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Sumerian
𒅴𒂠 Emeg̃ir
Native to	Sumer and Akkad
Region	Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq)
Era	Attested from c. 2900 BC. Went out of vernacular use around 1700 BC; used as a classical language until about 100 AD.
Language family	Language isolate
Dialects	Emesal Emesisa Emetena Emesukudda Emesuha Emesidi Emeku
Writing system	Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform
Language codes
ISO 639-2	sux
ISO 639-3	sux
Linguist List	uga
Glottolog	sume1241
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Sumerian (Template:Lang-sux) was the language of ancient Sumer. It is one of the oldest attested languages, dating back to at least 2900 BC. It is accepted to be a local language isolate and to have been spoken in ancient Mesopotamia, in the area that is modern-day Iraq.

Akkadian, a Semitic language, gradually replaced Sumerian as the primary spoken language in the area c. 2000 BC (the exact date is debated), but Sumerian continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary and scientific language in Akkadian-speaking Mesopotamian states such as Assyria and Babylonia until the 1st century AD. Thereafter, it seems to have fallen into obscurity until the 19th century, when Assyriologists began deciphering the cuneiform inscriptions and excavated tablets that had been left by its speakers.

Stages

The history of written Sumerian can be divided into several periods:

• Archaic Sumerian – c. 2900 BC to c. 2600 BC
• Old or Classical Sumerian – c. 2600 BC to c. 2100 BC
• Neo-Sumerian – c. 2100 BC to c. 1700 BC
• Post-Sumerian – after c. 1700 BC.

Archaic Sumerian is the earliest stage of inscriptions with linguistic content, beginning with the Early Dynastic period from about 2900 BC to 2600 BC. It succeeds the proto-literate period, which spans roughly 3300 BC to 2900 BC.

The term "Post-Sumerian" is meant to refer to the time when the language was already extinct and preserved by Mesopotamians only as a liturgical and classical language for religious, artistic and scholarly purposes. The extinction has traditionally been dated approximately to the end of the Third Dynasty of Ur, the last predominantly Sumerian state in Mesopotamia, about 2000 BC. However, that date is very approximate, as many scholars have contended that Sumerian was already dead or dying as early as c. 2100 BC, by the beginning of the Ur III period, and others 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. Whatever the status of spoken Sumerian between 2000 and 1700 BC, it is from then that a particularly large quantity of literary texts and bilingual Sumerian-Akkadian lexical lists survive, especially from the scribal school of Nippur. Sumerian school documents from the Sealand Dynasty were found at Tell Khaiber, some of which contain year names from the reign of a king with the Sumerian throne name Aya-dara-galama.

Classification

Sumerian is widely accepted to be a local language isolate. Sumerian was at one time widely held to be an Indo-European language, but that view later came to be almost universally rejected. Ever since decipherment, it has been the subject of much effort to relate it to a wide variety of languages. Because it has a particular prestige as the first attested written language, proposals for linguistic affinity sometimes have a nationalistic flavour, leading to attempts to link Sumerian with a range of widely disparate groups such as the Austroasiatic languages, Dravidian languages, Uralic languages such as Hungarian and Finnish, and Sino-Tibetan languages. Turkish nationalists have claimed that Sumerian was a Turkic language as part of the Sun language theory. Additionally, long-range proposals have attempted to include Sumerian in broad macrofamilies. Such proposals enjoy virtually no support among modern linguists, Sumerologists and Assyriologists and are typically seen as fringe theories.

It has also been suggested that the Sumerian language descended from a late prehistoric creole language (Høyrup 1992). However, no conclusive evidence, only some typological features, can be found to support Høyrup's view. A more widespread hypothesis posits a Proto-Euphratean language that preceded Sumerian in Mesopotamia and exerted an areal influence on it, especially in the form of polysyllabic words that appear "un-Sumerian"—making them suspect of being loanwords—and are not traceable to any other known language. There is little speculation as to the affinities of this substratum language, or these languages, and it is thus best treated as unclassified. Other researchers disagree with the assumption of a single substratum language and argue that several languages are involved. A related proposal by Gordon Whittaker is that the language of the proto-literary texts from the Late Uruk period (c. 3350–3100 BC) is really an early Indo-European language which he terms "Euphratic".

Writing system

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Development

Pictographic proto-writing was used starting in c. 3600 BCE, and this is assumed to be records from people speaking the Sumerian language. By c. 2800 BCE, some tablets began using syllabic elements that clearly indicated a relation to the Sumerian language. Around 2600 BCE, cuneiform symbols were developed using a wedge-shaped stylus to impress the shapes into wet clay. This cuneiform ("wedge-shaped") mode of writing co-existed with the proto-cuneiform archaic mode. Deimel (1922) lists 870 signs used in the Early Dynastic IIIa period (26th century). In the same period the large set of logographic signs had been simplified into a logosyllabic script comprising several hundred signs. Rosengarten (1967) lists 468 signs used in Sumerian (pre-Sargonian) Lagash.

The cuneiform script was adapted to Akkadian writing beginning in the mid-third millennium. Over the long period of bi-lingual overlap of active Sumerian and Akkadian usage the two languages influenced each other, as reflected in numerous loanwords and even word order changes.

Transcription

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). (See the article Transliterating cuneiform languages.) Some Sumerian logograms were written with multiple cuneiform signs. These logograms are called diri-spellings, after the logogram 𒋛𒀀 'diri' which is written with the signs 𒋛 SI and 𒀀 A. The text transliteration of a tablet will show just the logogram, such as the word 'diri', not the separate component signs.

Not all epigraphists are equally reliable, and before publication of an important treatment of a text, scholars 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.

Historiography

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The key to reading logosyllabic cuneiform came from the Behistun inscription, a trilingual cuneiform inscription written in Old Persian, Elamite and Akkadian. (In a similar manner, the key to understanding Egyptian hieroglyphs was the bilingual Rosetta stone and Jean-François Champollion's transcription in 1822.)

In 1838 Henry Rawlinson, building on the 1802 work of Georg Friedrich Grotefend, was able to decipher the Old Persian section of the Behistun inscriptions, using his knowledge of modern Persian. When he recovered the rest of the text in 1843, he and others were gradually able to translate the Elamite and Akkadian sections of it, starting with the 37 signs he had deciphered for the Old Persian. Meanwhile, many more cuneiform texts were coming to light from archaeological excavations, mostly in the Semitic Akkadian language, which were duly deciphered.

By 1850, however, Edward Hincks came to suspect a non-Semitic origin for cuneiform. Semitic languages are structured according to consonantal forms, whereas cuneiform, when functioning phonetically, was a syllabary, binding consonants to particular vowels. Furthermore, no Semitic words could be found to explain the syllabic values given to particular signs. Julius Oppert suggested that a non-Semitic language had preceded Akkadian in Mesopotamia, and that speakers of this language had developed the cuneiform script.

In 1855 Rawlinson announced the discovery of non-Semitic inscriptions at the southern Babylonian sites of Nippur, Larsa, and Uruk.

In 1856, Hincks argued that the untranslated language was agglutinative in character. The language was called "Scythic" by some, and, confusingly, "Akkadian" by others. In 1869, Oppert proposed the name "Sumerian", based on the known title "King of Sumer and Akkad", reasoning that if Akkad signified the Semitic portion of the kingdom, Sumer might describe the non-Semitic annex.

Credit for being first to scientifically treat a bilingual Sumerian-Akkadian text belongs to Paul Haupt, who published Die sumerischen Familiengesetze (The Sumerian family laws) in 1879.

Ernest de Sarzec 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. The University of Pennsylvania began excavating Sumerian Nippur in 1888.

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

The bewildering number and variety of phonetic values that signs could have in Sumerian led to a 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. For a dozen years, starting in 1885, Friedrich Delitzsch accepted Halévy's arguments, not renouncing Halévy until 1897.

François Thureau-Dangin working at the Louvre in Paris also 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. Charles Fossey at the Collège de France in Paris was another prolific and reliable scholar. His pioneering Contribution au Dictionnaire sumérien–assyrien, Paris 1905–1907, turns out to provide the foundation for P. Anton Deimel's 1934 Sumerisch-Akkadisches Glossar (vol. III of Deimel's 4-volume Sumerisches Lexikon).

In 1908, Stephen Herbert 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, the Sumerologist Samuel Noah Kramer provided a detailed and readable summary of the decipherment of Sumerian in his Sumerian Mythology.

