē; Arabic نينوى Naīnuwa) See Short chronology for a timeline in absolute dates The Chronology of the Ancient Near East is a framework of dates for Ancient Mesopotamia was settled and conquered by numerous ancient Civilizations. The history of Sumer, taken to include the prehistoric Ubaid and Uruk periods spans the 5th to 3rd millennia BC ending with the downfall of the Third The Sumerian king list is an ancient text in the Sumerian language that lists kings of Sumer from Sumerian and foreign dynasties The following is a list of the kings of Babylonia, a major city and empire in ancient lower Mesopotamia, compiled from the traditional Babylonian king lists and modern Mesopotamian mythology is the collective name given to Sumerian Akkadian Assyrian and Babylonian mythologies from the land between the Tigris The akk Enûma Eliš is the Babylonian Creation myth (named for its Incipit) Gilgamesh was the son of Lugalbanda and the fifth king of Uruk (Early Dynastic II first dynasty of Uruk ruling circa 2600 BC according to the Sumerian king The pre- Christian religions of Babylonia and Assyria are the earliest attestation of Ancient Semitic religion, in particular Mesopotamian mythology Assyriology (from Greek grc Ἀσσυρίᾱ Assyriā; and grc -λογία -logia) is the archaeological historical and linguistic study Elamite is an Extinct language, which was spoken by the ancient Elamites. Aramaic is a Semitic language with Hurrian is a conventional name for the language of the Hurrians (Khurrites a people who entered northern Mesopotamia around 2300 BC and had mostly Hittite or Nesili is the Extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who created an empire centered on ancient Hattusas (modern An agglutinative language is a Language that uses Agglutination extensively most Words are formed by joining Morphemes together In Grammar, a suffix (also postfix, ending) is an Affix which is placed at the end of a word In Morpheme-based morphology, a morpheme is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantic meaning.

Sumerian is a split ergative language. Split ergativity is shown by languages that have a partly ergative behaviour but employ another Syntax or morphology — usually accusative It behaves as a nominative-accusative language in the 1st and 2nd person of present-future tense/incompletive aspect (a. A nominative-accusative Language (or simply accusative language) is one that marks the direct object of Transitive verbs distinguishing them k. a. maruu-conjugation), but as ergative-absolutive in most other instances. An ergative-absolutive Language (or simply ergative language is a language that treats the argument (" subject " of an Intransitive In Sumerian the ergative case is marked by the suffix -e and the absolutive case (as in most ergative languages) by no suffix at all (the so-called "zero suffix"). Example: lugal-e e2 mu-du3 "the king built the house"; lugal ba-gen "the king went". Further example: i3-du-un (< *i3-du-en) = I shall go; e2 i3-du3-un (< *i3-du3-en) = I shall build the house (in contrast with the three person past tense forms, see above). Similar patterns are found in a large number of unrelated split ergative languages (see more examples at split ergativity). Split ergativity is shown by languages that have a partly ergative behaviour but employ another Syntax or morphology — usually accusative

Sumerian distinguishes the grammatical genders animate/inanimate (personal/impersonal), but it does not have separate male/female gender pronouns. In Linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called Noun classes are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words every noun must belong is the retailing arm of MOVIC and is the largest retailer of Anime, games, and Manga in Japan Sumerian has also been claimed to have two tenses (past and present-future), but these are currently described as completive and incompletive aspects instead. In Linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a Verb defines the temporal flow (or lack thereof in the described event or state There are a large number of cases - nominative, ergative, genitive, dative, locative, comitative, equative ("as, like"), terminative ("to"), ablative ("from"), etc (the exact list varies somewhat in different grammars). In Linguistics, declension (or declination) is the occurrence of Inflection in Nouns Pronouns and Adjectives indicating The nominative case is a Grammatical case for a Noun, which generally marks the subject of a Verb, as opposed to its object or other In Grammar, the genitive case or possessive case (also called the second case) is the case that marks a Noun as modifying another Locative (also called the seventh case) is a Grammatical case which indicates a location The comitative case, also known as the associative case, is a Grammatical case that denotes companionship and is used where English would use "in company with" Equative is a case with the meaning of comparison or likening In morphology, the terminative case is a case to tell where something ends (i In Linguistics, ablative case ( abbreviated ABL) is a name given to cases in various languages whose common characteristic

