Talk:Sumerian language/Archive 1

untitled comments
Is Sumerian related to Akkadian? Or maybe even its direct ancestor? I can find nothing on its genealogical classification, but the section about its grammer prevents me from thinking it is a Semitic language. But I can't be sure anyway. Perhaps someone can tell me?--Caesarion 12:41, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

from our article: Sumerian has been controversially identified as related to Tibeto-Burman (Jan Braun) and Ural-Altaic languages such as Hungarian (Miklos Erdy). (in other words, no, no relationship with another language is generally accepted, and it is certainly not Semitic). dab (&#5839;) 12:55, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Sorry, could have known that. This was a silly question.--Caesarion 14:14, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Extinct Language?
Professor Samuel Kramer (University of Philadelphia-Orientalist) states that the oldest known and recorded language is Sumerian. Prof Kramer sees similarities between Sumerian and Hungarian.

The name 'Sumerian' was stuck on the language by professor Oppert who translated it from Assyrian. The people however did not call themselves Sumerians but called themselves Mahgar as it is proved by professor Dr. Badiny (Professor of sumerology; prof. Anton Deimel's school). Badiny also proved on the 29th Orientalist World Congress' opening sitting that Hungarian is the same language as Sumerian. (Sorbonne - Paris, 1973. The title of the presentation: "New lines for a correct Sumerian phonetics to confirm with the cuneiform scripts".) Prof. Anton Deimel writes in a private letter to Dr. Badiny " Ich habe nicht die geringste Schwerigkeit eine Verwandschaft des Ungarishen mit dem Sumerischen anzunehmen." ("I have no hardship accepting the Sumerian-Hungarian relation") - I'm not a linguist, but as a historian, I can categorically state that Sumerian is not the same as Magyar (Hungarian) - if these are true scholars, their theories have not been accepted by the professionals. I'm assuming the above post is moldy-oldy, and I'm just stating this just in case a novice has wandered onto this page and could be bamboozled by fringe-theories.HammerFilmFan (talk) 02:35, 23 October 2010 (UTC)HammerFilmFan

Did you know that About 125 Sumer words have Turkish origin ?
Did you know that About 125 Sumer words have Turkish origin ?
 * Is there any source or evidence for that?
 * Which words are these? Not "calorifer", is it?

84.160.196.73 21:20, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC) -- No evidence whatsoever. Just some pro-Turkish lunatic again whose pasttime involves trolling language articles and spreading his fanatical graffiti under an anonymous IP. Turkish is part of the Altaic family and Sumerian is described by linguists as an isolate language. There have been more "reasonable" attempts at connecting it to Dravidian or Elamo-Dravidian strangely enough, particularly under the controversial Nostratic grouping. However, no evidence as yet is sufficient to prove any relationship to a known language group. That's the answer we're going to have to accept until somebody serious comes along with scientific rigour to show us otherwise. --Glengordon01 13:13, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

There are no Sumerian words of Turkish origin, that's bare nonsense. When Sumerian was spoken the Turks lived as a small people in the Altai mountains several thousand kilometers away from the Near East. If there are a handful of words that sound similar in both Turkic languages and Sumerian (and have the same or a very closely related meaning) this is just accidental. You find accidentally similar (or even identical) words in any two languages of the world, especially among short words (and most Sumerian stems are monosyllabic). Btw., this page is not for discussing wild theories about Sumerian, but to improve the article in which these unscientific theories don't have any space. --Thogo (Talk) 21:04, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * You're wrong, there ARE common words in proto-turkic and sumerian languages. Before I begin, let me tell you that your words about "unscientific theories" and the fact that you want to see evidence not only show your ignorance but also make you look like pseudo-scientifical snobs and rookies. You must understand that Sumerians can be ancestors of Nostratic\Eurasiatic peoples. Some sumerian words not only sound same as turkic but also have common meaning. These words are primitive enough to consider Sumerian as Turko\Semitic pidjin. Such words as "weight" or "blood" differ too much among different linguistic groups and can't be found in completely unrelated languages. If what you say about languages is really true then IE family can't exist since it is based on loanwords from persian, greek and indic languages.
 * There are common turkic words in sumerian. And there are plenty of them. Here's the list:


 * 1) Abame - father; balkar "Appa, Aba" - grandparent.
 * 2) Alty - six; kazakh & balkar "Altı" - six.
 * 3) Az - few, little; kazakh & balkar "Az" - few, little.
 * 4) Aur - weight; balkar "Auur", kazakh "Auırlıq" - weight.
 * 5) Baba - ancestor; common turkic "Baba" - ancestor, great-grandfather.
 * 6) Buz - to break; balkar "Buz", kazakh "Bǔz" - to break.
 * 7) Char - circle; balkar "Çarx" wheel, kazakh "Şeñber" (sumer?) - circle.
 * 8) Chibin - fly; balkar "Çibin", kazakh "Şıbın" - fly.
 * 9) Cholpan - star; balkar "Çolpan", kazakh "Şolpan" - star.
 * 10) Daim - continously; balkar & kazakh "Dayim" - continous, continously.
 * 11) Dingir - God, deity; common turkic "Tingir, Tañır, Tenger" - God, sky.
 * 12) Ed - come out; balkar "Et", kazakh "Ötu" - to pass (like "to pass the river").
 * 13) Egech - sister; balkar "Egeç" - sister.
 * 14) El - death; balkar "El", kazakh "Ölu" - to die, "Ölim" - death.
 * 15) Er - warrior; common turkic "Er" - man.
 * 16) Eshik - door; balkar "Eşik", kazakh "Esik" - door.
 * 17) Ez - self; balkar "Ez", kazakh "Öz" - self.
 * 18) Gaba - breast; balkar "Gabara" - breastwarmer
 * 19) Gag - to thrust; balkar "K'ak", kazakh "Qağu" - to thrust.
 * 20) Guruvash - servant; balkar "Karauaş" - servant.
 * 21) Jau - enemy; balkar & kazakh "Jau" - enemy.
 * 22) Jer - place, ground; common turkic - "Jer, Yer" - land, soil.
 * 23) Ikki - two; common turkic "Eki" - two.
 * 24) Kadau - lock; balkar "K'adau", kazakh "Qamal" - lock.
 * 25) Kal - to remain; balkar "K'al", kazakh "Qau" - to remain.
 * 26) Kan - blood; balkar "Kan", kazakh "Qan" - blood.
 * 27) Koru - to guard; balkar "K'ooru", kazakh "Qoru" - to guard.
 * 28) Kush - bird; balkar "K'uş", kazakh "Qǔs" - bird.
 * 29) Kur - to create; balkar "Kur", kazakh "Qǔru" - to build.
 * 30) Küre - to row; balkar "Küre", kazakh "Küreu" - to row.
 * 31) Kyz - girl; common turkic "Qız" - girl, young woman, daughter.
 * 32) Me - I, me; nostratic "ME, MI, -M" - I, me, 1st person; turkic "Men" - I.
 * 33) Mu - he; balkar "Bu" - he, kazakh "Bǔ" - this.
 * 34) Ne - what; common turkic "Ne, Nege" - what.
 * 35) Or - to press; balkar "Or" - harvest, to harvest.
 * 36) Ru - hammer; balkar "Ur" - to hammer.
 * 37) San - number; balkar & kazakh "San" - number, blk. "Sana" & kz."Sanau" - to count.
 * 38) Sen - you; nostratic "SI, TI, -S, -T" - 2nd person, you; common turkic "Sen" - you.
 * 39) Sig - kick; balkar "Sok", kazakh "Soğu" - to beat.
 * 40) Süz - to filter; balkar "Süz", kazakh "Süzu".
 * 41) Ush - three; common turkic "Üç, Üş" - three.
 * 42) Ud - fire; common turkic "Ot" - fire.
 * 43) Uzuk - long; balkar "Uzun", kazakh "Ǔzın" - long.
 * 44) Tu - to give birth; balkar and kazakh "Tuu" - to give birth.
 * 45) Tush - to sit down, go down; balkar "Tüş", kazakh "Tüsu" - to descend, to go down.
 * 46) Uat - to break; balkar "Uat", kazakh "Uatu" - to break (something).
 * 47) Üz - to tear; balkar "Üz", kazakh "Üzu" - to tear.
 * 48) Ul - clan; common turkic "Ul, Oğul" - son.
 * 49) Yaryk - light; balkar "Yarık", kazakh "Jarıq" - light (like fire).
 * 50) Yarym - half; balkar "Yarım", kazakh "Jarım" - half.
 * 51) Yaz - to write; common turkic "Yaz, Jaz" - to write.
 * 52) Yol - road; common turkic "Yol, Jol" - road, way.
 * 53) Yün - wool; balkar "Yün", kazakh "Jün" - wool.
 * 54) Yir - song; common turkic "Yır, Jır" - song.
 * There are enough proofs of turkic peoples' (as well as other eurasiatc peoples') sumerian ancestry. Especially in toponymy.
 * Such toponyms as Siberia, Samarkand ("Sumerian fortress" in turkic), Samara & Samarra, Göktürk inscriptions that mention ancestral land of "Yer-sub" ("land-water"), pre-tengriist turkic deity of Yersu, S. Everything is a result of human migration northwards to Central Asia and Siberia.
 * It's all simple, but dumb-headed western "scientists" don't want to know anything that won't support their racist ideologies.


 * Anyway, there are no coincidences in linguistics. There are loanwords and words of common origin but never coincidences.
 * Iliassh (talk) 07:58, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Did you read the question properly? There are no Sumerian words of Turkish origin.  The question was not "Are there common Proto-Turkic and Sumerian words?" PS. Your word list is faulty because it does not compare Proto-Turkic to Sumerian.  Also regarding coincidence in linguistics, try reading How likely are chance resemblances between languages? http://www.zompist.com/chance.htm  --Stacey Doljack Borsody (talk) 14:56, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Just for you, Iliassh... The words that you gave above are not even Sumerian. There is no ü in Sumerian. And *all* (really all!) words that you wrote there have another meaning than the meaning that you wrote there or don't exist at all (mostly the latter). So what you write is nothing but blatant nonsense. Please learn about Sumerian (at least look into a dictionary and don't invent Sumerian words that don't exist) and stop bo(the)ring people with your wild ideas. If you don't stop wasting time and space with your nonsense, you'll be blocked from editing. --Thogo (Talk) 16:44, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I studied some sumerian and I can 100% assure you that such words as DINGIR & KAN were used in sumerian, same way as semitic IL or ILU. I don't connect Sumerian directly to any linguistic family. I support idea that Sumerian language can explain roots of eurasiatic linguistic group.
 * If you still doubt then read O.Suleymenov's "Az i Ya", check out dictionaries of sumerian. Comparative Swadesh list, made by Suleymenov is available here:, (russian).
 * I didn't invent these words, it is based on information that I found., ,
 * I came here to talk, discuss & share my knowledge with people, not to listen your insults. Sumerian is unique language and I don't do this to classify it as turkic or uralic, I do it to explain presence of turkic words in Sumerian. As I already said Sumerian can be related to proto-nostratic or proto-eurasiatic groups.
 * You shouldn't forget that toponymy also plays role - Siberia, Subars (Chuvashes), Samara, Samarkand...
 * Iliassh (talk) 14:52, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