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. While much of Thomsen's understanding of Sumerian grammar would later be rejected by most or all Sumerologists, Thomsen's grammar (often with express mention of the critiques put forward by Pascal Attinger in his 1993 Eléments de linguistique sumérienne: La construction de du₁₁/e/di 'dire') is the starting point of most recent academic discussions of Sumerian grammar.

More recent monograph-length grammars of Sumerian include Dietz-Otto Edzard's 2003 Sumerian Grammar and Bram Jagersma's 2010 A Descriptive Grammar of Sumerian (currently digital, but soon to be printed in revised form by Oxford University Press). Piotr Michalowski's essay (entitled, simply, "Sumerian") in the 2004 The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages has also been recognized as a good modern grammatical sketch.

There is relatively little consensus, even among reasonable Sumerologists, in comparison to the state of most modern or classical languages. Verbal morphology, in particular, is hotly disputed. In addition to the general grammars, there are many monographs and articles about particular areas of Sumerian grammar, without which a survey of the field could not be considered complete.

The primary institutional lexical effort in Sumerian is the Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary project, begun in 1974. In 2004, the PSD was released on the Web as the ePSD. The project is currently supervised by Steve Tinney. It has not been updated online since 2006, but Tinney and colleagues are working on a new edition of the ePSD, a working draft of which is available online.

Phonology

Assumed phonological or morphological forms will be between slashes //, with plain text used for the standard Assyriological transcription of Sumerian. Most of the following examples are unattested.

Phonemic inventory

Modern knowledge of Sumerian phonology is flawed and incomplete because of the lack of speakers, the transmission through the filter of Akkadian phonology and the difficulties posed by the cuneiform script. As I. M. Diakonoff observes, "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".

Consonants

Early Sumerian is conjectured to have had at least the consonants listed in the table below. The consonants in brackets are reconstructed by some scholars based on indirect evidence; if they existed, they were lost around the Ur III period in the late 3rd millennium BC.

• a simple distribution of six stop consonants in three places of articulation, originally distinguished by aspiration. In the late 3rd millennium BC, the unaspirated stops are thought to have become voiced in most positions (although not word-finally):
  • p (voiceless aspirated bilabial plosive),
  • t (voiceless aspirated alveolar plosive),
  • k (voiceless aspirated velar plosive),
    • As a rule, /p/, /t/ and /k/ did not occur word-finally.
  • b (voiced unaspirated bilabial plosive), later voiced;
  • d (voiced unaspirated alveolar plosive), later voiced;
  • g (voiced unaspirated velar plosive), later voiced.
• a phoneme usually represented by <ř> (sometimes written dr), which became /d/ or /r/ in northern and southern dialects, respectively, after the Old Akkadian period. It was first reconstructed as a voiced alveolar tap /ɾ/, but Bram Jagersma argues that it was a voiceless aspirated alveolar affricate because of its reflection in loanwords in Akkadian, among other reasons, and this view is accepted by Zólyomi (2017: 28).
• a simple distribution of three nasal consonants in similar distribution to the stops:
  • m (bilabial nasal),
  • n (alveolar nasal),
  • g̃ (frequently printed ĝ due to typesetting constraints, increasingly transcribed as ŋ) /ŋ/ (likely a velar nasal, as in sing, it has also been argued to be a labiovelar nasal or a nasalized labiovelar).
• a set of three sibilants:
  • s, likely a voiceless alveolar fricative,
  • z, likely a voiceless unaspirated alveolar affricate, /t͡s/, as shown by Akkadian loans from /s/= to Sumerian /z/. In early Sumerian, this would have been the unaspirated counterpart to <ř>. Like the stop series /b/, /d/ and /g/, it is thought to have become voiced /dz/ in some positions in the late 3rd millennium.
  • š (generally described as a voiceless postalveolar fricative, /ʃ/, as in ship)
• ḫ (a velar fricative, /x/, sometimes written <h>)
• two liquid consonants:
  • l (a lateral consonant)
  • r (a rhotic consonant), which Jagersma argues was realised as a tap because of various evidence suggesting its phonetic similarity to /t/ and /d/.

The existence of various other consonants has been hypothesized based on graphic alternations and loans, though none have found wide acceptance. For example, Diakonoff lists evidence for two lateral phonemes, two rhotics, two back fricatives, and two g-sounds (excluding the velar nasal), and assumes a phonemic difference between consonants that are dropped word-finally (such as the g in 𒍠 zag > za₃) and consonants that remain (such as the g in 𒆷𒀝 lag). Other "hidden" consonant phonemes that have been suggested include semivowels such as /j/ and /w/, and a glottal fricative /h/ or a glottal stop that could explain the absence of vowel contraction in some words—though objections have been raised against that as well. A recent descriptive grammar by Bram Jagersma includes /j/, /h/, and /ʔ/ as unwritten consonants, with the glottal stop even serving as the first-person pronominal prefix. However, these unwritten consonants had been lost by the Ur III period according to Jagersma.

Very often, a word-final consonant was not expressed in writing—and was possibly omitted in pronunciation—so it surfaced only when followed by a vowel: for example the /k/ of the genitive case ending -ak does not appear in 𒂍𒈗𒆷 e₂ lugal-la "the king's house", but it becomes obvious in 𒂍𒈗𒆷𒄰 e₂ lugal-la-kam "(it) is the king's house" (compare liaison in French). Jagersma believes that the lack of expression of word-final consonants was originally mostly a graphic convention, but that in the late 3rd millennium voiceless aspirated stops and affricates (/pʰ/, /tʰ/, /kʰ/ and /tsʰ/ were, indeed, gradually lost in syllable-final position, as were the unaspirated stops /d/ and /g/.

Vowels

The vowels that are clearly distinguished by the cuneiform script are /a/, /e/, /i/, and /u/. Various researchers have posited the existence of more vowel phonemes such as /o/ and even /ɛ/ and /ɔ/, which would have been concealed by the transmission through Akkadian, as that language does not distinguish them. That would explain the seeming existence of numerous homophones in transliterated Sumerian, as well as some details of the phenomena mentioned in the next paragraph. These hypotheses are not yet generally accepted. Phonemic vowel length has also been posited by some scholars.

There is some evidence for vowel harmony according to vowel height or advanced tongue root in the prefix 𒉌/𒂊 i₃/e- in inscriptions from pre-Sargonic Lagash, and perhaps even more than one vowel harmony rule. There also appear to be many cases of partial or complete assimilation of the vowel of certain prefixes and suffixes to one in the adjacent syllable reflected in writing in some of the later periods, and there is a noticeable, albeit not absolute, tendency for disyllabic stems to have the same vowel in both syllables. These patterns, too, are interpreted as evidence for a richer vowel inventory by some researchers. What appears to be vowel contraction in hiatus (*/aa/, */ia/, */ua/ > a, */ae/ > a, */ue/ > u, etc.) is also very common.

Syllables could have any of the following structures: V, CV, VC, CVC. More complex syllables, if Sumerian had them, are not expressed as such by the cuneiform script.

Grammar

Ever since its decipherment, research of Sumerian has been made difficult not only by the lack of any native speakers, but also by the relative sparseness of linguistic data, the apparent lack of a closely related language, and the features of the writing system. Typologically, as mentioned above, Sumerian is classified as an agglutinative, split ergative, and subject-object-verb language. It behaves as a nominative–accusative language in the 1st and 2nd persons of the incomplete tense-aspect, but as ergative–absolutive in most other forms of the indicative mood. Sumerian nouns are organized in two grammatical genders based on animacy: animate and inanimate. Animate nouns include humans, gods, and in some instances the word for "statue". Case is indicated by suffixes on the noun. Noun phrases are right branching with adjectives and modifiers following nouns.

Sumerian verbs have a tense-aspect complex, contrasting complete and incomplete actions/states. The two have different conjugations and many have different roots. Verbs also mark mood, voice, polarity, iterativity, and intensity; and agree with subjects and objects in number, person, animacy, and case. Sumerian moods are: indicative, imperative, cohortative, precative/affirmative, prospective aspect/cohortative mood, affirmative/negative-volitive, unrealised-volitive?, negative?, affirmative?, polaritive, and are marked by a verbal prefix. The prefixes appear to conflate mood, aspect, and polarity; and their meanings are also affected by the tense-aspect complex. Sumerian voices are: active, and middle or passive. Verbs are marked for three persons: 1st, 2nd, 3rd; in two numbers: singular and plural. Finite verbs have three classes of prefixes: modal prefixes, conjugational prefixes, and pronominal/dimensional prefixes. Modal prefixes confer the above moods on the verb. Conjugational prefixes are thought to confer perhaps venitive/andative, being/action, focus, valency, or voice distinctions on the verb. Pronominal/dimensional prefixes correspond to noun phrases and their cases. Non-finite verbs include participles and relative clause verbs, both formed through nominalisation. Finite verbs take prefixes and suffixes, non-finite verbs only take suffixes. Verbal roots are mostly monosyllabic, though verbal root duplication and suppletion can also occur to indicate plurality. Root duplication can also indicate iterativity or intensity of the verb.

