#sumerian language

[sighed-the-snake]

I got a very good reference book for Christmas, An Annotated Sumerian Dictionary by Mark E Cohen. There is a bit in the preface I thought someone might find interesting.

Even the Bible may show traces of Sumerian influence. It has been posited that the Garden of Eden derives its name from the Sumerian word edin, "steppe," and it has even been suggested that the story of Eve's creation from Adam's rib is based upon a Sumerian word play.

That's it, the preface moves on from there. I'm fascinated and will see if I can find anything published about this.

#bible #adam and eve #word play #good omens #God loves a good word play am I right #sumerian #ancient sumer #sumerian language

[adubsar]

How does Ashurbanipal introduce himself

I am Ashurbanipal. The great king, the mighty king, the king of the world, the king of the land of Assyria These are the terms with which Ashurbanipal introduces himself.

In Akkadian, "Anaku" is equal to "First Person Singular Pronoun" in English "I".

In the Sumerian language "Lugal" and in the Akkadian language "Sharrum" or "sharru" means "King". The Sumerian word "Gal" and the Akkadian words "rabum" or "rabu" mean "big" or "Great" and the Akkadian word "dannum" or "dannu" means "powerful".

The Sumerian words "Shu" and "Kish" and the Akkadian words "Kishatum" and "Kishatu" mean "totality" or "world".

𒀀𒈾𒆪 anaku "I".

𒈗 Lugal [Akk: Sharrum - Sharru].

𒈗 Gal [Akk: rabum - rabu].

𒃲 Gal [Akk: rabum - rabu].

𒃩𒉡 dannu.

𒋙 Shu [Akk: Kishatum - Kishatu].

𒆧 Kish [Akk: Kishatum - Kishatu].

𒆳 𒀸𒋩𒆠 Land of Assyriaa

𒀀𒈾𒆪 𒁹𒀭𒊹𒆕𒀀 𒈗 𒃲 𒈗 𒃩𒉡 𒈗 𒋙 𒈗 𒆳 𒀸𒋩𒆠

anāku, Aššur-bāni-apli, šarru rabû, šarru dannu, šarru kiššati, šarru māt Aššūr

I, Ashurbanipal, great king, strong king, king of the world, king of Assyria

Read this post: Ashurbanipal's name.

Follow my YouTube channel. Silent tablets documentary, short videos from ancient history.

Follow my Twitter.

#archaeology #archeology #mesopotamia #ancient mesopotamia #assyrian #ancient assyria #ashurbanipal #akkadian language #akkadian #sumerian #sumerian language #𒈗LU #lugal #𒆧 #𒃲 #𒃩𒉡 #𒋙 #𒆳 𒀸𒋩𒆠

[sag-dab-sar]

Irkalla

This is my very mediocre haphazard impromptu attempt at figuring out a cuneiform name. It took far too long, though after this it might be easier in the future. I don't know how to properly use sign lists. This could be completely incorrect but I'm giving it a go anyways.

Written form: ᵈir-kal-la according to Oracc

𒀭( ᵈ ) — Here

𒅕(ir) — Here

𒆗(kal) — Here

𒆷(la) — Same location as above, entry #4

Irkalla is another name of Ereškigal. Its often referred to as the "Akkadian name for the underworld" which I believe is inaccurate. Anyways. I think the reading of these signs may be in Akkadian context as they seem to represent phonetics not sign meaning when forming "Irkalla" but who the heck knows I don't know what I'm doing.

So the final form is:

𒀭𒅕𒆗𒆷

#sumerian #sumerian language #cuneiform #akkadian #polytheism #cuneiform journey #what the fuck I'm doing its 4am #my migraine has made very ''productive'' today #which is so counter intuitive

[ea-nasir-is-a-crook]

I got An Annotated Sumerian Dictionary by Mark E Cohen for Christmas and I made a blog to natter on about it.

If it's in the dictionary and I find it interesting, I will plunk it down in here.

I'm not a linguist. I'm an enthusiast who enjoys learning about ancient Sumer. Please manage you expectations of this blog appropriately.

No translation requests. The dictionary is organized by Sumerian, not by English, which means that if you give me an English word to translate into Sumerian, I won't be able to find it.

However, if you know the Sumerian word you want me to find, I can type out the entry for you.