This still looks incredibly suspect. The websites carry little or no credibility: they do not say WHO says these things, their EVIDENCE and how they are QUALIFIED. Without these things, it's someone with a website, and that does not count for anything today. It is also useful if comparative linguistics is done without the nationalistic rhetoric also found on the site. Until we have a reference from a professor of Sumerian saying that the language looks Turkic, we can't include this as fact. — Gareth Hughes (talk) 15:50, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Iliassh, sure, dingir means "god", because that is one of the first words where the meaning was known. And Sulejmenov seems to have used a word list of Sumerian that is 100 years old. If you want, I can give you the Sumerian words of the meanings that you listed above (see here for example), even the easy ones are very different. (For example "father/ancestor" is ayya or adda, "six" is yaš (which is ya "five" + aš "one"), "few/little" is tur, "weight" is kila (no that has nothing to do with kilo...), "break" is dar or zir and so on. You see what I mean? Additionally, Sumerian can just not have words of Turkish origin, this is geographically not possible. Sumerian was spoken in Mesopotamia, several thousand miles away from the Altai mountains where the Turkic people used to live. And Sumerian got extinct 2 ky before Proto-Turkic was spoken, nobody knows how pre-Proto-Turkic looked like at a time when Sumerian was still a living language. Please forget about the theory that Sumerian has any Turkic words. It's completely nonsense. You will find no serious scientist in the world who claims something else. @Garzo, I'm not a professor, but I'm a linguist and Sumerologist, and I know that Sumerian and the Turkic languages are typologically as distinct from each other as two languages/families can be. You can ask any linguist and any Sumerologist in the world, they all will agree to this. --Thogo (Talk) 18:34, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Coincidence
You will always find a few apparent common words between two totally unrelated languages, by the laws of chance. Anthony Appleyard 09:13, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Inconsistency in the article
Under "Classification", we are told that the ergative case, marked -e, is the subject of a transitive verb and that the absolutive shows no case ending. Yet in the "Grammar" section, the example shows "temple", the object of a transitive verb, with the ergative marker ".0", and the subject "Ur.Nammu" with no case at all, as if it were in the absolutive case. This seems to be a glaring contradiction. I made a provisional edit, but I think it needs to be looked at and clarified by someone actually knowledgable in the field.
 * your edit looks reasonable. I suppose we'll have to scour the exteral links to check if the example was taken from there. Shows the importance of always citing where your information is taken from. dab (&#5839;) 09:17, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

It's a bit of a shame that the sample sentence here is not only unattested (as the article notes), but apparently also impossible as it stands. As far as I can tell, the ergative marker on the name Ur.Nammu always comes in the form of the sign ke4 (KID), which indicates that the name actually has a silent (or at least unwritten) k at the end that only becomes apparent when followed by a vowel. This would make sense for a name that is etymologically Ur.Nammu.ak, "Man of Nammu".

Strictly speaking, the sentence should really read something like Inanna, nin.ani.r, Ur.Nammuk.e e.0 mu.na.n.du, but then you'd face the inevitable questions about where the [k] came from. The whole problem could be finessed by adding lugal ("king") in apposition to Ur.Nammu and tacking the ergative marker onto that. The sentence would then be Inanna, nin.ani.r, Ur.Nammu lugal.e e.0 mu.na.n.du. MTCicero 06:21, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Sparseness of linguistic data?
"...second, the sparseness of linguistic data..." I've read somewhere that there are about 40,000 tablets written in Sumerian  (which is a huge number.) The clay tablets proved to be best medium for preservation for thousands of years. I have a hard time to believe that the linguistic data is sparse. It is just that the interest is not there. I would speculate that once the IE linguists figured out that it is not an IE language (and that is why it was hard in the first place) they lost interest in Sumerian.

"...The Sumerian text corpus is huge in ancient terms; at least 100,000 documents have been excavated..." [] AverageTurkishJoe

in ancient terms. that's nothing compared to later languages, considering that most documents just have a couple of words on them. dab (&#5839;) 08:49, 2 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Most of these "tablets" are just fragments, and many documents have several copies, which is a good thing because most of them are damaged. Moreover, all these tablets aren't readily available for study. Plus, we have no native speakers or related languages that are better known. Hence, a lot of research on Sumerian is simply speculation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.93.242.157 (talk) 11:15, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Some problems in the article
I´ve just read the English version of the Sumerian language article (I wrote major parts of the German one.) And there are some problematic things.
 * In the first paragraph, there is Sumerian was replaced by Akkadian as a spoken language around 2000 BC, whereas in the right-hand box there is effectively extinct from about 2300 BCE. Now, we know that Sumerian was spoken at least until 2000-1900 BC, but even longer in Nippur, most probably. Maybe this should be revised. (The late period from about 2000 BC, thus the time when Sumerian was dying out, is often called "Late Sumerian".)
 * Suffixaufnahme (do you really use the German word in English???): But, anyway, Sumerian is NO language with suffix absorption!!! Never! Here comes an example of real SA (from Ancient Georgian): saxl-man israel-isa-man (house-ERG Israel-GEN-ERG) ´the house of Israel´. In Sumerian the same NP would be e2 Israel=ak=e (house Israel=GEN=ERG). I hope that one can see the difference. In the Georgian case, the head noun bears ERG suffix, and ADDITIONALLY the GEN phrase agrees in that case. In Sumerian, however, the case markers are not suffixes but clitic postpositions which are placed at the end of the whole NP (nominal phrase). But this has nothing to do with suffix absorption!
 * the sentence mentioned in the discussion above: Yes, I also think that it is Ur.Namma.k=e (the name is read Urnamma meanwhile (with "dropped" k at the end, of course))! But what is definitely wrong is the verb in this sentence. As state in the article above du means ´go.IPFV´. So this should be du3 (or better ŕu2, meanwhile!). By the way, some lines below this sentence, Urnamma is translated as "man of Nammu" by the author, thus the GEN marker is not really discutable, is it? :-)
 * lugal has obviously no simple structure! (lu2 gal ...) No further comment neccessary.
 * Following statement is of the article: Finally, and most cryptically, the introductory mu. marker has yet to be given a definitive, or even plausible, interpretation. OK, and where is it? ;-) I think the author meant has not yet, but there is a very easy explanation for mu- that you all know from Edzard´s 2003 grammar, from Thomsen´s 1984 book, from whatever you want. It is just the ventive (sometimes called inverse deixis), which makes clear that the local direction of the action is towards the speaker of the sentence. So in this case, mu- does nothing else but noting that the inscription (it´s from Volk 1999, isn´t it?) is written on just that mentioned temple, thus the action of building was directed here. That´s why some people translate the munanŕú-clauses as built ... here.

So, I hope someone of the authors read (and answer) all this stuff. If nobody does riot against it, I will change all these bugs next week. Greetings, Thomas Goldammer, Feb 2, 22:54 CET.


