SumerianGrammar

170 CHAPTER FIFTEEN
15.12. [UA]
The great variety of spellings for [ua] “woe” has been collected by
Krecher, 1966, 114 f.: ù-a, ú-a, u 5 -a, ù-u 8 -a, etc. While [ua] is essentially
a sound of lamentation (with its labial element comparable to
Latin vae, English woe, German o weh, Yiddish auvay, etc.), it also
occurs as a soothing sound in [ua aua].
ù-a erim 6 -ma-∞gu 10 “alas for my treasure house” VS 1, 25 ii 6 f.
(Krecher 1966, 54).
u 5 -a a-ù-a “sleep baby”, beginning of the Sumerian lullaby (see
Attinger 1993, 49 s.v. “Lullaby”).
The different sounds which probably lie behind the different notation
of the two [u] sounds as u 5 and ù, cannot be reconstructed.
Note: B. Landsberger, MSL 2 (1951) 29 f., tentatively suggested for u 8 “ein
langgedehntes offenes o” (as in English paw, law).
The onomatopoeia of [ua aua] in lullabies may easily be rendered
by corresponding soothing sounds in other languages, such as, e.g.,
Russian bayubayubayubáy or German eiapopeia.
15.13. [ULILI]
munus-ù-li-li = zammirtu “ulili woman” (Akkadian “songstress”) Lu
III ii 16 (MSL 12, 124).
Note: The lexical context has to do with singing and performance, but the exact
meaning of [ulili] cannot be reconstructed.