Nominal morphology

Noun phrases

The Sumerian noun is typically a one or two-syllable root (𒅆 igi "eye", 𒂍 e₂ "house, household", 𒎏 nin "lady"), although there are also some roots with three syllables like 𒆠𒇴 šakanka "market". There are two grammatical genders, usually called human and non-human (the first includes gods and the word for "statue" in some instances, but not plants or animals, the latter also includes collective plural nouns), whose assignment is semantically predictable.

The adjectives and other modifiers follow the noun (𒈗𒈤 lugal maḫ "great king"). The noun itself is not inflected; rather, grammatical markers attach to the noun phrase as a whole, in a certain order. Typically, that order would be:

An example may be 𒀭𒃲𒃲𒈬𒉈𒊏 /dig̃ir gal-gal-g̃u-ne-ra/ ("god great (reduplicated)-my-plural-dative" = "for all my great gods"). The possessive, plural and case markers are traditionally referred to as "suffixes", but have recently also been described as enclitics or postpositions.

The plural markers are _𒉈 /-(e)ne/ (optional) for nouns of the human gender. Non-human nouns are not marked by a plural suffix. However, plurality can also be expressed with the adjective 𒄭𒀀 ḫi-a "various", with the plural of the copula 𒈨𒂠 /-meš/, by reduplication of the noun (𒆳𒆳 kur-kur "all foreign lands") or of the following adjective (𒀀𒃲𒃲 a gal-gal "all the great waters") (reduplication is believed to signify totality) or by the plurality of only the verb form. Plural reference in the verb form occurs only for human nouns.

The generally recognised case markers are:

More endings are recognised by some researchers; e.g. Bram Jagersma notes a separate adverbiative case in 𒂠/𒌍 /-eš/ and a second locative in 𒉈/𒉌 /-ne/ used mostly with infinite verb forms.

Additional spatial or temporal meanings can be expressed by genitive phrases like "at the head of" = "above", "at the face of" = "in front of", "at the outer side of" = "because of" etc.: 𒁇𒇻𒌓𒅗 bar udu ḫad₂-ak-a = "outer.side sheep white-genitive-locative" = "in the outer side of a white sheep" = "because of a white sheep".

The embedded structure of the noun phrase can be further illustrated with the phrase 𒉺𒇻𒇻𒋠𒅗𒆤𒉈 sipad udu siki-(a)k-ak-ene ("the shepherds of woolly sheep"), where the first genitive morpheme (-a(k)) subordinates 𒋠 siki "wool" to 𒇻 udu "sheep", and the second subordinates 𒇻𒋠 udu siki-(a)k "sheep of wool" (or "woolly sheep") to 𒉺𒇻 sipad "shepherd".

For most of the suffixes, vowels are subject to loss if they are attached to vowel-final words.

Pronouns

The attested personal pronouns are:

The stem vowels of 𒂷𒂊 g̃e₂₆-e and 𒂊 ze₂-e are assimilated to a following case suffix containing /a/ and then have the forms 𒂷 g̃a- and 𒍝 za-; e.g. 𒍝𒊏 za-ra 'to you (sg.)'.

Numerals

Sumerian has a combination decimal and sexagesimal system (for example, 600 is 'ten sixties'), so that the Sumerian lexical numeral system is sexagesimal with 10 as a subbase. Numerals and composite numbers are as follows:

Verbal morphology

General

The Sumerian finite verb distinguishes a number of moods and agrees (more or less consistently) with the subject and the object in person, number and gender. The verb chain may also incorporate pronominal references to the verb's other modifiers, which has also traditionally been described as "agreement", although, in fact, such a reference and the presence of an actual modifier in the clause need not co-occur: not only 𒂍𒂠𒌈𒌈𒅆𒁺𒌦 e₂-še₃ ib₂-ši-du-un "I'm going to the house", but also 𒂍𒂠𒉌𒁺𒌦 e₂-še₃ i₃-du-un "I'm going to the house" and simply 𒌈𒅆𒁺𒌦 ib₂-ši-du-un "I'm going to it" are possible.

The Sumerian verb also makes a binary distinction according to a category that some regard as tense (past vs present-future), others as aspect (perfective vs imperfective), and that will be designated as TA (tense/aspect) in the following. The two members of the opposition entail different conjugation patterns and, at least for many verbs, different stems; they are theory-neutrally referred to with the Akkadian grammatical terms for the two respective forms – ḫamṭu (quick) and marû (slow, fat). Finally, opinions differ on whether the verb has a passive or a middle voice and how it is expressed.

The verbal root is almost always a monosyllable and, together with various affixes, forms a so-called verbal chain which is described as a sequence of about 15 slots, though the precise models differ. The finite verb has both prefixes and suffixes, while the non-finite verb may only have suffixes. Broadly, the prefixes have been divided in three groups that occur in the following order: modal prefixes, "conjugation prefixes", and pronominal and dimensional prefixes. The suffixes are a future or imperfective marker /-ed-/, pronominal suffixes, and an /-a/ ending that nominalizes the whole verb chain. The overall structure can be summarized as follows:

Note also that more than one pairing of a pronominal prefix and a dimensional prefix may occur within the verb chain.

Modal prefixes

The modal prefixes are :

• /Ø-/ (indicative),
• 𒉡 /nu-/ and 𒆷 /la-/, 𒇷 /li-/ (negative; /la/ and /li/ are used before the conjugation prefixes ba- and bi₂-, respectively),
• 𒂵 /ga-/ (cohortative, "let me/us"),
• 𒄩 /ḫa-/ or 𒃶 /ḫe-/ with further assimilation of the vowel to /ḫu-/ in front of /u/ in later periods (precative or affirmative),
• 𒅇 /u-/ (prospective "after/when/if", also used as a mild imperative),
• 𒈾 /na-/ (negative wish or affirmative),
• 𒁀𒊏 /bara-/ (negative or vetitive),
• 𒉡𒍑 /nuš-/ (unrealizable wish?) and
• 𒊭 /ša-/ with further assimilation of the vowel in later periods (affirmative?).

Some of these prefixes are generally combined with certain TAs. /u-/ is only used with ḫamṭu forms, and so is /ga-/, which nevertheless uses the personal affix set of the marû conjugation. In other cases, the meaning of a modal prefix can depend on the TA. It is almost always the case that negative /na-/ is used with the marû TA, while affirmative /na-/ is used with the ḫamṭu TA. Similarly, /ḫa-/ is combined the ḫamṭu TA if the meaning is affirmative or if the verb is intransitive or stative; to express precative meaning with a verb denoting a transitive action, the marû form is used. The prefix /bara-/ is combined with the ḫamṭu TA if the verb expresses a state (past, present or future), while it is combined the marû TA if the verb expresses an action (always present or future).

"Conjugation prefixes"

The meaning, structure, identity and even the number of "conjugation prefixes" have always been a subject of disagreements. The term "conjugation prefix" simply alludes to the fact that a finite verb in the indicative mood must always contain one of them. Some of their most frequent expressions in writing are 𒈬 mu-, 𒉌 i₃- (ED Lagaš variant: 𒂊 e-), 𒁀 ba-, 𒉈 bi₂- (ED Lagaš: 𒁉 bi- or be₂), 𒅎 im-, 𒅎𒈠 im-ma- (ED Lagaš 𒂊𒈠 e-ma-), 𒅎𒈪 im-mi- (ED Lagaš 𒉌𒈪 i₃-mi or 𒂊𒈨 e-me-), 𒈪 mi- and 𒀠 al-, and to a lesser extent 𒀀 a-, 𒀀𒀭 am₃-, 𒀀𒀭𒈠 am₃-ma-, and 𒀀𒀭𒈪 am₃-mi-; virtually all analyses attempt to describe many of the above as combinations or allomorphs of each other.