 * I don't know enough about Sumerian grammar to really comment, but I haven't seen anyone else provide anything better than what you have written. I think you should make your changes. --Stacey Doljack Borsody 03:59, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I'll try to answer it. I'll start with the part about Suffixaufnahme, since I am personally responsible for it. I must admit that my only source regarding that phenomenon was Wikipedia itself and the links provided here. Obviously the very definitions vary, hence the controversy. But this source claims that Sumerian does have Suffixaufnahme and apparently equates it with double case / case stacking or whatever you call the Sumerian principle. However, it is true that the other source cited in the wikipedia article clearly differentiates between double case and Suffixaufnahme along the same lines as you do (while warning against confusing them in a way that suggests that this "confusion" does occur among linguists). As for the very entry in Wikipedia, it doesn't say anything about whether the head noun also receives the affix in question. Concerning suffixes/postpositions - well, they have been called suffixes very often in literature on the topic, and I don't find the distinction very meaningful to start with. Anyway, since the thing is obviously controversial at best, I'll remove it.

Concerning your other suggestions: Ur-Nammu used to be the standard version of the name, but I think you're right that ur-namma has gained acceptance. 2000 BC used to be the standard - very approximate - date, too; I don't know what people meant by 2300 BC, but I suppose it has something to do with the claims I've met that Sumerian was already dying out during The Akkadian Empire, as the Semitic element became more and more prevalent, and that its position in Ur III was more due to government policy. Whatever. ETCSL and others still use du3 instead of ru2, I really don't think ru2 is generally accepted as of yet. As for the "ventive" mu- and the other prefixes of the same type (i-, bi-, ba-, im-mi, im-ma- etc.), I suppose that Thomsen's (and maybe other people's) explanations should be mentioned, but I understand perfectly well why the contributor regarded them as neither definitive nor plausible. 90% of the usage of that "ventive" seems more or less unjustfied. My personal experience with Sumerian has made me an agnostic in these matters. Only ba- and mu- make sense - but rarely. I think you're right about ur-{d}namma-ke4 as opposed to ur {d}namma [-e]. The contributor assumes a genitive relation without a case marker, but in practice I find that ergative ur-{d}namma-ke4 occurs in ETCSL (although I found also the other possibility!). However, you're quite wrong as regards "du3"; I think it's obvious that the user who wrote the example in question wanted to provide the pronunciation and the actual morphological structure of the sentence, and not its transliteration! He wrote Inanna, nin.ani.r, Ur. Nammu.e e.0 mu.na.n.du His purpose had clearly never been to write: {d}inanna nin-a-ni-ir ur {d}nammu e2 mu-na-an-du3.

I'd say that portion of the article is written more like an essay than like an encyclopedia article. It shouldn't look like that, but I don't feel like re-writing it.


 * Thank you for thinking about all these stuff. (And, of course, for the changes in the article. So I don´t have to do...) OK, Suffixaufnahme: I´ve read Aristar´s abstract about it, but I as a linguist do not agree with him to call the Sumerian case construction "Suffixaufnahme", because an "Aufnahme" should really be a construction where something is copied. Like Kracht (his paper is really good), I call the Sumerian case marking construction just "Postpositional case" (really the same construction does exist for instance in Kâte, a Papuan language), thus the case suffix is phonologically bound but not to a head as most suffixes are but to a phrase (sth. what we call "phrasal suffix"). So it seems to be like English "of" which is called a prepositional case marker for GEN case by a lot of linguists. (But the English "of" is phonologically not bound, of course, but that doesn´t matter for the construction.) But, anyway, I also think it is better leaving it out in the article.


 * Readings: Yes, you´re right, I often read du3 or Ur-Nammu also in recent articles or publications. So this should remain unchanged.


 * Verbal Prefixes: Again, you´re right, in most cases mu- and some others face us with the problem to see the meaning in the special case. But this might be due to the fact that a lot of cultures have a very different way of thinking about deixis or place. In Kiranti languages (spoken in eastern Nepal) the people have to make a distinction whether an action (whatever it is, sleeping, cooking, writing etc.) is situated uphill, downhill or at the same level, obligatorily. Maybe the Sumerians had also a definition of deixis that differs from ours in such a strict way. Probably, we will never know... By the way, in Ma´di (a Central Sudanic language) there is also a category "ventive" which occurs unpredictably (at least for those (like me) who are not familiar with the language).


 * du/du3: Yes, I was wrong. (Sorry, but I´m not accustomed to read Sumerian in such a way, thus without indices. ;-) )


 * essay/lexicon article: I agree that the detailed explanation of each very part of the example senctence is too long for a lexicon article. Maybe one should just make an unabbreviated interlinerization of the sentence and link all the linguistic termini to the articles in question.


 * Greetings, Thomas Goldammer 14:56, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestions and explanations. Yes, perhaps interlinerization (or whatever it's called in English) would be enough, but such a radical change would be a lot of work, especially if no valuable information is to be lost, and I prefer the article to contain too much rather than too little information. If the essay were to be trimmed, I somehow feel that the trimmer would be obliged to provide a proper and detailed grammar overview in its place, and - as I said -I really don't feel like it right now. Anyway, I think it's decent as it is now - perhaps too large already.

Oh, yes - concerning the conjugation prefixes: I just noticed that also the 2005 overview by a certain prof. dr. Klausen that your German language page has a link to states only:

Konjugationspräfixe. Es gibt zwei Arten dieser Präfixe, die sich nicht wesentlich in der Funktion, aber sicher in der Herkunft unterscheiden. Jede finite Verbform benötigt einen dieser sechs Marker. Ihre Herkunft, Bedeutung und Verwendung ist bis heute nicht gänzlich geklärt, obwohl darüber sehr viele Arbeiten in den letzten Jahren geschrieben wurden. In der Übersetzung werden sie meist nur als ein Hinweis auf die 'finite Verbform' ohne weitere semantische Relevanz angesehen (das hielten schon die Akkader in den Bilinguen so).

It also calls -da etc "Kasussuffixe". So - well, it's all very messy.

Greetings!


 * As for Prof. Kausen, I do not like his overview, because it is incomplete, inconsistent, and sometimes just wrong. Meanwhile I wrote him some suggestions to improve it. (Thomas Goldammer 15:27, 7 February 2006 (UTC))

There are recent works where the "conjugation prefixes" are described in a very detailed way. (My Sumerian teacher herself wrote something about them, but I don´t know the exact reference, I have to ask her.) Just take Edzard´s and Attinger´s grammars. But, of course, all these prefixes seem to have inobvious meanings, unfortunately.


