Sumerian Language
A blog of conversational Sumerian
Anonymous asked: Would Sumerians have any chants/rituals for good luck or other things? Like how people may sacrifice something to have good luck on a trip. If so, what would they be (specifically the written kind)?
I did some searching, and here’s what I’ve got!
For written sources, the Sumerians would often write letters, either to relatives, an important official (like a king), or addressed to a deity (probably to be delivered to that deity’s temple), asking for good fortune or the alleviation of a suffering. These aren’t really chants/rituals, but they have survived much better because they were written letters. You can find transliterations and translations of some of these in this category of the ETCSL corpus; you may be able to find others through searching, as these letters are normally called Gottesbriefe in modern literature.
As for spoken chants or rituals, if you’re ok with Akkadian chants & hymns, you can try Lenzi’s Akkadian Prayers and Hymns (full text online), but these aren’t in Sumerian unfortunately, and I can’t find a good Sumerian equivalent (although equivalent hymns & spoken prayers certainly existed). (If you have JStor access you may find something in this Hallo 1968 article?) If anyone out there knows of one, please reblog & let me know!
Duet of A Sumerian Drinking Song
The chorus, kashe kashe kashe kash, means “beer beer beer beer”.
(Source: youtube.com)
Anonymous asked: My name is Erikk the second K literally doesn’t translate because it’s modern but Erik comes from old Norse background meaning eternal ruler/ eternal king. What would that translate to in Sumerian? I love the page I’ve learned so much!! Thank you again for it all
Hi Erikk! “King” in Sumerian is lugal, and “eternal” is dari, so “eternal king” would be lugaldari, written 𒈗𒁕𒌷 in cuneiform.
Well, huh. I mean, that tracks but I didn’t know “Darius” was Sumerian in origin.
Turns out, it’s not! “Darius” comes from Old Persian dārayavaush, meaning “he holds firm” or “he possesses”. The initial element is from Proto-Indo-European *dher- “to hold”, and has nothing to do with Sumerian dari.
winterphile asked: Hello, can't find what "angles" (like right, acute or obtuse) is in Sumerian, is there one?
There sure is! The Sumerians loved geometry and had vocabulary for a number of geometric terms. There are two interchangeable words for “geometric angle”, ub
𒌒
and ib
𒅁, both of which also meant “corner” (as in the corner of a room). This was the root of words like ibsi 𒅁𒍣, meaning “a square” or “the square root”.
Namentar & Hentahen - Questions & Help me out!
Silim! You may have noticed that this blog is back - and for the month of April, I’ll be focusing on answering the numerous questions y’all’ve shared with me over the last few years. There are quite a number, so please be patient if it takes a few weeks for me to get to yours! But in the meantime…
As I look towards what’s next for this project, I want to get your input on what you’d like to see. Please take a couple minutes to fill out this survey and let me know what you most enjoy & what you’re looking forward to on this blog and across my other platforms. Thanks so much! The survey link is here.
Cheers & be well! -@sumerianlanguage
Anonymous asked: Sorry if you've answered this before, but is "silim" the etymological ancestor of, say, "shalom"?
I get this question quite often, but I’m happy to share again!
The answer is sort of the reverse - the word silim, “hello”, is borrowed in part from the Akkadian equivalent. Akkadian is in the same family as Hebrew and Arabic, in which the s-l-m root means “peace”, but the Sumerians conflated the term with the native Sumerian word sil meaning “health”. So, when using it as a greeting, Sumerians meant “health” as in “may you be in good health”.
I guess you could say silim is the etymological step-cousin of shalom, rather than an ancestor. Thanks for your question!
rotten-to-the-applecore asked: Is there a cuneiform equivalent of the word “despacito”?
Sort of! Despacito is a Spanish word for “slowly” or, more idiomatically, “easy does it”. I actually don’t know of a great word for “slow” in Sumerian; the closest match I know for this context is zil
𒋳, meaning “to be loving, gentle; to caress”, but to make it into an adverbial meaning I’d have to construct a word like namzilda
𒉆𒋳𒁕
“with gentleness”. I hope that’s a close enough match!
Anonymous asked: Sorry in advance if you have already done this, I was trying to find out what the Sumerian words and symbols were for dawn and dusk.
Certainly! The word for “dawn” in Sumerian is uzalla or udzalla, written 𒌓𒉌 or sometimes 𒌓𒉌𒆷, which literally means “the day (is) elapsing”.
I’ve found two matches for “dusk”. There’s anusan “evening (sky), dusk”
𒀭𒄛, and umud
𒌓𒄷𒄭
“dark of the day, dusk”.
Anonymous asked: My name is Erikk the second K literally doesn’t translate because it’s modern but Erik comes from old Norse background meaning eternal ruler/ eternal king. What would that translate to in Sumerian? I love the page I’ve learned so much!! Thank you again for it all
Hi Erikk! “King” in Sumerian is lugal, and “eternal” is dari, so “eternal king” would be lugaldari, written
𒈗𒁕𒌷 in cuneiform.
Namentar & Hentahen - Questions & Help me out!
Silim! You may have noticed that this blog is back - and for the month of April, I’ll be focusing on answering the numerous questions y’all’ve shared with me over the last few years. There are quite a number, so please be patient if it takes a few weeks for me to get to yours! But in the meantime…
As I look towards what’s next for this project, I want to get your input on what you’d like to see. Please take a couple minutes to fill out this survey and let me know what you most enjoy & what you’re looking forward to on this blog and across my other platforms. Thanks so much! The survey link is here.
Cheers & be well! -@sumerianlanguage