Sumerian Language
A blog of conversational Sumerian
Silim y'all! A quick heads up that my life has been a roller coaster this last couple weeks, so I’m not able to do my usual Sumerian stream tonight. I should be back for Sumerian on 3/28, with other streams in the meantime - follow over there to get notified when I’m live! I’m also certainly very behind on asks, thanks for your patience everybody. Hoping to have answers and other sweet, sweet Mesopotamian content for y'all towards the end of the month. Cheers! -sumerianlanguage
aglaxium asked:
how did sumerian number words work? were they only base 60 in the numerals, or is it unknowable?
Hello! “Base 60” is a simplification of how Sumerian place value worked - really it’s more an alternation of base 10 and base 6. In English, our “round numbers” are multiples of ten, so hundred, thousand, million etc.
The Sumerian round numbers are 10 u, then 10x6 = 60 ngesh, then 60x10 = 600 ngeshu, then 600x6 = 3600 shar, then 3600x10 = 36,000 sharu, then 36,000x6 = 216,000 sharngesh. This pattern may have continued, but I don’t know the names for any bigger place values until 12,960,000, shargalshunutagga “untouchable number”, which was basically used to mean “infinity, number too large to matter” rather than in actual mathematics.
Unfortunately, how exactly the specific numbers between these would be named is somewhat unclear, and they may not have had fixed names for each number up to 216,000 and beyond. For example, 36,000 is sharu, but that’s also how 3,610 would be said (shar + u).
If you mean grammatically, numbers are treated like any other adjective, following the noun they modify: uduu “ten sheep”, udusharngesh “216,000 sheep”. By and large, if a nonhuman noun is modified by a number, it is not marked as plural in any other way, with the number making obvious that it’s plural.
For more, check out my Sumerian numbers tag!
gilgamesh: tell the whole world we’re bros
enkidu: you’re the only bro for me bro
gilgamesh: bro why’d you only tell me
enkidu: because you’re my world bro
gilgamesh, holding back tears: bro….
gilgamesh: namsheshme sharra heben
enkidu: zae ngar sheshashmen, shesh
gilgamesh: shesh, anaash ashbi maedug
enkidu: zae sharngumen, shesh
gilgamesh, er gugule: shesh…
(via blackcurrant-juice)
To the anon who just sent me ten asks: please send me a DM using tumblr’s Messages feature. I’d love to answer that way instead of publicly. Thanks!
bookwyrmth1rt33n asked:
Silim!
I’m aware you’ve been asked a similar question in the past, but for the sake of (Sumerian!) grammatical/word-order correctness, I have a polite query:
How does one say, “child (born) of the prince/ss,” or “child (born) of Ereshkigal” in Sumerian (but not cuneiform, just transliterated English letters, plz)?
I figured the word-order would be something like the examples listed below:
Dumu-nun-tud-da, Dumu-nun-tu-da, Dumu-nun-dú-da
(dumu ‘(noun) child, son, daughter, descendant’ + nun ‘(noun) prince/ss, noble, master/mistress’ + tud, tu, dú ‘(verb) to be born’ + -da, genitive)
Hi! You’ve found the right vocabulary, but are just a little off on the grammar.
For just a noun phrase like this, the simplest to do is dumu “child” + [name/noun] + genitive case ending -(a)(k) “of”. Plugging in nun “prince”, you’d get dumununa “child of the prince”. Nun is usually used for a male prince; for “princess” I’d use egir, which is more specific, in dumuegira. “Child of Ereshkigal” would follow the same pattern, dumuEreshkigala. Note also that if the noun ends in a vowel, the final -a of the genitive ending disappears: dumuUtu “child of Utu”.
If you want to use tud “be born”, the set phrase structure is dumu + [name] + directive case ending -(e) + tud-da. “Child born of the prince” would thus be dumu nune tudda, “child born of the princess” would be dumu egire tudda, and “child born of Ereshkigal” is dumu Ereshkigale tudda. That final -e also disappears after a vowel, so dumu Utu tudda (as it appears in the Hymn to Nanše A line 85).
The interaction of verbs like tud with the different cases in Sumerian can be confusing. I hope that’s clear, and let me know if I can clarify in any way!
aufdemzauberberg-deactivated202:
when you find that one paper or article that is in itself an informative pot of gold for your research topic and on top of that leads you to a pile of other highly relevant sources its like finding and following a rainbow utter academia bliss i have found god he is a leprechaun brandishing a beautiful index of relevant primary and secondary literature
(via l-iliade)
avenrose asked:
hellooooo :D
i have returned with a different URL and a new translation question for my story!
is there anything akin to "realm" (either direct or indirect is fine) in Sumerian? EPSD2 says there's no (direct) translations for domain or realm, but i do like "ašte" for dwelling or shrine.
essentially, my smol problem is trying to find a good word (or words?) for something like a personal realm/pocket dimension or an individual mindscape of sorts. i figured i'd fall back on something Sumerian, since it's been a while, but can't quite think of anything that would work that is also translatable
Hello! I do have a word for “realm” for you - Halloran lists mada 𒈠𒁕 as “district, realm, territory; foreign or conquered lands”, which the ePSD2 lists as simply “land, country”.