 * By the way, could you sign your discussion texts, please? This would simplify the communication... Many greetings, Thomas Goldammer 19:55, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Of course there are works where the prefixes are described in a detailed way. The question is how much of what they describe is actually certain and convincing enough to be written in an encyclopedia. I'm not sure that one should write much more about this than Kausen did. By the way, could you please consider the DR topic below? --85.187.203.123 20:14, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh, you've already done it, thanks! I reckoned that's what the guy meant, but I wasn't sure..

Cluster DR?
The Sumerian phonemic inventory contains a cluster DR? May I ask for the sources for this statement? It occurs in the middle of the word, but so do other clusters, don't they?


 * Oh yes, that´s new, and raises problems. First, a "phonological inventory" is nonsense, it should be a "phonemic inventory". Second, the DR-phoneme is one single consonant being somewhere between a [d] and an [r], so most probably the alveolar flap [ɾ]. It is certainly not a cluster. In most works it is written /dr/, but a lot of scholars use ŕ (or also with circumflex).


 * I changed this section in the article. Greetings, Thomas Goldammer 20:03, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

The overview in ETCSL says "an early stage of the language is thought to have had a further consonant whose identity remains uncertain. In the period of the corpus this consonant appears to have merged in some contexts with d and in others with r, or sometimes simply to have been dropped." "The period of the corpus" starts in Gudea's times, if not earlier. So - shouldn't you add something like "at an early stage of the language" (how early, actually)? Or maybe your grammars tell you something else, since you prefer to use ŕ yourself? --85.187.203.123 20:35, 6 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh. All Sumerologists that I know are sure that ŕ was present until the end of Sumerian. For instance we have words like su3.ŕ (=sud/sud4) ´to be long/far, to lengthen, to withdraw, to remove´ which is written sud-ra2 (or more modern suŕ-ŕa2) in Gudea Cyl. A 7:4, 9:2, Cyl. B 6:16, 22:2 for example (at least my "Leipzig-Munich Sumerian Dictionary" says so). I (and I´m not alone) believe that ŕ behaved similar to b, d, g, namely that it was dropped syllable-finally, at least, since Ur-III-times. And in linguistic termini, this is quite probable, because b, d, g, ɾ (what I said above that I consider ŕ to be like), share the features [+voiced, -continuing, -nasal] and thus form what we call a "natural class".
 * p.s. What I meant with signature of discussion texts is that you should open an account in Wikipedia for you. You will have a lot of advantages. It is, of course, not neccessary to have one, but it makes communication more personal. Many greetings, Thomas Goldammer 20:55, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay. Since the newest complete edition of a Sumerian grammar I currently have at home is from the 1950s -!!!- I'll have to leave that to your conscience. :) Although the guys in ETCSL are Sumerologists if there ever were any. Never mind. I only wish that we don't get a one-sided story in what is after all a very debated field. p.s. I'll think about the account. !grtngs! --85.187.203.123 21:28, 6 February 2006 (UTC)


 * As I wrote above (new comment there!) I´m now in contact to Ernst Kausen and he just wrote me that he feels like rewriting and extending the German article together with me (and maybe others). When this work will have been finished (in some weeks), I maybe translate the new sections into English and we can make the English article more complete. Many greetings, Thomas Goldammer 15:35, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Fricatives?
Thank you, Garzo, for making the phonemic inventory clearer (and for de-vandalizing this discussion page ). But are you sure that s/z/ś/š all were fricatives? (I reconstructed z and š to be affricates ([ts] and [tʃ] respectively), according to M.P.Streck´s 2005 reconstruction of the Akkadian sibilants.) Many greetings, --Thomas Goldammer 11:13, 10 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I had been meaning to tidy that up for a while: I was working on East Semitic languages and needed to glance at an overview of Sumerian phonemes to make correct statements about probable influence on East Semitic. I think I got the sibilants/fricatives line a bit backwards. Of course, 'sibilants' nicely covers affricates as well as fricatives, but it doesn't cover h. I'll see if I can rearrange that line to make it clear. What are considered to be the reconstructed values of ś and h? --Gareth Hughes 12:33, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I just changed two small things. Now it´s perfect (at least for me, but, of course, open for further suggestions). OK, for s and ś, I have not yet an idea what was the distinctive feature (I guess I prefer +ant, as you wrote in the article, thus alveolar vs. postalv.), but they collapsed to one single phoneme not later than Ur-III.

Here comes a passage of my reconstruction paper (it is an old version without mentioning of ś (I was not convinced of its existence at the time I wrote it); you may delete it after reading (or before :-) ) if you want. I will finish a renewed version of it in some weeks):

"Since affricates, rather than fricatives, are very common in Akkadian, we have the problem to distinguish between these two groups of sounds in the Sumerian language. Probably, all four Akkadian sibilants were affricates (Streck 2005). But, as we know, there are only three sibilant signs in Sumerian. The lateral affricate was written by Š-signs, the other affricates by Z-signs. The S-signs were used for sibilantic fricatives, emerging from the affricates in certain contexts. Therefore, we have to assume, that S was a real fricative rather than an affricate in Sumerian. With the same argumentation, we have to predict an affricate pronunciation for Z. All Akkadian affricates were at an anterior coronal place of articulation, which is by far the most common place of articulation for affricates in the language world. With these facts, the Sumerian sounds S and Z were also at this place. But if we look at the Akkadian loans, we can see, that Sumerian S freely changes to Š in Akkadian. This can only be explained by the assumption of a non-apical articulation for S in Sumerian, because Akkadian deaffricated affricates are to transcribe as [s z], but both of them are apical and anterior, and there would no explanation for a change to non-apical Š, which was deaffricated to [ɬ]. Since the lateral fricative is a really uncommon sound in the world´s languages, it would be very unprobable, if Sumerian had it as its only coronal fricative. What remains is either a dental or an alveolar non-apical, and thus laminal, fricative. The dental fricative ([θ]) can not be excluded, because Akkadian had this sound in a former stage of the language, see Ehret (1995) for Proto-Semitic. The sound developed to Š later. So the variation of Sumerian S to Š in Akkadian could be a reflex of this sound change. The alveolar non-apical fricative [s̻], a rarely attested sound that occurs in Basque for instance (Hualde and Ortiz de Urbina (2003)), is also possible, because the noice of this sound is much closer to the lateral fricative than to the noice of [s] or [θ], which would also explain the variation to Š. I prefer the latter variant, because it is also very rarely, if ever, attested, that in a language with one single coronal fricative, this one is dental. Now we could adopt this reconstruction for Z, too. But than we would expect a variation to Š in Akkadian also for Sumerian Z, which does not occur. Thus, Z was really an apical alveolar affricate. Whether S lost its laminal articulation in favour to an apical sound [s], remains as unclear as the question, whether or not the sound became voiced in later Sumerian. Since laminal sounds are highly marked and voiceless obstruents are highly unmarked, the former change is much more probable than the latter one."