The starting point of most analyses are the obvious facts that the 1st person dative always requires mu-, and that the verb in a "passive" clause without an overt agent tends to have ba-. Proposed explanations usually revolve around the subtleties of spatial grammar, information structure (focus), verb valency, and, most recently, voice. Mu-, im- and am₃- have been described as ventive morphemes (with the latter pair possibly equivalent to the combinations i₃-mu- and a-mu-). Mi- occurs only before the locative infix -ni- and the 2nd person directive -ri-, it can be seen as an assimilated variant of mu-, just as mu- can occur as ma- in front of the 2nd person dative -ra-, although the assimilation is often absent for unclear reasons. Ba- and bi₂- are sometimes analyzed as actually belonging to the pronominal-dimensional group (inanimate pronominal /-b-/ + dative /-a-/ or directive /-i-/). Im-ma-, im-mi-, am₃-ma- and am₃-mi- are then considered by some as a combination of the ventive and /ba-/, /bi-/ or otherwise a variety of the ventive. The element i₃- has been argued to be a mere prothetic vowel, al- a stative prefix, ba- a middle voice prefix, etcetera.

Pronominal and dimensional prefixes

The dimensional prefixes of the verb chain basically correspond to, and often repeat, the case markers of the noun phrase. Like the latter, they are attached to a "head" – a pronominal prefix. The other place where a pronominal prefix can be placed is immediately before the stem, where it can have a different allomorph and expresses the absolutive or the ergative participant (the transitive subject, the intransitive subject or the direct object), depending on the TA and other factors, as explained below. However, this neat system is obscured by the tendency to drop or merge many of the prefixes in writing and possibly in pronunciation as well.

The generally recognized dimensional prefixes are shown in the table below; if several occur within the same verb complex, they are placed in the order they are listed in.

The pronominal prefixes are:

The morphemes /-n-/ and /-b-/ are clearly the prefixes for the 3rd person singular animate and inanimate respectively; the 2nd person singular appears as -e- in most contexts, but as /-r-/ before the dative (-ra-), leading some to assume a phonetic /-ir-/ or /-jr-/. The 1st person may appear as -e-, too, but is more commonly not expressed at all (the same may frequently apply to 3rd and 2nd persons); it is, however, cued by the choice of mu- as conjugation prefix (/mu-/ + /-a-/ → 𒈠 ma-). The 1st, 2nd and 3rd plural infixes are -me-, -re?- and -ne- in the dative and perhaps in other contexts as well, though not in the pre-stem position (see below).

An additional exception from the system is the prefix -ni- which corresponds to a noun phrase in the locative – in which case it doesn't seem to be preceded by a pronominal prefix – and, according to Gábor Zólyomi and others, to an animate one in the directive – in the latter case it is analyzed as pronominal /-n-/ + directive /-i-/. Zólyomi and others also believe that special meanings can be expressed by combinations of non-identical noun case and verb prefix. Also according to some researchers 𒉌 /-ni-/ and 𒉈 /bi-/ acquire the forms /-n-/ and /-b-/ (coinciding with the absolutive–ergative pronominal prefixes) before the stem if there isn't already an absolutive–ergative pronominal prefix in pre-stem position: 𒈬𒌦𒆭 mu-un-kur₉ = /mu-ni-kur/ "he went in there" (as opposed to 𒈬𒉌𒆭 mu-ni-kur₉ = 𒈬𒉌𒅔𒆭 mu-ni-in-kur₉ = /mu-ni-n-kur/ "he brought in – caused to go in – there".

Pronominal suffixes and conjugation

The pronominal suffixes are as follows:

The initial vowel in all of the above suffixes can be assimilated to the root.

The general principle for pronominal agreement in conjugation is that in ḫamṭu TA, the transitive subject is expressed by the prefix, and the direct object by the suffix, and in the marû TA it is the other way round; as for the intransitive subject, it is expressed, in both TAs, by the suffixes and is thus treated like the object in ḫamṭu and like the subject in marû (except that its third person is expressed, not only in ḫamṭu but also in marû, by the suffixes used for the object in the ḫamṭu TA). A major exception from this generalization are the plural forms – in them, not only the prefix (as in the singular), but also the suffix expresses the transitive subject.

Additionally, the prefixes of the plural are identical to those of the singular – /-?-/ or /-e-/, /-e-/, /-n-/, /-b-/ – as opposed to the -me-, -re-?, -ne- that are presumed for non-pre-stem position – and some scholars believe that the prefixes of the 1st and second person are /-en-/ rather than /-e-/ when they stand for the object. Before the pronominal suffixes, a suffix /-e(d)-/ with a future or related modal meaning can be inserted, accounting for occurrences of -e in the third-person singular marû of intransitive forms; because of its meaning, it can also be said to signal marû in these forms.

The use of the personal affixes in conjugation can be summarised as follows:

Examples for TA and pronominal agreement: (ḫamṭu is rendered with past tense, marû with present): 𒉌𒁺𒁉𒂗 /i-gub-en/ ("I stood" or "I stand"), 𒅔𒁺𒁉𒂗 /i-n-gub-en/ ("he placed me" or "I place him"); 𒉌𒁻𒂗𒉈𒂗 /i-sug-enden/ ("we stood/stand"); 𒅔𒁶𒂗𒉈𒂗 /i-n-dim-enden/ ("he created us" or "we create him"); 𒈬𒁶𒂗𒉈𒂗 /mu-e?-dim-enden/ ("we created "); 𒉌𒁺𒁉 i₃-gub-be₂ = /i-gub-ed/ ("he will/must stand"); 𒌈𒁺𒁉 ib₂-gub-be₂ = /i-b-gub-e/ ("he places it"); 𒌈𒁶𒈨𒉈 /i-b-dim-ene/ ("they create it"), 𒅔𒁶𒈨𒌍 /i-n-dim-eš/ ("they created " or "he created them"), 𒉌𒁻𒄀𒌍 /i-sug-eš/ ("they stood" or "they stand").

Confusingly, the subject and object prefixes (/-n-/, /-b-/, /-e-/) are not commonly spelled out in early texts, although the "full" spellings do become more usual during the Third Dynasty of Ur (in the Neo-Sumerian period) and especially during the Late Sumerian period. Thus, in earlier texts, one finds 𒈬𒀝 mu-ak and 𒉌𒀝 i₃-ak (𒂊𒀝 e-ak in early dynastic Lagash) instead of 𒈬𒌦𒀝 mu-un-ak and 𒅔𒀝 in-ak for /mu-n-ak/ and /i-n-ak/ "he/she made", and also 𒈬𒀝 mu-ak instead of 𒈬𒂊𒀝 mu-e-ak "you made". Similarly, pre-Ur III texts also spell the first- and second-person suffix /-en/ as /-e/, making it coincide with the third person in the marû form.

Stem

The verbal stem itself can also express grammatical distinctions. The plurality of the absolutive participant can be expressed by complete reduplication of the stem or by a suppletive stem. Reduplication can also express "plurality of the action itself", intensity or iterativity.

With respect to TA marking, verbs are divided in four types; ḫamṭu is always the unmarked TA.

• The stems of the 1st type, regular verbs, do not express TA at all according to most scholars, or, according to M. Yoshikawa and others, express marû TA by adding an (assimilating) /-e-/ as in 𒁺𒁉 gub-be₂ or 𒁺𒁍 gub-bu vs 𒁺 gub (which is, however, nowhere distinguishable from the first vowel of the pronominal suffixes except for intransitive marû 3rd person singular).
• The 2nd type express marû by partial reduplication of the stem, e.g. kur₉ vs ku₄-ku_4. (both written 𒆭)
• The 3rd type express marû by adding a consonant, e.g. te vs teg̃_3. (both written 𒋼)
• The 4th type use a suppletive stem, e.g. 𒅗 dug₄ vs 𒂊 e. Thus, as many as four different suppletive stems can exist, as in the admittedly extreme case of the verb "to go": 𒁺 g̃en ("to go", ḫamṭu sing.), 𒁺 du (marû sing.), (𒂊)𒁻 (e-)re₇ (ḫamṭu plur.), 𒁻 sub₂ (marû plur.)

Other issues

The nominalizing suffix /-a/ converts non-finite and finite verbs into participles and relative clauses: 𒋳𒈠 šum-ma "given", 𒈬 𒈾𒀭𒋳𒈠 /mu-na-n-šum-a/ "which he gave to him", "who gave (something) to him", etc. Adding /-a/ after the future/modal suffix /-ed/ produces a form with a meaning similar to the Latin gerundive: 𒋳𒈬𒁕 šum-mu-da = "which will/should be given". On the other hand, adding a (locative-terminative?) /-e/ after the /-ed/ yields a form with a meaning similar to the Latin ad + gerund (acc.) construction: 𒋳𒈬𒉈 šum-mu-de₃ = "(in order) to give".