We're going to do this from start to finish! Let's see how long it takes to get from A to Z.

Sounds and symbols guide under the cut!

r̂ sounds like dr ĝ sounds like ng š sounds like sh ḫ sounds like kh

adj - adjective adv - adverb conj - conjunction interj - interjection interr - interrogative num - numeric prep - preposition s - substantive v - verb

And here is a pronunciation guide done by @sumerianlanguage

#sumerian #sumerian language #An Annotated Sumerian Dictionary #Youtube

[sumerianlanguage]

Hi I am interested in Sumerian words that were used to describe... Well, words. Language, writing, the tools of writing, names of letters/numbers, words for the actual shapes on a tablet. Sorry for the scattershot request, I don't have a specific word I'm looking for. Thanks in advance for anything you can share!

Hello! Here’s some vocab that may be up your alley.

“Language” is the same as “tongue”, eme 𒅴, and “word” is inim 𒅗, also used for “statement, sentence”. “To write” is sar 𒊬, and “tablet” is dub 𒁾, so together these form dubsar 𒁾𒊬, “scribe”. “Clay” as in the clay used for tablets is im 𒅎, and cuneiform wedges, gusum or gushum 𒄖𒋧, would be impressed into it with a gidubba 𒄀𒁾𒁀 “stylus” or, if you don’t have one, with an umbin 𒌢 “nail”. Tablets could then be fired in a kiln, gir 𒌋𒀜, and kept in a pisangdub 𒋃𒁾 “tablet container”.

I can’t find a source for names of different kinds of wedge, the basic shapes that make up a cuneiform sign, so there’s no real equivalent to “letters”; any given sign’s name would be the sign itself. But I hope you enjoy the inim above!

#replies #sumerian language #sumerian vocabulary #cuneiform

[amandamacncheese]

My newest favorite word in ancient Sumerian; which I am (very exceedingly loosely) basing my current conlang project on

#conlanging #conlang #sumerian #ancient languages #flap your wings

[therottenkingsreckoning]

You know what's something that should exist, if it doesn't already? A horror movie centering entirely around a group of early humans, being hunted by some prehistoric big fuck-off beast or something

Would also love to see at least one supernatural horror story set in Ancient Sumeria or Mesopotamia, using their gods & mythical monsters

Gimme that Early Civilization Horror, back when the gods were at your doorstep and death at a moment's notice was very real

#don't have the cavemen talk either #that needs to be all symbolism and body language #movie ideas #horror #horror movies #early humans #sumerian #mesopotamia #history #film #movies #stuff i said

[ancientorigins]

While many of these 14 languages have long since disappeared, hearing them spoken again brings to life the imagined voices of our ancestors.

#ancient languages #communication #language #Sumerian

[elbiotipo]

One way this whole language worldbuilding stuff actually interacts with my characters is when Beto decides to teach Ragua (remember, from an ancient, now extinct civilization) Rioplatense. Because he of course, tries to teach her Tandar first. It's literally the Standard, the language everybody uses to trade and communicate, but not the one you use to feel, to laugh, to insult, to joke, to love. Ragua notices the difference when Beto speaks Tandar and when he speaks Rioplatense. It's easy to notice. And so she asks him to learn.

And learning the language of a descendant of a generation ship means "you're part of the family now" even after so long. It's not forbidden at all. But it's not the thing you would take the effort to teach to a business associate or random stranger. So Beto considers ir a point of trust and a little bit of pride to do so.

Meanwhile, does this mean Ragua teaches HER language to Beto and the rest? Well... That's something I should write about.

#Ragua's language is like ancient sumerian: no relationship to modern ones and translated from references to it #a few historians and archeologists COULD speak it but it's a dead language in all senses #campoestela #cosas mias

[official-linguistics-post]

how best to convince someone to learn sumerian instead of japanese

doesn't it sound exciting to always have a dearth of pedagogical resources?? you'll always be on your toes!

#at least i'm assuming sumerian pedagogy has similar limitations as other ancient languages...

[hella1975]

I wanna hear more about Sumerian, you said it was your favourite dead language, so hit me with some information. Language is such a fascinating topic!!