That´s enough of boring stuff about sibilants. For ḫ, I reconstruct two phonemes (but unsure if really distinguished), namely a velar and an uvular fric. But: Looking at all the data we have, I have to reconstruct a [h] (glottal fric.), too, which disappeared around Ur-III. (That´s why I do never use h for ḫ.). Edzard in his 2003 grammar also suggests the existence of [h] in earlier Sumerian. (I don´t want to bore you again with another section of my paper here, but shortly: There are some loans in western Semitic lgs. as haikal, Hideqqel etc. which force an explanation as above.)

Sorry, I always write too much... Many greetings, --Thomas Goldammer 13:44, 10 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you, for that: it is an interesting read. I agree with your comments about Akkadian and Proto-Semitic. The mutual phonemic features of Akkadian and Sumerian in a shared cuneiform environment are always of interest to me. Akkadian had four sibilants (s and š, voiced z and the emphatic). The existence of the postalveolar fricative in Sumerian does seem highly likely given the distribution of its other sibilants. It appears that voicing of sibilants was either absent or non-phonemic. --Gareth Hughes 15:50, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes that´s another argument for ś = [ʃ]. In general, for me, voicing seems to be non-phonemic in Sumerian (until Ur-III, at least), because Sumerian B, D, G were changed to P, T, K in older Akkadian loans. (apkallu for Sum. ABGAL, and the like.) And, still after Ur-III, there was a neutralization in syllable-final position probably to the plain voiceless obstruents. (VC-signs don´t distinguish voiced/voiceless.) But that´s maybe another discussion.

Many greetings, --Thomas Goldammer 16:14, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of voicing: Prior to phonemic voicing, wasn't there assumed to have been an aspirated/non-aspirated contrast in its place? (a vague memory from a vague article)If yes, why not write it? --85.187.203.123 23:12, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

You´re right. Most Sumerologists assume that. (So I do.) OK, I will add it. But now its nearly 1 AM and I don´t feel like doing it now. :-) Greetings, --Thomas Goldammer 23:47, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

And, concerning the affricates - I am a layman, and I can only ask questions, take no offence: do MOST Assyriologists nowadays accept the affricate reconstruction for Akkadian and Sumerian? Was it popular before Streck 2005 - 'cause it obviously hasn't even had the time to become accepted since then? You know, people have been writing things like ""sh" as in ship" and all that for ages. Do even your latest Sumerian grammars talk about affricates? "z" as /ts/ does at least sound familiar to me, but "tsh"? Of course, you know that only what is generally accepted should be stated in articles, plus controversies if there are any. Not to mention original research. Greetings, --85.187.203.123 12:37, 11 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't think affricates in Akkadian are in order. Part of the evidence behind the postulation of affricates in Sumerian is that Sumerian sibilants were modified when borrowed into Akkadian. Semitic languages do not natively have affricates. --Gareth Hughes 12:46, 11 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Citation of Von Soden´s Akkadian Grammar (of 1995): In der Semitistik setzt sich die Erkenntnis durch, daß in älteren Sprachstufen die Sibilanten als Affrikaten realisiert wurden: s = /ts/, z = /dz/, ṣ = /tṣ/ ... (p. 35) (roughly translated: Within Semitistics, the idea gets accepted that in older stages the sibilants were realized as affricates.) Its thus not a new innovation of Michael Streck, but he was the first who analyzed the data linguistically and came to the same result. He also stated, that later in the development of Akkadian, the affricates became fricatives. (The writing changed from Z to S-signs!)


 * The first who fully analyzed Sumerian phonology was B. Jagersma in his PhD-diss. (I don´t know the exact reference, but it was written in the nineties and finally published last year I guess.) G. Zólyomi continued his work and also said š to be a fricative [ʃ]. (Both also stated ŕ to be an aspirated affricate /tsʰ/.) I disagree with both assumptions. Here is why (from my reconstruction paper):


 * Against š = [ʃ]: "As already mentioned, the Š-signs are used for a lateral affricate in Akkadian. This sound is very common in the Afro-Asiatic languages and in North America, but much less common in the rest of the world, where Sumerian belongs to. So we seem to have two possibilities for Š. At first, it could have been an affricate at a more back place than Z, probably at post-alveolar, retroflex, or alveo-palatal place, where the first is by far the most common. At second, it was perhaps a fricative at the same places. Both sounds are common in the world and can exist without each other. French, for instance, has /ʃ/, but no /ʧ/, whereas Spanish has /ʧ/ and lacks /ʃ/. But if the Sumerian sound had been /ʃ/, we would have expect, that the loans sometimes show a change to S in Akkadian, which is not the case. (Footnote: the Akkadian S-signs were used for deaffricate fricatives). So the most probable sound for Š was /ʧ/."


 * Against ŕ = [ʦʰ]: "Maybe the Akkadian word šukūsu (from Sum. ŠUKUȒ ´supplying field´) can support this assumption. But as Streck (2005) stated, the Akkadian S-signs were used for deaffricate fricatives! This might lead us to the theory that Ȓ was like a fricative rather than an affricate. But as we will see later, an articulation [ɾ] for this phoneme is much more probable and can also lead to a fricative in a language, that does not know flaps. Note, that the change from [ɾ] to [z] needs only a change from [+son, -cont] to [-son, +cont]."