The copula verb /me/ "to be" is mostly used as an enclitic: 𒈨𒂗 -men, 𒈨𒂗 -men, 𒀀𒀭 -am, 𒈨𒂗𒉈𒂗 -menden, 𒈨𒂗𒍢𒂗 -menzen, 𒀀𒀭𒈨𒌍 -(a)meš.

The imperative mood construction is produced with a singular ḫamṭu stem, but using the marû agreement pattern, by turning all prefixes into suffixes: 𒈬𒈾𒀭𒋳 mu-na-an-šum "he gave (something) to him", 𒈬𒈾𒂊𒋳𒈬𒌦𒍢𒂗 mu-na-e-šum-mu-un-ze₂-en "you (plur.) gave (something) to him" – 𒌦𒈬𒈾𒀊 šum-mu-na-ab "give it to him!", 𒌦𒈬𒈾𒀊𒍢𒂗šum-mu-na-ab-ze₂-en "give (plur.) it to him!" Compare the French vous le lui donnez, but donnez-le-lui! In addition, the prefix 𒉌 i₃- is replaced by /-a/: 𒁺𒈾 g̃en-na 'go!', 𒅗𒂵𒈾𒀊 dug₄-ga-na(-ab) 'say it to him!'.

The use of the tense-aspect forms has the following patterns according to Jagersma:

• ḫamṭu is used to express states, timeless truths and completed (perfective) actions in the past. It is also used in conditional clauses with the conjunction 𒋗𒃻𒌉𒇲𒁉 tukumbi 'if'.
• marû is used to express present and future actions, non-complete (imperfective) actions in the past (like the English past progressive tense), or actions in the past that are still relevant or operative (like the English present perfect tense). It is also used in conditional clauses with the conjunction 𒌓𒁕 ud-da 'if'.

Syntax

The basic word order is subject–object–verb; verb finality is only violated in rare instances, in poetry. The moving of a constituent towards the beginning of the phrase may be a way to highlight it, as may the addition of the copula to it. The so-called anticipatory genitive (𒂍𒀀𒈗𒉈 e₂-a lugal-bi "the owner of the house/temple", lit. "of the house, its owner") is common and may signal the possessor's topicality. There are various ways to express subordination, some of which have already been hinted at; they include the nominalization of a verb, which can then be followed by case morphemes and possessive pronouns (𒆭𒊏𒉌 kur₉-ra-ni "when he entered") and included in "prepositional" constructions (𒂕𒀀𒈠𒊒𒁀𒃡𒊏𒋫 eg̃er a-ma-ru ba-ur₃-ra-ta "back – flood – conjugation prefix – sweep over – nominalizing suffix – – ablative suffix" = "from the back of the Flood's sweeping-over" = "after the Flood had swept over"). Subordinating conjunctions such as 𒌓𒁕 ud-da "when, if", 𒋗𒃻𒌉𒇲𒁉 tukum-bi "if" are also used, though the coordinating conjunction 𒅇 u₃ "and", a Semitic adoption, is rarely used. A specific problem of Sumerian syntax is posed by the numerous so-called compound verbs, which usually involve a noun immediately before the verb, forming a lexical or idiomatic unit (e.g. 𒋗...𒋾 šu...ti, lit. "hand-approach" = "receive"; 𒅆...𒂃 igi...du₈, lit. "eye-open" = "see"). Some of them are claimed to have a special agreement pattern that they share with causative constructions: their logical object, like the causee, receives, in the verb, the directive infix, but in the noun, the dative suffix if animate and the directive if inanimate.

Dialects

The standard variety of Sumerian was Emegir (𒅴𒂠: eme-gir₁₅). A notable variety or sociolect was Emesal (𒅴𒊩: eme-sal), possibly to be interpreted as "fine tongue" or "high-pitched voice". Other terms for dialects or registers were eme-galam "high tongue", eme-si-sa "straight tongue", eme-te-na "oblique tongue", etc.

Emesal is used exclusively by female characters in some literary texts (that may be compared to the female languages or language varieties that exist or have existed in some cultures, such as among the Chukchis and the Garifuna). In addition, it is dominant in certain genres of cult songs such as the hymns sung by Gala priests. The special features of Emesal are mostly phonological (for example, m is often used instead of g̃ ], as in 𒈨 me instead of standard 𒂷 g̃e₂₆ for "I"), but words different from the standard language are also used (𒂵𒊭𒀭 ga-ša-an rather than standard 𒎏 nin, "lady").

Bram Jagersma believes that he can distinguish two regional dialects of Sumerian - the much better attested Southern Sumerian that eventually formed the basis for the common standard of the Neo-Sumerian (Ur III) period as well as the dominant variety of the Late Sumerian (Old Babylonian) period, and Northern Sumerian as seen in texts from Nippur (although eventually texts in the standard variety begin to be produced in Nippur as well). The differences that he finds between the two varieties are:

• In Southern Sumerian, the conjugation prefix 𒉌 /i-/ alternated with 𒂊 /e-/ in accordance with vowel harmony during the Early Dynastic period, while Northern Sumerian only had /i-/. Later Southern Sumerian generalised /i-/ as well.
• In Southern Sumerian, the conjugation prefix expressing the passive was 𒁀 ba-, while in Northern Sumerian, it was 𒀀 a-.
• In Southern Sumerian after the Akkadian period, the conjugation prefix 𒀀 a-, which had originally existed in both dialects, disappears entirely apart from the variant 𒀠 al-, which only appears in subordinate clauses.
• In Southern Sumerian, the Old Sumerian phoneme ř merged with r, while in Northern Sumerian, it merged with d.

Furthermore, while both the standard Neo-Sumerian variety of Ur III period and the dominant Late Sumerian variety of the Babylonian period are of the Southern type, the latter appears to reflect a slightly different regional dialect than the former:

• Neo-Sumerian elides the conjugation prefixes 𒉌 /i/- and 𒀀 /a/- in front of the infixes 𒉌-/ni/-, 𒊏 -/ra/- and 𒊑 -/ri/-, while Late Sumerian retains them.
• The original sequence 𒈬𒂊 mu-e-, consisting of the ventive conjugation prefix 𒈬 mu- and the 2nd person infix 𒂊 -e-, is contracted into 𒈬 /muː/ in the Ur III standard, but into 𒈨 /meː/ in the most common Old Babylonian variety.

Syllabary

The table below shows signs used for simple syllables of the form CV or VC. As used for the Sumerian language, the cuneiform script was in principle capable of distinguishing at least 16 consonants, transliterated as

as well as four vowel qualities, a, e, i, u.

Sample text

Inscription by Entemena of Lagaš

This text was inscribed on a small clay cone c. 2400 BC. It recounts the beginning of a war between the city-states of Lagaš and Umma during the Early Dynastic III period, one of the earliest border conflicts recorded. (RIME 1.09.05.01)

𒀭𒂗𒆤

en-lil₂

𒈗

lugal

𒆳𒆳𒊏

kur-kur-ra

𒀊𒁀

ab-ba

𒀭𒀭𒌷𒉈𒆤

dig̃ir-dig̃ir-re₂-ne-ke₄

𒅗

inim

𒄀𒈾𒉌𒋫

gi-na-ni-ta

𒀭𒊩𒌆𒄈𒋢

nin-g̃ir₂-su

𒀭𒇋𒁉

šara₂-bi

𒆠

ki

𒂊𒉈𒋩

e-ne-sur

𒀭𒂗𒆤 𒈗 𒆳𒆳𒊏 𒀊𒁀 𒀭𒀭𒌷𒉈𒆤 𒅗 𒄀𒈾𒉌𒋫 𒀭𒊩𒌆𒄈𒋢 𒀭𒇋𒁉 𒆠 𒂊𒉈𒋩

en-lil₂ lugal kur-kur-ra ab-ba dig̃ir-dig̃ir-re₂-ne-ke₄ inim gi-na-ni-ta nin-g̃ir₂-su šara₂-bi ki e-ne-sur

"Enlil, king of all the lands, father of all the gods, by his firm command, fixed the border between Ningirsu and Šara."

𒈨𒁲

me-silim

𒈗

lugal

𒆧𒆠𒆤

kiš-ke₄

𒅗

inim

𒀭𒅗𒁲𒈾𒋫

ištaran-na-ta

𒂠

eš₂

𒃷

gana₂

𒁉𒊏

be₂-ra

𒆠𒁀

ki-ba

𒈾

na

𒉈𒆕

bi₂-ru₂

𒈨𒁲 𒈗 𒆧𒆠𒆤 𒅗 𒀭𒅗𒁲𒈾𒋫 𒂠 𒃷 𒁉𒊏 𒆠𒁀 𒈾 𒉈𒆕

me-silim lugal kiš-ke₄ inim ištaran-na-ta eš₂ gana₂ be₂-ra ki-ba na bi₂-ru₂

"Mesilim, king of Kiš, at the command of Ištaran, measured the field and set up a stele there."