Another characteristic feature of Sumerian is the large number of homophones (words with the same sound structure but different meanings), which are perhaps pseudo-homophones, as there might have been differences in pronunciation (such as tone) that are unknown. A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning Tone is the use of pitch in Language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is to distinguish or inflect words The different homophones (or, more precisely, the different cuneiform signs that denote them) are marked with different numbers by convention, "2" and "3" being replaced by acute accent and grave accent diacritics repectively. History An early precursor of the acute accent was the apex, used in Latin inscriptions to mark long vowels. Pitch The grave accent was first used in the polytonic orthography of Ancient Greek, where it occurred only on the last syllable of a word in cases where the A diacritic ( also called a diacritic or diacritical mark, point, or sign, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation For example: du = "go", du3 = dù = "build".

Sumerian has been the subject of controversial proposals purportedly identifying it as genetically related with almost every known agglutinative language. An agglutinative language is a Language that uses Agglutination extensively most Words are formed by joining Morphemes together As the most ancient written language, it has a peculiar prestige, and such proposals sometimes have a nationalistic background and generally enjoy little popularity in the linguistic community because of their inverifiability. Many of the proposed connections belong to the realm of pseudoscientific language comparison rather than scientific comparative linguistics. Pseudoscientific language comparison is a form of Pseudoscience that seeks to establish historical connections between languages by pointing out similarities between them Comparative linguistics (originally comparative Philology) is a branch of Historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages in order to Examples of suggested related languages include:

None of them are conclusive or accepted among linguists. The Uralic languages (jʊˈrælɨk constitute a language family of 39 Languages spoken by approximately 20 million people Simo Parpola is professor of Assyriology at the University of Helsinki located in Helsinki, Finland. Hungarian ( magyar nyelv) is a Uralic language (more specifically a Ugric language) unrelated to most other languages in Europe. More credibility is given to inclusion of Sumerian in proposed super-families like Nostratic or Dene-Sino-Caucasian, but the mere identifiability of these super-families is itself controversial. The Nostratic languages constitute a proposed Language family that according to its proponents includes a high proportion of the language families of Europe The Dené-Caucasian (also called Sino-Caucasian or Dené-Sino-Caucasian) Language family is a proposed language superfamily containing at A controversy or dispute is a commencement of a conflict between statements of accepted fact and a new or unaccepted proposal that disagrees with argues against

Varieties

The only recorded dialect (or rather, sociolect) of Sumerian is eme-sal (𒅴𒊩 EME. A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος dialektos) is a variety of a Language that is characteristic of a particular group of In Linguistics, a sociolect is the variety of language characteristic of a social background or status SAL "fine tongue") . The name is usually translated as "women's language". Eme-sal is contrasted to the standard variety, eme-ĝir, and it is used exclusively by female characters in some literary texts (this may be compared to the female languages or language varieties that exist or have existed in some cultures, e. g. among the Chukchis and the Caribs, and to women's use of Prakrit as opposed to men's use of Sanskrit in the Indian classics); in addition, it is dominant in certain genres of cult songs etc. Cariban languages Carib, Island Carib or Kalinago people after whom the Caribbean Sea was named live in the Lesser Antilles islands Prakrit (also transliterated as Pracrit) ( Sanskrit: prākṛta प्राकृत (from pra-kṛti प्रकृति according to one Sanskrit (sa संस्कृता वाक् saṃskṛtā vāk, for short sa संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam) is a historical . The special features of eme-sal are mostly phonological (e. g. m is often used instead of ĝ as in me vs standard ĝe26, "I"), but words different from the standard language are also used (e. g. ga-ša-an vs standard nin, "lady"). Sumerian words adapted into Akkadian were sometimes of the eme-sal variety, so that it may have been the more colloquial variety.