YOU ARE SO REAL FOR THIS I SWEAR I WISH ID STUDIED LINGUISTICS SO BADDD when this ec*nomics degree is finished im doing classes on ancient history and linguistics idc. living my truth or whatever.

okay so sumerian!!! sumerian gets its name from the civilisation of sumer, which was the first civilisation of mesopotamia which was the first civilisation ever. so that's already pretty fucking cool. like it is largely considered the first language EVER IN THE WORLD and now we're here!!! how cool is that!!!!

i said before that sumerian was replaced by akkadian (the language literally died WITHIN the time period mesopotamia existed for) but it was still used for more literary/scientific things, so from what i can tell sumerian was sort of used how we would use latin.

if you want some sumerian beginners, there's a swadesh list available that's very helpful!

#i dont know enough to actually distinguish between the mesopotamian languages without actually having it pointed out #so tbh the reason sumerian is my favourite is literally just bc it's the oldest and the first and it existed as a ghost language #like that is just soooo endlessly cool to me #ask #mesopotamia

[adubsar]

The Sumerian Word for "Love" ❤️

How to say "I Love You 🥰" in Akkadian Language

Sumerian and Akkadian are two ancient languages spoken thousands of years ago by the people of ancient Mesopotamia. Sumerian was spoken in southern Mesopotamia (now Iraq) and Akkadian was spoken in northern Mesopotamia (Assyrian civilization) and southern Mesopotamia (Babylonian civilization).

Read More:

History of wine in Mesopotamia

Follow my YouTube channel. Silent tablets documentary, short videos from ancient history.

Follow my Twitter.

#ancient mesopotamia #archaeology #mesopotamia #ancient history #akkadian #ancient iraq #akkadian language #ancient assyria #assyrian #history of assyria #history of babylon #sumerian language #civilizations of babylon #civilizations of assyria #Youtube #romantic #romantic words

[ea-nasir-is-a-crook]

I thought I'd start by showing you guys what a complete entry looks like. So much detail!

I share this also so you can see why I won't be typing out entire entries in the future. It's a lot. My eyes went a little cross with the formatting.

Speaking of formatting, Tumblr does not allow superscript or subscript, so I've had to settle on using small letters for both. The numbers label which form of the word is being used, and they are subscript. The letters are to give context to readers and are not spoken when read aloud, and they are superscript.

Anything written in italics is Akkadian.

Onward now with the very first entry, a, "to groan."

a (v, interj) Ia

BASIC WRITTEN FORM: a, i “to groan” a2 A nâqu (CAD N1 341b) e-a A nâqu (CAD N1 341b) i I nâqu (CAD N1 341b) D USAGE AS/IN NOUN

D.1 i-dUtu “distress, someone in distress, malcontent” i-dUtu ḫabālu (CAD Ḫ 3b) i-dUtu ŠU-u2 (=iutû) (CAD I/J 317b) i-dUtu du11-ga nuzzumu (CAD I/J 317b) “to complain” i-dUtu u2-gu ḫe2-ni-de2 Indeed, I made distress disappear there. (Ur-Namma, 1.1.20:179) niĝ2-erim2 i3-dUtu gu2-bi ĝiri3 bi2-us2 He stepped on the necks of evildoers and malcontents. (Gudea B, xviii 11) ni2-zuḫ lu2-i-dUtu-ka gu2-ba ĝiri3 bi2-gub I stepped on the necks of thieves and malcontents. (Ur-Namma C, 35) ša3-ma-da-ĝa,-ka i-dUtu ḫe2-eb2-ta-zi Indeed, I removed (all) distress in my land. (Warad-sîn E4.2.1 3.20:45)

D.2 i-dNanna “someone in distress, malcontent” šu- r̂u3-a nu-siki nu-mu-su-a i-dUtu i-dNanna di-bi du11-ge ḫe2-em-mi-ge Indeed, I support the cases of the restrained, the orphan, the window, and those in distress. (Išme-Dagan A+V, A. 216-17)

D.3 nam-a-a “animal sound” See nam-aa (s)

I INTERJECTION

I.1 “Woe!” [A] [aḫul]apum, a, [u]ai (CAD A, 213b) dUttu munus-sig6-ga a2 ḫaš2-ĝu10 im-me-a2 bar-ĝu, im-me-a2 bar-ĝu10 a2 ša3-ba- ĝu10 im-[me] Uttu, the beautiful woman says “Woe, my thighs!” She says “Woe, my liver! Woe, my belly!” (Enki&Ninḫ 186) a dam-ĝu10 a dummu-ĝu10 im-mi-du11-ga-ta aḫulap mutiya aḫulap māriya ina qabê When she says, “Woe, my husband! Woe, my son!” (CAD A 214a)