𒍑

uš

𒉺𒋼𒋛

ensi₂

𒄑𒆵𒆠𒆤

umma-ke₄

𒉆

nam

𒅗𒈠

inim-ma

𒋛𒀀𒋛𒀀𒂠

diri-diri-še₃

𒂊𒀝

e-ak

𒍑 𒉺𒋼𒋛 𒄑𒆵𒆠𒆤 𒉆 𒅗𒈠 𒋛𒀀𒋛𒀀𒂠 𒂊𒀝

uš ensi₂ umma-ke₄ nam inim-ma diri-diri-še₃ e-ak

"Ush, ruler of Umma, acted unspeakably."

𒈾𒆕𒀀𒁉

na-ru₂-a-bi

𒉌𒉻

i₃-pad

𒂔

edin

𒉢𒁓𒆷𒆠𒂠

lagaš-še₃

𒉌𒁺

i₃-g̃en

𒈾𒆕𒀀𒁉 𒉌𒉻 𒂔 𒉢𒁓𒆷𒆠𒂠 𒉌𒁺

na-ru₂-a-bi i₃-pad edin lagaš-še₃ i₃-g̃en

"He ripped out that stele and marched toward the plain of Lagaš."

𒀭𒊩𒌆𒄈𒋢

nin-g̃ir₂-su

𒌨𒊕

ur-sag

𒀭𒂗𒆤𒇲𒆤

en-lil₂-la₂-ke₄

𒅗

inim

𒋛𒁲𒉌𒋫

si-sa₂-ni-ta

𒄑𒆵𒆠𒁕

umma-da

𒁮𒄩𒊏

dam-ḫa-ra

𒂊𒁕𒀝

e-da-ak

𒀭𒊩𒌆𒄈𒋢 𒌨𒊕 𒀭𒂗𒆤𒇲𒆤 𒅗 𒋛𒁲𒉌𒋫 𒄑𒆵𒆠𒁕 𒁮𒄩𒊏 𒂊𒁕𒀝

nin-g̃ir₂-su ur-sag en-lil₂-la₂-ke₄ inim si-sa₂-ni-ta umma-da dam-ḫa-ra e-da-ak

"Ningirsu, warrior of Enlil, at his just command, made war with Umma."

𒅗

inim

𒀭𒂗𒆤𒇲𒋫

en-lil₂-la₂-ta

𒊓

sa

𒌋

šu₄

𒃲

gal

𒉈𒌋

bi₂-šu₄

𒅖𒇯𒋺𒁉

SAḪAR.DU₆.TAKA₄-bi

𒂔𒈾

eden-na

𒆠

ki

𒁀𒉌𒍑𒍑

ba-ni-us₂-us₂

𒅗 𒀭𒂗𒆤𒇲𒋫 𒊓 𒌋 𒃲 𒉈𒌋 𒅖𒇯𒋺𒁉 𒂔𒈾 𒆠 𒁀𒉌𒍑𒍑

inim en-lil₂-la₂-ta sa šu₄ gal bi₂-šu₄ SAḪAR.DU₆.TAKA₄-bi eden-na ki ba-ni-us₂-us₂

"At Enlil's command, he threw his great battle net over it and heaped up burial mounds for it on the plain."

𒂍𒀭𒈾𒁺

e₂-an-na-tum₂

𒉺𒋼𒋛

ensi₂

𒉢𒁓𒆷𒆠

lagaš

𒉺𒄑𒉋𒂵

pa-bil₃-ga

𒂗𒋼𒈨𒈾

en-mete-na

𒉺𒋼𒋛

ensi₂

𒉢𒁓𒆷𒆠𒅗𒆤

lagaš-ka-ke₄

𒂍𒀭𒈾𒁺 𒉺𒋼𒋛 𒉢𒁓𒆷𒆠 𒉺𒄑𒉋𒂵 𒂗𒋼𒈨𒈾 𒉺𒋼𒋛 𒉢𒁓𒆷𒆠𒅗𒆤

e₂-an-na-tum₂ ensi₂ lagaš pa-bil₃-ga en-mete-na ensi₂ lagaš-ka-ke₄

"Eannatum, ruler of Lagash, uncle of Entemena, ruler of Lagaš"

𒂗𒀉𒆗𒇷

en-a₂-kal-le

𒉺𒋼𒋛

ensi₂

𒄑𒆵𒆠𒁕

umma-da

𒆠

ki

𒂊𒁕𒋩

e-da-sur

𒂗𒀉𒆗𒇷 𒉺𒋼𒋛 𒄑𒆵𒆠𒁕 𒆠 𒂊𒁕𒋩

en-a₂-kal-le ensi₂ umma-da ki e-da-sur

"fixed the border with Enakale, ruler of Umma"

See also

• List of languages by first written accounts
• Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary
• Sumerian literature

References

Notes

1. In some cases k is omitted. For example as in "e2 lugal-la (The house of the king, originally it should be e2-lugal-ak but because of auslaut and k omission, it turned into e2 lugal-la)". However k reappears if another grammatical marker is added as in "e2 lugal-la-ke-ne (with the plural marker -ene)"
2. The naming and number of cases vary according to differing analyses of Sumerian linguistics.
3. But apparently /-e-/ in the plural, see below.
4. With the allomorph -di_3- before the locative infix /-ni-/. It should also be noted that the infix '-da- can express the meaning 'to be able to'.
5. With the allomorph 𒊏 /-ra-/ after vowels.
6. The reduplication of the consonants m in this example is an auslaut. Find more info in this link #
7. A newer interpretation is that the last syllable in such examples is to be read -ne, i.e. 3rd person possessive -ni plus directive -e. In contrast, in the 1st and 2nd persons, we find this apparent -ni attached to 1st and 2nd person pronouns (𒍣𒂵𒈬𒉌 zig₃-ga-g̃u-ni 'as I rose'), which leads Jagersma to interpret it as an otherwise obsolete locative ending: lit. 'at my rising' (Jagersma 2009: 672–674).