My twitch crew helped brainstorm some additional ideas for your purposes. You could combine mada with urum 𒌑𒀸 “property, thing privately owned” to make madaurum “private realm, personal realm”, or maybe with tun 𒂅 “pocket, bag, container” to make mada tuna 𒈠𒁕 𒂅𒈾 “realm in a pocket”. (I used tun for “pocket” in this fun prior post!)
And for “individual mindscape”, I might try to calque the English phrase “mind palace” as egalbara 𒂍𒃲𒁇𒊏, from egal “palace” and bar “mind”. I hope one of these phrases works for you!
missfortunesfavor asked:
Sorry for the double questions!! I know that the Ziggurat of Ur is called "Etemenniguru" and the Ziggurat of Babylon was called, "Etemenanki". Were any other ancient Structures named this way? What would a "Temple of Wind", or to the divinity Enlil be called? Thank you again!
Hello! Yes, a couple of well-known ziggurats are named using etemen 𒂍𒋼, which basically means “foundation (temen) house (e)” or “temple on a foundation platform”. You can construct the name of a ziggurat of your own with etemen + [thing] + -a, with the final -a only appearing after a consonant - so etemenenlila “Ziggurat of Enlil”.
However, the more generic term for a temple is egal 𒂍𒃲 “great house”, as previously discussed in this post. The naming pattern would be the same, egalenlila “temple of Enlil”.
For “wind”, as mentioned in my answer a few days ago, the two words are mer and tumu. So “temple of wind” would be either egalmera or egaltumu. I hope those work for you!
Anonymous asked:
Hi! I was wondering how you would transliterate the name Abel, or any of its equivalents if that's more appropriate (like the Hebrew Hevel) into Sumerian? Thank you!
Hello! In the past, I’ve done mostly translations of names. The etymology I know for Abel/Hevel means “breath” or “vapor”. There are a couple words for “breath” in Sumerian: you can use simply zi 𒍣 “breath, life”, but for clarity I’d use zipang 𒍣𒉺𒉘 “breath, voice, throat”. I don’t know of a word for “vapor” or “steam”, but the closest I know is muru 𒅎𒂂 “fog, mist, haze, drizzle”.
However, if you want a transliteration, I’d use the signs A2-BE-EL 𒀉𒁁𒂖 or AB2-EL 𒀊𒂖. Neither of these would mean anything as far as I can tell, as el doesn’t have an independent recorded meaning in Sumerian.
I hope one or both of these is helpful!
missfortunesfavor asked:
Hello again!! I've been reading your previous posts about wind and climate. I'm interested in knowing today how to express the names of various types of winds. For example, if I wanted to say "Spirits of the Four Winds" how might that be expressed? Further, what would be the names of "The North Wind" "The South Wind" "The East Wind" and "The West Wind"? I'm conceptualizing them as four sisters/spirits who control the winds. Thank you so much!!
Hello! The general words for “wind” in Sumerian are mer or mir, written 𒂇 in cuneiform, and tumu 𒅎.
𒅎 also acts as the determinative sign for directional winds, meaning each is written beginning with 𒅎 but “tumu” wouldn’t be spoken as part of the name. So, “east wind” is satium 𒅎𒊕𒋾𒌝, “south wind” is ulu 𒅎𒍇 or ulumash 𒅎𒃷𒄴𒈨𒌋, “west wind” is nusisa 𒅎𒉡𒋛𒁲 and “north wind” is sisa 𒅎𒋛𒁲.
There are a couple other terms used for two specific directions: “east wind” is often just kur 𒆳, which means “east” or “mountain” (the large Zagros mountains lie east of Mespotamia), and there is a word for “west wind” written MAR-TU 𒈥𒌅 but with uncertain pronunciation, that also refers to the people of the deserts west of Mesopotamia, most often the Amorites. But for parallelism I’d use the 𒅎 terms for the four wind directions.
For “spirit” I’d use bar 𒁇, which means “spirit” or “mind” along with numerous other meanings. With tumu for “wind” and limmu 𒇹 “four”, we can combine the terms to make bartumulimmu “spirit(s) of the four winds” or “the four wind spirits”, written 𒁇𒅎𒇹. I hope that works for you!