I.2 “(bird call”) ti-gid2 (mušen)-lu2 a ud mi-ni-ib2-zal-zal-e The tigu-birds spend the day (chirping) “a’a.” (Gudea A, v 9)

I.3 “lion’s roar(?)” piriĝ-gin7 eme-sig-ta zi-ga-ni a-a dub,-be2-dam Like a lion, rearing up in his tracks, shaking with a roar(?). (PapJN, A.15)

Abbreviations: CAD Martha T Roth, et al., eds. The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Twenty volumes. Chicago: The Oriental Institute, 1956–

Enki&Ninḫ Enki and Ninḫursaĝ

PapJN Pabolsaĝ's Journey to Nippur

#sumerian language #sumerian #An Annotated Sumerian Dictionary #ancient languages #a nerd with a dictionary #the character r̂ was a pain to find

[sumerianlanguage]

Hello, I like very much your posts and find them very useful. I am starting to study Sumerian and learning the complex grammar system, I have read many history books and I am memorizing and writing one logogram per day. Now. I wanted to ask you : is this a good method to start with. Or else how I should proceed in your opinion. Thank you 🙏🏼

Hello, and thank you for the kind words! I've gotten several asks like this, and the answer is... it depends what works for you!

If you're the kind of person (like me) who learns best by conversation and translation as a living language, your best bet is to try thinking about how you would converse in the language. It's a slow start, but my videos can help with simple sentences, and I recommend to try translating songs, memes or random quotations you find into the language to get a handle on the grammar - some of my best learning has come from su-meme-rian!

If you're the kind of person (also like me) to dive in head first and read long grammar documents or dictionaries, check out my Sumerian resources tag, nelc books tag, or check out the books that I've used (Edzard's and Jagersma's grammars, plus the Halloran (2006) dictionary are the ones I cite most often).

If you're the kind of person who learns best through writing, then your approach of one cuneiform sign per day can work. It's not one I've tried myself, but if anyone out there has been learning Sumerian through cuneiform this way, let me know how it's going for you!

And, if you learn best in a classroom setting, your best bet may be to reach out to academic programs near you. Unfortunately there aren't a lot of freely available resources online, and academia isn't accessible to everybody.

If anybody has further recommendations, please reblog with them! In any case, best of luck with your learning journey, and I hope this blog helps. (Also, quick tag of @sonosomnus who asked a similar question recently, I'm lumping these into one ask.)

#replies #sumerian resources #language learning

[meirimerens]

i expected [album] by [musician] to go way harder than that with the hype it got but i feel like it's actually less raw & ~feral~ than previous albums. most of the instrumental i feel are way more pop-y, polished and less adventurous than they have been and the themes, while conjuring beautiful and deep and important images and imagery, are neither particularly niche nor songwritten about in particularly innovative ways. i'm sure it hits for people (and i see it does!) but i feel like the hype around it comes from. well i think some of yous don't listen to a lot of variety. and that's oaky. peace and love on earth

#to be fair my problem is that i listen to peter pringle's The epic of gilmamesh in Sumerian song and i'm like such a banger they haven't #done better since. and well. it was a while ago #let me not just say that and not recommend stuff i consider i was recommended [album] and it didn't hit but i'm recommending stuff and mayb #it'll hit maybe it won't... hold on #out of my head i can recommend mariee siou's faces in the rocks album (north american indigenous x eastern european); zwyntar (ukrainian) #i've also liked esben and the witch's no dog; hagia sophia by irfan; asaf avidan's labyrinth song #some stuff by Księżyc (polish) and by DrakhaBrakha (ukr.) #Tuularym by Uch-Sume-R (Tuvan if i'm not mistaken [indigenous siberian]) #if you like reflection ON languages i can recommend corpo-mente #werewolf by cat power :) shum by Go_A (ukr.) some strange forest by mariah woods

[alchemy-fic]

#development #HALF OF THIS IS JUST SUMERIAN LANGUAGE STUFF