Phonology and grammar

Finding a place for the Sumerian language in modern analytic linguistics has proven to be a formidable challenge since the first steps of decipherment. Contributing to this dilemma are, first and foremost, the lack of any native speakers (a problem with all ancient tongues); second, the sparseness of linguistic data (unlike some other extinct languages such as Ancient Greek); third, the apparent lack of a closely related tongue (contrast with Akkadian to the Semitic languages); and finally, the comparatively small amount of research dedicated to the task so far. The Ancient Greek language is the historical stage in the development of the Hellenic language family spanning the Archaic (c

These issues notwithstanding, researchers have generally agreed on a few broad typological classifications for the language, as seen above. Linguistic Typology is an international Peer-reviewed journal in the field of Linguistic typology, founded in 1997 Sumerian is an agglutinative language, in which many small affixes may be attached to a word, gradually building up refinements in meaning and specificity to the typically abstract lexical root. An agglutinative language is a Language that uses Agglutination extensively most Words are formed by joining Morphemes together An affix is a Morpheme that is attached to a stem to form a word Furthermore, we see strong indications of at least partial ergativity, where we have the morphological marker for intransitive subjects identical to that of transitive direct objects. An ergative-absolutive Language (or simply ergative language is a language that treats the argument (" subject " of an Intransitive Morphology is the field of Linguistics that studies the internal structure of words In Grammar, an intransitive Verb does not take an object. In more technical terms an intransitive verb has only one argument (its subject According to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle, every sentence can be divided in two main constituents, one being the subject of the sentence and the In Syntax, a transitive verb is a Verb that requires both a subject and one or more objects Some examples of sentences with transitive verbs The accusative case ( abbreviated ACC) of a Noun is the Grammatical case used to mark the Direct object of a Transitive

Leaving aside the problems of classification and typology, however, linguists have pieced together what might be termed a "framework" descriptive grammar of the language, aided lexically by lists of Sumerian words with Akkadian counterparts left to us by ancient scribes. (These lists were necessary as Sumerian was, apparently, the "official language" of Mesopotamia for some time after the language ceased to be spoken by the local population, just as Latin long survived among officialdom in the Middle Ages after it ceased to be a popular tongue. )

It is this grammar, albeit incomplete and often frequently revised and updated, that we can use to read the basic meanings from a wide variety of the extant texts found throughout Mesopotamia and the surrounding lands, and it is this grammar that is presented below.

Phonemic inventory

We have no first-hand description of the Sumerian phonology and there is no first language speaker we could ask or listen to. But the original inscriptions and the Sumerian-Akkadian bilingual texts give us some hints what the phonemic inventory of the Sumerian language could have looked like.

Sumerian probably had at least the following sounds:

Many scholars believe that in the older stages of Sumerian the distinction of the two series of stop consonants was not voicing, but another feature like aspiration or glottalization. Description Voiceless consonants are produced with the Vocal cords open and voiced consonants are produced when the vocal folds are fractionally closed In Phonetics, ejective consonants are Voiceless Consonants that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the Glottis.

The exact sound of these sibilants is much discussed in recent works about Sumerian, without a common opinion.

I. M. Diakonoff lists evidence for two l-sounds, two r-sounds, two h-sounds, and two g-sounds (excluding the velar nasal), and there may have been more sibilants than we are aware of. There must have been a phonemic difference between the consonants that were dropped at the end of a word and the consonants that were kept, e. g. the g is amissable in zag > za3, but not in lag. Diakonoff writes, "when we try to find out the morphophonological structure of the Sumerian language, we must constantly bear in mind that we are not dealing with a language directly but are reconstructing it from a very imperfect mnemonic writing system which had not been basically aimed at the rendering of morphophonemics. "

The vowels that are clearly distinguished by the cuneiform script were a, e, i, and u. The mid-range vowel /o/ should accompany the mid-range vowel /e/. Although the Akkadian transliteration does not indicate it, in some Sumerian words the vowel u should probably be o.

