Download Ebook - The Knowledge Den

48 SUMERIAN GRAMMAR
which had suffered phonetic decay by the ter m eme-sal or 'woman's
tongue'. sá-gar = maliku, and sá-mar = maliku (eme-sal) 1 • gis =
rabll andmu(s)=rabU (eme-sal)'. The scribes thus indicate the forms
with m for earlier gas eme-sal forms. labar for lagar=kalil, 'psaIm­
ist " is caBed an eme-sal form 3. The change igi > ide = bunu is
caBed eme-sal4• In fact the grammarians drew up syllabars in which
the earlier and later forms were placed side by side. Thus K 4319+
4604" obv., col. 11, 23-7:-
EME-SAL
a-da-ar
a-ba
a-se-ir
ír ba-an-zí-em
a-gár
a-ga
a-nir
EME-KU
ír ba-an-tum
SEMITIC
ugaru, 'fieId'.
arkatu, 'the future '.
ittu, 'wailing' (?).
bikitum iskun, , he instituted wailing·.
Assyriologists have generally inferred that the expression eme- KV fi,
which the scribes translated by lisan sumer'i, indicates the classicaI or
original idiom in distinction from the decayed forms eme·sal. I have,
foBowing this accepted interpretation, placed the term eme-KU over the
column containing the original words. Yet we cannot regardthis
interpretation as final, for eme-sal is quite as much alisan 8umeri
l Sumerian language', as the classical forms. As a matter of fact eme­
KU has not been found in any connection where it is clearly contrasted
whith eme-sal, and it may be that the term was not employed in the
sense of ' cIassical tongue ' 7.
1. CT. XIX, 18 rev. 15 f.
2. [bid., 18 r
3. CT. XII, 41, 43. CL ihid., 1. 40, multt for galu = kalU.
4. CT. XII, 33 obv. 6 f. The term cme·sal seems lO have been applied not
only to forms which had suffered phonetic decay but also to words which had
COme to be employed with extraordinary meanings. For example tUl' = ?aIJI'u,
CT. XIX 18 rey. 20, is accompanied by the eme-sal equivalent gi(n) = .~abru,
, child', a colloquial use of the root gin, to beget.
5. HAUPT, ASKT. 105 ff. = V R. 11.
6. See p. 3 f.
7. The Berlin Vocabulary, V. A. Th. 244 (ZA. IX, 159-164J mentions the follow'
ing dialects, eme-sal, eme·gúd-da, eme-mus (also cme·mus-a), eme-TE·NAD
\.