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Sumerian and Akkadian and Cuneiform | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6508 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 25 of 49 23 November 2011 at 1:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Notes from todays lesson:
1 ḫa-am-mu-ra-pí Ḫammurapi LUGAL da-núm Šarrum dannum LUGAL KÁ.DINĜIR.RA.KI šar Bābilimki LUGAL ki-ib-ra-tim 5 ar-ba-im šar kibrātim arbaʾim ba-ni ma-tim bāni mātim LUGAL šā ip-šā-tu-su šarrum ša ipšātušu (<epēšum) a-na ši-ir DINĜIR.UTU ana šīr d.Šamaš ù DINGÎR.AMAR.UTU ṭa-ba u d.Marduk ṭaba (< ṭiābum [ṭʾb], stativ) 10 a-na-ku anāku. BÀD dūrum (<dwr) ša UD.KIB.NUN.KI šā Zimbir.ki in e-pe-ri in eperī ki-ma SA-TU-im kīma šadîm 15 ra-bi-im rabîm re-ši-šu rēšīšu lu ù-ul-li (<ʾlʾ) Every other line is transcription, the rest is normalization. The capitals represent logograms and are written with their sumerian sound value (for some reason). This is how it’s done. Slowly transcribe cuneiform into syllables and logogram, and with grammar knowledge fill in what vowels are long and what consonants are long, and then, try tå understand words. But some of them are sneaky, the weak ones, so one has to have a bit of fantasy to figure out from what radicals they once were made. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| BartoG Diglot Senior Member United States confession Joined 5296 days ago 292 posts - 818 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Spanish, Latin, Uzbek | Message 26 of 49 12 December 2011 at 1:51am | IP Logged | ||
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The logograms are written in all caps with the Sumerian value so that someone with a transliteration could theoretically reconstruct the cuneiform. Since cuneiform's a pain to type, never mind typeset, it makes sense to have a way to note exactly what was on the tablet without having to make a copy in cuneiform.
I'm trusting that the inductive book you got for yourself is the Marcus. It's a nice book that I think brings you to grips with reading Akkadian a lot faster than Caplice, though Caplice might be better for active mastery. Hope you're still enjoying the adventure. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6508 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 27 of 49 02 January 2012 at 1:08am | IP Logged | ||
I don’t like Caplice at all. After comparing him to Huenergard, he comes off as a boring lazy fellow. There’s no key, glossary used in exercises are introduced in the lesson that comes after, he constantly introduces irrelevant values of cuneiform signs. A lot of the signs have verbs as values, yet I’ve never ever seen him use a logogram for a verb… Ah well. I survived the exam. It was approved, and well, I have some points in akkadian! Wohoo!… So, now that I don’t have to, studying feels more fun. I’m going to buy Huenergard and work through his monstrous yet comprehensible book form page 1 and onwards as my goal for the year. It’s easier to read SB and Assyrian if one has a good fundament in OB. I will have to learn older variants of the cuneiform, so the fact that Huenergard gives them in OB- form and not only in NA will be very nice. They also look better. Except when he writes them… Time to sleep. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6508 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 28 of 49 03 January 2012 at 11:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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Today, starting over with the much better book Huenergards Akkadian Grammar, I’ve done chapter one.
Syllabification and accentuation. Not that fun, I already knew the words, but it’s probably going to be useful anyway. Light start, so to say. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6552 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 29 of 49 04 January 2012 at 1:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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Could you explain a total novice how "LUGAL KÁ.DINĜIR.RA.KI" can look like "šar Bābilimki" when normalized?
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| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6508 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 30 of 49 04 January 2012 at 4:19pm | IP Logged | ||
Cuneiform signs can have either a syllabic value, or a logographic value. When they’re used logographicly they are transcribed using the sumerian value for the sign, thus king in sumerian is lugal. King in akkadian is šarrum, and in this context it’s in the state of construct, thus it loses its case ending, and becomes šar (akkadian does not allow geminate consonants in the end of a word). As for Babilim (Babylon), the name of the city was always written with some signs for, to us sometimes unknowns reasons, but for convenience sake the signs are transcribed with the sumerian values of them. The ki is a determinative, that is silent, and it’s usually written in normalisation with superscript to show that, but that was lost. Ki just mean that what comes before is the name of a town. Other determinatives can be LU, means that it’s the name of a person, GIŠ, means it’s a tree or something made out of wood, etc. etc. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6508 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 31 of 49 18 January 2012 at 10:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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And thus the time-machine travel back yet another thousand years as I will begin study Sumerian, a language that
yes is to be entirely understood and whose grammar and phonology is under hard academic debate. It’s going to be interesting. I also have to read 3000 pages about the religion and history of Mesopotamia, that’s going to be a lot less fun, though, interesting. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6508 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 32 of 49 18 January 2012 at 10:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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So, Sumerian, language isolate, agglutinating language, it’s ergative and relies on aspect rather than tense. It has
two genders: animate and inanimate. And that’s about it in regard to what people can agree on. é means house, lù man, nita male, nin lady, -ani is a possessive suffix, -r(a) is a dative suffix, -n is a lot of stuff. Inannar ninanin Ur-Nammu legal Urimake é manandu. I think means «For Innana, his lady, Ur-Nammu built a house. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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