Citations

1. "Sumerian". Archived from the original on 27 June 2013. Retrieved 2024-04-07.
2. ^ Prince, J. Dyneley (1919). "Phonetic Relations in Sumerian". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 39: 265–279. doi:10.2307/592740. JSTOR 592740. Retrieved 2023-05-09.
3. Prince, J. Dyneley (1904). "The Vocabulary of Sumerian" (PDF). Journal of the American Oriental Society. 25: 49–67. doi:10.2307/592549. JSTOR 592549.
4. ^ Woods C. 2006 "Bilingualism, Scribal Learning, and the Death of Sumerian". In S. L. Sanders (ed) Margins of Writing, Origins of Culture: 91–120 Chicago.
5. Joan Oates (1979). Babylon Thames and Hudston, Ltd. 1986 p. 30, 52–53.
6. The A.K. Grayson, Penguin Encyclopedia of Ancient Civilizations, ed. Arthur Cotterell, Penguin Books Ltd. 1980. p. 92
7. THUREAU-DANGIN, F. (1911). "Notes Assyriologiques". Revue d'Assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale. 8 (3): 138–141. ISSN 0373-6032. JSTOR 23284567.
8. Hallo, William W., "On the Antiquity of Sumerian Literature", Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 83, no. 2, pp. 167–76, 1962
9. Michalowski, P., 2006: "The Lives of the Sumerian Language", in S.L. Sanders (ed.), Margins of Writing, Origins of Cultures, Chicago, 159–184
10. Eleanor Robson, Information Flows in Rural Babylonia c. 1500 BC, in C. Johnston (ed.), The Concept of the Book: the Production, Progression and Dissemination of Information, London: Institute of English Studies/School of Advanced Study, January 2019 ISBN 978-0-9927257-4-7
11. Piotr Michalowski, "Sumerian," The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages." Ed. Roger D. Woodard (2004, Cambridge University Press). Pages 19–59
12. Georges Roŭ (1993). Ancient Iraq (3rd ed.). London: Penguin Books. p. 80-82.
13. Joan Oates (1986). Babylon (Rev. ed.). London: Thames and Hudson. p. 19.
14. John Haywood (2005). The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Civilizations. London: Penguin Books. p. 28.
15. Dewart, Leslie (1989). Evolution and Consciousness: The Role of Speech in the Origin and Development of Human Nature. p. 260.
16. DIAKONOFF, Igor M. (1997). "External Connections of the Sumerian Language". Mother Tongue. 3: 54–63.
17. Sathasivam, A (2017). Proto-Sumero-Dravidian: The Common Origin of Sumerian and Dravidian Languages. Kingston, UK: History and Heritage Unit, Tamil Information Centre. ISBN 978-1-85201-024-9.
18. Parpola, S., "Sumerian: A Uralic Language (I)", Proceedings of the 53th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale: Vol. 1: Language in the Ancient Near East (2 parts), edited by Leonid E. Kogan, Natalia Koslova, Sergey Loesov and Serguei Tishchenko, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, pp. 181-210, 2010
19. Gostony, C. G. 1975: Dictionnaire d'étymologie sumérienne et grammaire comparée. Paris.
20. Zakar, András (1971). "Sumerian – Ural-Altaic affinities". Current Anthropology. 12 (2): 215–225. doi:10.1086/201193. JSTOR 2740574. S2CID 143879460..
21. Bobula, Ida (1951). Sumerian affiliations. A Plea for Reconsideration. Washington D.C.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) (Mimeographed ms.)
22. Jan Braun (2004). "SUMERIAN AND TIBETO-BURMAN, Additional Studies". Wydawnictwo Agade. Warszawa. ISBN 83-87111-32-5..
23. "Urges Turks to teach culture of their race, Kemal says historians have maligned people, Sun Language revived". The News Journal. 2 March 1936. p. 24.
24. Kurtkaya, Mehmet (2017). Sumerian Turks: Civilization's Journey from Siberia to Mesopotamia. Independently Published. ISBN 9781521532362.
25. Bomhard, Allan R.; Hopper, Paul J. (1984). "Current Issues in Linguistic Theory". Toward Proto-Nostratic: a new approach to the comparison of Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Afroasiatic. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ISBN 9789027235190.
26. Ruhlen, Merritt (1994). The Origin of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. p. 143.
27. Piotr Michalowski, "Sumerian," The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages (2004, Cambridge), pg. 22
28. Høyrup, Jens (1998). "Sumerian: The descendant of a proto-historical creole? An alternative approach to the Sumerian problem". Published: AIΩN. Annali del Dipartimento di Studi del Mondo Classico e del Mediterraneo Antico. Sezione linguistica. 14 (1992, publ. 1994). Istituto Universitario Orientale, Napoli: 21–72, Figs. 1–3. Available in: http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED368171.pdf
29. Monaco, Salvatore F., "Proto-Cuneiform And Sumerians", Rivista Degli Studi Orientali, vol. 87, no. 1/4, pp. 277–82, 2014
30. Rubio, Gonzalo (1999). "On the alleged 'pre-Sumerian substratum'". Journal of Cuneiform Studies. 51 (1999): 1–16. doi:10.2307/1359726. JSTOR 1359726. S2CID 163985956.
31. Whittaker, Gordon (2008). "The Case for Euphratic" (PDF). Bulletin of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences. 2 (3). Tbilisi: 156–168. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022. Retrieved 11 December 2012.
32. "Problems of absolute chronology in protohistoric Mesopotamia". Retrieved 2024-05-31.
33. "Inscriptions From Tell Abu Salabikh" (PDF). Retrieved 2024-05-31.
34. Edzard, Dietz Otto, "Wann ist Sumerisch als gesprochene Sprache ausgestorben?", Acta Sumerologica 22, pp. 53–70, 2000
35. Krejci, Jaroslav (1990). Before the European Challenge: The Great Civilizations of Asia and the Middle East. SUNY Press. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-7914-0168-2.
36. Mémoires. Mission archéologique en Iran. 1900. p. 53.
37. Kevin J. Cathcart, "The Earliest Contributions to the Decipherment of Sumerian and Akkadian", Cuneiform Digital Library Journal, 2011
38. In Keilschrift, Transcription und Übersetzung : nebst ausführlichem Commentar und zahlreichen Excursen : eine assyriologische Studie (Leipzig : J.C. Hinrichs, 1879)
39. Prince, J. Dyneley, "The Vocabulary of Sumerian", Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 25, pp. 49–67, 1904
40. "Sumerian-Assyrian Vocabularies".
41. Kramer, Samuel Noah (1961) . Sumerian Mythology. Archived from the original on 2005-05-25. Retrieved 2005-09-23.
42. "Diakonoff 1976:112" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2019-08-03. Retrieved 2018-09-23.
43. Jagersma (2010: 43-45)
45. Jagersma (2010: 43-45)
46. ^ Michalowski, Piotr (2008): "Sumerian". In: Woodard, Roger D. (ed.) The Ancient Languages of Mesopotamia, Egypt and Aksum. Cambridge University Press. P.16
47. Jagersma, Bram (January 2000). "Sound change in Sumerian: the so-called /dr/-phoneme". Acta Sumerologica 22: 81–87. Archived from the original on 2023-03-19. Retrieved 2015-11-23.
48. Jagersma (2010: 42-43)
49. Jagersma (2010: 53)
50. ^ "Sumerian language". The ETCSL project. Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford. 2005-03-29. Archived from the original on 2008-09-02. Retrieved 2011-07-30.
51. Attinger, Pascal, 1993. Eléments de linguistique sumérienne. p. 212 ()
53. Jagersma (2010: 38-41, 48-49, 53-54)
54. Jagersma (2010: 62-63).
55. Jagersma (2010: 35-36, 38)
56. ^ Smith, Eric J M. 2007. "Harmony and the Vowel Inventory of Sumerian". Journal of Cuneiform Studies, volume 57
57. ^ Keetman, J. 2013. "Die sumerische Wurzelharmonie". Babel und Bibel 7 p.109-154
58. "Zólyomi, Gábor. 2016. An introduction to the grammar of Sumerian. P. 12-13" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2018-09-16. Retrieved 2018-09-16.
59. Jagersma (2010: 56-57)
60. Keetman, J. 2009. "The limits of vowel harmony in Sumerian and some remarks about the need of transparent data ". Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires 2009, No. 65
61. Michalowski, Piotr (2008): "Sumerian". In: Woodard, Roger D. (ed.) The Ancient Languages of Mesopotamia, Egypt and Aksum. Cambridge University Press. P.17
62. Gábor Zólyomi: An Introduction to the Grammar of Sumerian Open Access textbook, Budapest 2017
63. Introduction to Sumerian grammar by Daniel A. Foxvog at CDLI
64. "Kausen, Ernst. 2006. Sumerische Sprache. p.9". Archived from the original on 2009-09-27. Retrieved 2006-02-06.
65. Zólyomi, Gábor, 1993: Voice and Topicalization in Sumerian. PhD Dissertation Archived 2008-10-01 at the Wayback Machine
66. ^ Johnson, Cale, 2004: In the Eye of the Beholder: Quantificational, Pragmatic and Aspectual Features of the *bí- Verbal Formation in Sumerian, Dissertation. UCLA, Los Angeles Archived 2013-06-22 at the Wayback Machine
67. Here and in the following, the cuneiform signs in parentheses are used only after vowels (and that only sometimes); after consonants, signs for consonant-vowel sequences is used.
68. Jagersma (2010: 137)
69. Zólyomi, Gábor (2014). Grzegorek, Katarzyna; Borowska, Anna; Kirk, Allison (eds.). Copular Clauses and Focus Marking in Sumerian. De Gruyter. p. 8. ISBN 978-3-11-040169-1. Retrieved 21 July 2016.
70. Stephen Chrisomalis (2010). Numerical Notation: A Comparative History. Cambridge University Press. p. 236. ISBN 978-0-521-87818-0. Retrieved 2021-02-25.
71. Halloran pdf 1999, p. 46.
72. Halloran pdf 1999, p. 37.
73. Halloran pdf 1999, p. 8.
74. Halloran pdf 1999, p. 35.
75. ^ Halloran pdf 1999, p. 11.
76. Halloran pdf 1999.
77. ^ Halloran pdf 1999, p. 59.
78. Halloran pdf 1999, p. 20.
79. Jagersma (2010: 244)
80. See e.g. Rubio 2007, Attinger 1993, Zólyomi 2005 ("Sumerisch". In: Sprachen des Alten Orients, ed. M. Streck), PPCS Morphological model Archived October 25, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
81. E.g. Attinger 1993, Rubio 2007
82. Jagersma 2010: 518
83. Jagersma 2010: 569
84. Jagersma 2010: 579
85. Jagersma (2010: 562)
86. Jagersma (2010: 574)
87. Rubio 2007 and references therein
88. Zólyomi 1993; Also Woods, Cristopher, 2008: The Grammar of Perspective: The Sumerian Conjugation Prefixes as a System of Voice
89. Jagersma (2010: 501)
90. ^ E.g. Zólyomi 1993
91. ^ Rubio 2007
92. Jagersma (2010: 449)
93. Jagersma (2010: 454-455)
94. ^ Zólyomi 2005
95. ^ Zólyomi (2000). "Structural interference from Akkadian in Old Babylonian Sumerian" (PDF). Acta Sumerologica. 22. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-02-28. Retrieved 2008-07-20.
96. Zólyomi 1993, Attinger 1993
97. Attinger 1993, Khachikyan 2007: ("Towards the Aspect System in Sumerian". In: Babel und Bibel 3.)
98. "Epsd2/Sux/šum[give]". Archived from the original on 2021-09-26. Retrieved 2021-02-21.
99. Jagersma (2010: 556)
100. Jagersma (2010: 372-380)
101. ^ Zólyomi 1993
102. Johnson 2004:22
103. Rubio 2007, p. 1369.
104. Sylvain Auroux (2000). History of the Language Sciences. Vol. 1. Walter de Gruyter. p. 2. ISBN 978-3-11-019400-5.
105. Hartmann, Henrike (1960). Die Musik der Sumerischen Kultur. p. 138.
106. Rubio (2007). Morphology of Asia and Africa. Eisenbrauns. p. 1370. ISBN 978-1-57506-109-2.
107. Jagersma 2010: 7
108. Foxvog, Daniel A. Introduction to Sumerian grammar (PDF). pp. 16–17, 20–21. Archived (PDF) from the original on January 3, 2017 (about phonemes g̃ and ř and their representation using cuneiform signs).
109. Jagersma, A. H. A descriptive grammar of Sumerian (PDF) (Thesis). pp. 43–45, 50–51. Archived (PDF) from the original on November 25, 2015 (about phonemes g̃ and ř and their representation using cuneiform signs).
110. ^ "CDLI-Found Texts". cdli.ucla.edu. Retrieved 2018-03-12.
111. "Cone of Enmetena, king of Lagash". 2020. Archived from the original on 2020-02-27. Retrieved 2020-02-27.