 * Many greetings, --Thomas Goldammer 14:23, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the very detailed and interesting discourse, it does sound very logical and convincing and I will certainly take time to go deeper into it. However, I must remind you of something more basic: Wikipedia is about conventional knowledge, it shouldn't include "Original research" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_research). Now, you are citing your own reconstruction (I suppose it's published in a reputable publication, so it's fortunately not "original research" in the strict sense of the term). Anyway, you shouldn't include its results in an encyclopedia article, or at least not until a significant portion of the scientific community has accepted them. Or rather, you may include them, but not as the only truth. If both the Jagersma and Zolyomi believe(d) š to have been a fricative, then you should write that this opinion exists or is predominant, and the extent to which you mention your own point of view should depend on the extent to which it finds support in conventional Sumerology. The formulation "In der Semitistik setzt sich die Erkenntnis durch" indicates 1. that the author himself is a supporter of the affricate theory; 2. that he acknowledges that many others still aren't. I understand that Streck's arguments have convinced you, since you based your reconstruction on them; but have they convinced the vast majority of his peers already? If not, then they should be mentioned only as ONE existing idea, not as the ONLY one. And here, we're not even talking about the validity of Streck's Akkadian theory, but about your own Sumerian conclusions from it. Don't get me wrong, they certainly should be mentioned (although I guess a rigorous interpretation of "original research" rules would prohibit even that, but then, almost nothing meaningful could be written). But not as THE truth.

I'll try to find out more about this in a week or so, when I have time. But judging from your own words, the article shouldn't look the way it looks now. Again, I want to stress that I do not question your research, quite on the contrary, I am deeply impressed by it. Best regards, --85.187.203.123 00:24, 12 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I´ve just added some other possibilities. Greetings, --Thomas Goldammer 01:10, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. That'll do for a start. Did/do Jagersma and Zolyomi believe that š was a voiceless postalveolar fricative? --85.187.203.123 07:26, 12 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes they do. I don´t have Jagersma´s work here, but Zólyomi don´t give any reasons why he analyzed š this way. He just gives a chart of Sumerian phonemes (including [h], [ʔ](!), and [tsʰ]) without any description. I know Jagersma has a large chapter about phonology in his grammar (and yes, I should look at it), but I don´t know if we already have the published version in our library. (It came out just some weeks ago.) Many greetings, --Thomas Goldammer 09:29, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, then we can write that, too! :) Now it looks alright to me. Do write or correct if you find my wording inexact in some way!


 * Perfect. Greetings, --Thomas Goldammer 20:08, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Pronouns
The two genders have not only separate pronouns, but also separate PNG (person-number-gender) verbal prefixes and different marker options (thus, the plural marker -ene, the ergative -e and the dative marker -ra are restricted to the animate gender, while the directive -e and the locative -a are restricted to the inanimate gender). See for facts and current terminology.

You can say that the verbal PNG prefixes ("infixes") are in fact pronominal, but that is not the same as being "pronouns", since "pronouns" is a word class and not a morpheme class. Thus, the conjugation of verbs by means of suffixes (amo-amas-amat) does not involve pronouns, even though it does signal person and number. In Semitic languages and some Slavic ones, verbs have a gender distinction, too. The Sumerian verbal prefixes (-n-, -b-, not to mention -a-, -e- etc.) can't occur independently, they are part of the verb complex, hence no pronouns.

Even aside from the prefixes, the noun paradigms are different, and in one case the same suffix (-e) has completely different meanings depending on gender. --85.187.203.123 10:17, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Sumerian Photo
Does anybody know if there's any way to re-orient the photo so we don't have to crank our heads sideways to try and read the sumerian? 65.79.30.55 18:44, 23 May 2006 (UTC)Eric Smith

Sumerian Phonology
I seem to remember that the pronunciation of Sumerian signs was deduced from how they were used in Akkadian. If this is true, I am curious how any sounds could be assigned to Sumerian that were not also in Akkadian. For instance, if Sumerian had an ö sound, Akkadian would not have been able to render it accurately - this may tie in with the remark in the article that Sumerian appears to have had lots of homophones. Maybe this is a dumb question - my exposure to Sumerian was about 45 years ago (I studied for a semester under K. Oberhuber)... Jpaulm 18:06, 10 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I've heard suggested that Sumerian might have had tones to explain the homophones. After all, final consonants were being reduced in Sumerian and this can be a trigger for tonogenesis as it occured in the history of Chinese. I'm no Sumerian expert but the idea seduces my imagination. --Glengordon01 01:45, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Another possibility is that Akkadian did not need the wider set of sounds used in Sumerian, but used Sumerian words that sounded similar to them... Jpaulm 19:34, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Sumerian's a "constructed" language now???
"It jas also been argued that Sumerian was a constructed language, intended from the very start to be used for mainly religious, scientific or literary purposes, to be written or spoken by a select or initiated few, such as priests. This, it is argued, may be the origin of the traditional Babylonian and Assyrian usage of it referred to above." First of all, "has" not "jas". Second of all, where are people getting this nonsense? Third of all, has everyone with a modicum of sense finally left Wikipedia in disgust? I'm taking it out. You can battle with me here on Talk:Sumerian language about it. If Sumerian was really a constructed language, it's funny how natural it looks combined with the fact that it came in different dialects just like a natural language (Eme-gir and Eme-sal). --Glengordon01 13:17, 28 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Read the article. This theory is not some Wikipedian's OR (if it were, it should have been deleted even if it had seemed reasonable to you, personally). --194.145.161.227 10:59, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
 * it may not be some Wikipedian's OR, but it's still nonsense. I don't know it this was a prominent 19th century view, as the article now claims, but the statement in any case needs some sort of attribution. dab (&#5839;) 13:41, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm quoting the present article, section "decipherment", where the attribution and further details become clear:


 * The bewildering number and variety of phonetic values that signs could have in Sumerian led to an unfortunate detour in understanding the language - a Paris-based orientalist, Joseph Halévy, argued from 1874 onward that Sumerian was a secret code, and for over a decade the leading Assyriologists battled over this issue. For a dozen years, starting in 1885, even the great Friedrich Delitzsch accepted Halévy's arguments, not renouncing Halévy until 1897."


