SumerianGrammar

HOW WE READ SUMERIAN
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exactitude, i.e., the exact rendering of every spoken syllable. Writing
Sumerian started from only noting bases, numerals, and combinations
of numbers + measure.
This “nuclear” writing (Th. Jacobsen, ZA 52 [1957] 91 ff. fn. 1)
still disregarded any additional morphemes (nominal and verbal
prefixes and suffixes). Phonetic abstraction (writing, e.g., gi both for
“reed” and the syllables [gi, ge] and, in slightly varied form (GIgunû)
for the notion of “return” [ge 4 ]) opened the way for noting
syllables of the types [V], [CV], [VC], [CVC]; see 2.2.1, type b.
“Syllabaries” (= inventories of syllabograms) came into being. Some
syllabograms were freely applicable, i.e., they could occur in any
position of a word (initial, medial, final) whereas others were of
restricted use; é“ is mainly used, in Ur III and early Old Bab., to
denote the 3 rd p. pl. suffix on certain verbal forms.
Note: Neither Sumerian nor Akkadian syllabaries offer a clear 1 : 1 relation of
signs and sounds. On the one hand, one sign may denote different syllables, e.g.,
NE = ne, dè, bí, and on the other hand, identical or minimally different syllable-sounds
could be noted by different signs, e.g., [a“] = a“ or á“, [en] = en or
èn (LI).
One of the main problems was the notation of syllable-closing consonants
in syllables of the type CVC. Here, the inventory was
insufficient (signs like bam, mag, nal, etc. were never created). At
first, a syllable-closing consonant was just disregarded, e.g., ba-ug 7 -
ge “they died” stood for [ba’uge“, ba-u-ge“]. With lugal-me, only
context could show whether lugal-me(“) “they are kings” or lugalme(n)
“I am/you are king” was meant. Until Ur III, and partly still
in OB, the person or non-person class ergative or absolutive markers
-n- or -b-, placed immediately before the verbal base, were left unnoted,
because they always were found in a close syllable; mu-narú
“he/she built for him/her” stood for [mu-na-n-§ rú]. Therefore,
§
reconstruction of a given verbal form often depends on our—subjective—interpretation.
The decisive invention to remedy the situation was made by a
scribe—or scribal school—of pre-Sargonic times, who combined CV 1 +
V 1 C to denote CV 1 C, e.g., mu-un for [mun]. The Akkadian rather
than Sumerian scribal world must be credited with this invention—
unique in the world history of writing—because in Akkadian with
its frequent three-consonantal roots non-notation of a syllable-closing
consonant would have led to much more ambiguity than in Sumerian.