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(preface of i%t ^econo (part.
4
Since the appearance of the first part of this work, Professor MORRIS JASTROW, Jr.
has published in AJSL. XXII, pp. 89— 109, an interesting and scholarly discussion
on "a new aspect of the Sumerian question". In this paper, he doubts the existence of
a Sumerian physical type and is still inclined to cling to the Haleyyan view that the
origin of the cuneiform writing at least was purely Semitic, pointing out the apparent
impossibility of distinguishing between the Semitic and Non-Semitic elements in the
complex fabric of the early Euphratean culture (pp. 89— 92). His paper is based on the
recent correspondence on this subject between Professors Brunnow and Haleyy, which
has appeared in the Revue Semitique for 1905.
The questions as to the racial features of the primitive inhabitants of the Euphrates
Valley and as to the origin of the cuneiform signs are not within the scope of the present
work, which simply aims to throw some light on the complex problems connected with
the morphology and vocabulary of Sumerian. I am, of course, prepared to admit the
presence of Semitic peoples in Babylonia at a very early date, just as Professor JASTROW
admits (pp. 105— 106) that there may "lurk in the Sumerian system . . . some features
which point to the existence at one time in the Euphrates Valley of a Non-Semitic
language spoken and perhaps even written by the side of the Semitic Babylonian".
When, however, Professor JASTROW refers to the reduplication of the Sumerian
words to indicate the plural (p. 96), as dingir-dingir 'gods'; kur-kur 'countries', as being
an evidence of the artifical character of Sumerian, because that language also possessed
a plural suffix ->ie, -ene, I must distinctly take issue with him. Is modern Malay artificial,
because in it one can say kuda-kuda 'horses', and also banyak kuda, bardng kuda, segala
kuda 'horses', using the plural prefixes here indicated, instead of the more archaic redu-
plication? The cases seem to me to be perfectly parallel. Then too, Professor Jastrow
cites the Sumerian abstract prefix nam- as another evidence of artificiality, because it
can be prefixed to any root, and form therefrom an abstract noun. Why is such a pro-
vision more artificial than the Semitic abstract ending -utu} As to the artificiality of the
Prince, Sumerian Lexicon.