Syllables could have any of the following structures: V, CV, VC, CVC. More complex syllable structures are hidden by our insufficient knowledge about the cuneiform script.

A complete Sumerian sentence

As an example, consider the short (and unattested) Sumerian sentence Inanna, nin. ani. r, Ur. Namma. k. e e. 0 mu. na. n. du = For Inanna, his lady, Ur-Namma built the temple. We will take as given the two proper names Inanna and Ur. Namma, the names of a deity and a ruler, respectively. For the rest of the sentence, we need to do a little linguistic exploring.

Noun

The Sumerian noun is typically a one or two syllable root, occasionally more, of simple structure. Examples are igi = eye, e = temple, or nin = lady. Composites like lugal (from lu "man" and gal "big") are also common. Most frequently, a noun is seen with one or more morphological case markers, which modify the meaning of the noun or attach certain syntactic roles. For instance, the 3rd person possessive marker, -ani, might be suffixed to make lugal. ani = his/her king.

Nouns may also be placed in adjunction to form a genitive compound, or more simply, two nouns in direct succession with no other markings will often imply a "X of Y" relationship. Proper names, for instance, often take the form Ur. Namma = Man of Namma (Namma being a particular city's patron deity). The genitive case marker . k is not pronounced in this case and surfaces only due to the affixation of the ergative . e.

In our example sentence above, we see immediately that we have two noun formations, nin. ani. r = for his lady, and e. 0 = temple, where we have assumed the . r morpheme to be the dative case marker and . 0 to be the absolutive. We have thus translated most of our example sentence just by considering nouns and noun formations; this leaves only what must be the verbal form at the very end of the sentence.

Verb

The Sumerian verb, typically a short one or two syllable root, has two conjugations, transitive and intransitive, and two aspects, referred to as hamtu and maru (following the terms in Akkadian grammars of Sumerian).

The prototypical verbal endings are

1st person, sg. , intransitive, -en;
1st person, pl. , intransitive, -en-dè-en;
2nd person, pl. , intransitive, -en-zè-en.

However, the construction of a Sumerian verbal form is a bit more complex than in many modern tongues, especially English. The verb not only indicates the relationship or activities of the other syntactic players in the sentence, but will also restate many of those relationships in the verbal form itself. For instance, a common verbal form in dedicatory inscriptions (left as "cornerstones" under large building projects) is mu. na. n. du. 0 = he built. We have verbal agreement expressing the 3rd person singular agent of the action in the . n. morpheme, as well as the . na. morpheme noting that there was a dative clause (or a "X did Y for Z" form) somewhere in the meaning. Further, linguists have added the . 0 = <null> morpheme, indicating a non-verbalized marker for a patient (object) clause. Finally, and most cryptically, the introductory mu. marker has yet to be given a definitive, or even plausible, interpretation. It has been argued by some Sumerologists that its meaning is ventive, indicating movement or general orientation towards the speaker, but for most actual cases the claim is difficult to either prove or disprove. Others (Thomsen 1984:179) only venture to state that it is "preferred with animate and agentive subjects". The functions of other introductory prefixes that may occur instead of mu. (the whole group is sometimes referred to as "conjugation prefixes") are also poorly understood.

So the verbal form in our example sentence means something like he built it for her, where the it and her are references to some of the noun formations earlier in the sentence, in this case, the temple and Inanna respectively.

There is clearly much work to be done in the decipherment of the language itself. There is strong motivation to do so, however, as Sumerian is uniquely positioned as one of the few languages for which a writing system was developed without foreknowledge of other systems, and as such, a firm understanding of the connection between the Sumerian tongue and the development of the writing system would shed light on not a small number of interesting linguistic and psycholinguistic areas.

Bibliography

Further reading

References

  1. ^ http://history-world.org/sumerian_language.htm
  2. ^ [1]
  3. ^ RAI 53
  4. ^ [2]
  5. ^ [3]

See also

External links

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