Bibliography

• Attinger, Pascal (1993). Eléments de linguistique sumérienne: La construction de du₁₁/e/di. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht. ISBN 3-7278-0869-1.
• Delitzsch, Friedrich (1914). Grundzüge der sumerischen Grammatik. J. C. Hinrichs. OCLC 923551546.
• Dewart, Leslie (1989). Evolution and Consciousness: The Role of Speech in the Origin and Development of Human Nature. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-2690-7.
• Diakonoff, I. M. (1976). "Ancient Writing and Ancient Written Language: Pitfalls and Peculiarities in the Study of Sumerian" (PDF). Assyriological Studies. 20 (Sumerological Studies in Honor of Thorkild Jakobsen): 99–121. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2019-08-03. Retrieved 2018-09-23.
• Edzard, Dietz Otto (2003). Sumerian Grammar. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 90-04-12608-2. (grammar treatment for the advanced student)
• Halloran, John (11 August 1999). "Sumerian Lexicon" (PDF). Sumerian Language Page. Archived (PDF) from the original on 26 January 2021. Retrieved 20 February 2021.
• Halloran, John Alan (2006). Sumerian Lexicon: A Dictionary Guide to the Ancient Sumerian Language. Logogram Pub. ISBN 978-0978-64291-4.
• Hayes, John (1990; 3rd revised ed. 2018), A Manual of Sumerian: Grammar and Texts. UNDENA, Malibu CA. ISBN 978-0-9798937-4-2. (primer for the beginning student)
• Hayes, John (1997), Sumerian. Languages of the World/Materials #68, LincomEuropa, Munich. ISBN 3-929075-39-3. (41 pp. précis of the grammar)
• Jagersma, B. (2009), A Descriptive Grammar of Sumerian, Universitet Leiden, The Netherlands.
• Jestin, J. (1951), Abrégé de Grammaire Sumérienne, Geuthner, Paris. ISBN 2-7053-1743-0. (118pp overview and sketch, in French)
• Langdon, Stephen Herbert (1911). A Sumerian Grammar and Chrestomathy, with a Vocabulary of the Principal Roots in Sumerian, and List of the Most Important Syllabic and Vowel Transcriptions, by Stephen Langdon ... P. Geuthner. OCLC 251014503.
• Michalowski, Piotr (1980). "Sumerian as an Ergative Language". Journal of Cuneiform Studies. 32 (2): 86–103. doi:10.2307/1359671. JSTOR 1359671. S2CID 164022054.
• Michalowski,Piotr, (2004), "Sumerian", The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages pp 19–59, ed. Roger Woodward. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-05-2156-256-0.
• Pinches, Theophilus G., "Further Light upon the Sumerian Language.", Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1914, pp. 436–40
• Prince, John D. (1908). Materials for a Sumerian lexicon with a grammatical introduction. Assyriologische Bibliothek, 19. Hinrichs. OCLC 474982763.
• Prince, J. Dynely (October 1914). "Delitzsch's Sumerian Grammar". American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures. 31 (1). U of Chicago: 67–78. doi:10.1086/369755. ISSN 1062-0516. S2CID 170226826.
• Rubio, Gonzalo (2007), "Sumerian Morphology". In Morphologies of Asia and Africa, vol. 2, pp. 1327–1379. Edited by Alan S. Kaye. Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, IN, ISBN 1-57506-109-0.
• Thomsen, Marie-Louise (2001) . The Sumerian Language: An Introduction to Its History and Grammatical Structure. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag. ISBN 87-500-3654-8. (Well-organized with over 800 translated text excerpts.)
• Volk, Konrad (1997). A Sumerian Reader. Rome: Pontificio Istituto Biblico. ISBN 88-7653-610-8. (collection of Sumerian texts, some transcribed, none translated)

• Zólyomi, Gábor. 2017. An Introduction to the Grammar of Sumerian. Open Access textbook, Budapest. Link 1 Link 2

Further reading

• Friedrich Delitzsch (1914). Sumerisches glossar. J. C. Hinrichs. p. 295. Retrieved 2011-07-05.
• Ebeling, J., & Cunningham, G. (2007). Analysing literary Sumerian : corpus-based approaches. London: Equinox. ISBN 1-84553-229-5
• Archived 2023-03-11 at the Wayback MachineGeng, Jinrui, "An Outline of the Synchronic and Diachronic Variations of Sumerian", 2nd International Conference on Education, Language and Art (ICELA 2022). Atlantis Press, 2023.
• Halloran, J. A. (2007). Sumerian lexicon: a dictionary guide to the ancient Sumerian language. Los Angeles, Calif: Logogram. ISBN 0-9786429-1-0

External links

• General
  • Akkadian Unicode Font (to see Cuneiform text) Archive
• Linguistic overviews
  • A Descriptive Grammar of Sumerian by Abraham Hendrik Jagersma (preliminary version)
  • Sumerisch (An overview of Sumerian by Ernst Kausen, in German)
  • Chapter VI of Magie chez les Chaldéens et les origines accadiennes (1874) by François Lenormant: the state of the art in the dawn of Sumerology, by the author of the first ever grammar of "Akkadian"
• Dictionaries
  • Electronic Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary (EPSD)
  • Electronic Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary (EPSD) 2
  • Elementary Sumerian Glossary by Daniel A. Foxvog (after M. Civil 1967)
  • The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL). Includes translations.
  • CDLI: Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative a large corpus of Sumerian texts in transliteration, largely from the Early Dynastic and Ur III periods, accessible with images.
• Research
  • Online publications arising from the ETCSL project (PDF)
  • Structural Interference from Akkadian in Old Babylonian Sumerian by Gábor Zólyomi (PDF)
  • Other online publications by Gábor Zólyomi (PDF)
  • The Life and Death of the Sumerian Language in Comparative Perspective by Piotr Michalowski
  • Online publications by Cale Johnson (PDF)
  • Eléments de linguistique sumérienne (by Pascal Attinger, 1993; in French), at the digital library RERO DOC: Parts 1–4, Part 5.
  • The Origin of Ergativity in Sumerian, and the Inversion in Pronominal Agreement: A Historical Explanation Based on Neo-Aramaic parallels, by E. Coghill & G. Deutscher, 2002 at the Internet Archive

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• Sumerian language
• Agglutinative languages
• Cuneiform
• Sumer
• Subject–object–verb languages
• Language isolates of Asia
• Languages attested from the 3rd millennium BC
• Languages extinct in the 2nd millennium BC