 * --194.145.161.227 14:57, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
 * you are right. I didn't see that, because I was searching for "constructed" in the text. I agree with the removal of the redundant doubling of the point. dab (&#5839;) 15:09, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, as usual, you'll always find some author saying something crazy. So be it. However what I was objecting to at the time was an unjustified statement, an opinion without source. Clear sources good, empty assertions bad. --Glengordon01 17:37, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Maybe I didn't say that clearly... See [|here] and you can see the original sentence simply started with "it [h]as also been argued" but this is a classic example of a third person indirect pronoun, and if it was referring to something else in the article, the reference wasn't clear. There. So, maybe next time we can have something like (See "Decipherment" for more details) like in a normal encyclopaedia :P Of course, the only problem with that is it's hard to maintain. Are there better suggestions for clarity? --Glengordon01 17:50, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Whoa! How is it possible to not have Eme-sal mentioned here?
Speaking of crazy... what happened to Eme-sal?? Do the editors of Sumerian language even know what they're talking about? Odd. I see it in another language (Emesal (swedish)) but can't find it in English! So does that mean that English-speakers are just badly educated? --Glengordon01 13:25, 28 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Also Emegir needs reference too.
 * John D. Croft 09:36, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


 * you are, as always, welcome to fix it :) I am aware of the term, but I do not know whether it is more than a Sumerologist's red herring ("we have gender studies too") (ᛎ) qɐp 17:41, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

--
 * Fine but personal opinions don't affect the fact that Eme-sal, regardless of what it may be or not be, inevitably pops up when you're talking about the Sumerian language. There are discussions about it online already that eloquently explain things better than I can here:
 * "Whether Emesal is a dialect, a sociolect, a religiolect or a sexolect is interesting in itself, but the point is: it's not a mere invention, and certainly not a Babylonian one. The "sound laws" are too complex, partly reflecting hesitations that also occur in Emegir (n ~ l, g~ ~ m, g ~ b) partly unique (AFAIK) to Emesal (n ~ sh, de,di > ze,zi)." -- Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
 * One way or another Emesal, distinct from Emegir, seems to exist and isn't just some made-up "gender studies" voodoo either.

--Glengordon01 10:17, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

About pronounciation
Hello, good evening. I have a spanish book (Gramática de la lengua Sumeria, ejercicios en transliterado y cueniforme) for learning sumerian, but I've some doubts... In tfe section where it talks about consonants pronounciation says that the group "dr" is a very complex "phonem?", but they don't say what's the pronounciation. Any suggestion?


 * It says that the pronounciation of š is the /ʃ/ (and the book it's not very old, it was printed in 1996).


 * About the ḫ, I studied for four months arabic, and I remember the strong sound of "nahnu" (we). Is it the same sound?

Thank you! KekoDActyluS 17:05, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * And finally, do we have to read it as it's written? I mean, the pronounciation of "I'm their enemy" is the same as we write it? (Gaba-šu-ĝar-a-ni-me-en -> gabaʃu/tʃuŋar animen?) (By the way, which is the stressed syllable of gaba-šu-ĝar, 'gabaʃuŋar or we have to pronounce it separated?


 * Nobody knows exactly the pronunciation of the Sumerian phonemes, but for /dr/ people assume a pronunciation like the r in Spanish foro (whereas the Sumerian r equals Spanish rr). Other people assume a pronunciation [tsʰ] for /dr/ (Jagersma for example does this). But I don't like this assumption because it doesn't count for the writing variation between /dr/ and /r/, which is done by the other assumption. For š most people assume /ʃ/, as I would do. Maybe it is an affricate sound /tʃ/ or the like. ḫ denotes a sound like the j in Spanish Julio ([x] or [χ]), probably. Some people think it could be a more radical sound, thus like in Arab. naħnu. Your example above would probably be read as [kapa ʃu/tʃu ŋaranimen]. The position of stress is very unclear, it seems to be stem final, but that's really uncertain. And it seems that the prefix chain of the verb was a separate word (or even more than one in some cases) phonologically. (As it is the case in many languages, as in German, where many prefixes are not part of the phonological word that the stem belongs to.) Saludos cordiales, --Thogo (Talk) 09:35, 9 April 2007 (UTC)


 * And why is g pronounced like [k] instead of [g] and b like [p] instead of [b]? Silim-ma!KekoDActyluS 15:11, 6 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Most Sumerologists think that Sumerian p, t, k are voiceless aspirated (B. Jagersma) or maybe glottalized (D.-O. Edzard) stops and b, d, g are their unaspirated (but still voiceless) counterparts. --Thogo (Talk) 18:22, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Earliest human language
Zecharia Sitchin lies that Sumerian was first human tongue, original human tongue was Proto-Indo-European, proofs here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Adamic_language_archive83.19.52.107 12:21, 7 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Both is nonsense. There were languages long before them. The most pessimistic estimates say that language arose about 100 kybp. Proto-Indoeuropean took place about 6-7 kybp, thus a very short time ago... --Thogo (Talk) 15:57, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

sparseness of data
Some are wondering about the comment in regards to the sparseness of the linguistic data, specifically mentioning the fact that there are tens of thousands of tablets. While it is true that there are tens of thousands of tablets available for study, the overwhelming majority of these are economic/administrative tablets that are grammatically very formulaic. In other words, imagine trying to write a grammar of the English language by studying tens of thousands of Wal-Mart receipts. Although you would certainly be able to discern many interesting facts about spending habits, do comparisons of spending by region, etc., it would remain difficult to speak of the English language. This is what we are up against as Sumerologists. For a more detailed accounting of the textual material, see Thomsen Italic textThe Sumerian LanguageItalic text pp. 26f. 70.57.177.168 20:04, 28 March 2007 (UTC)Eric Smith


 * And what do you want to tell us with that statement? Btw., Thomsens grammar is very old and lacks linguistical correctness mostly. Edzard 2003 is a much better source. --Thogo (Talk) 20:34, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

No, for the most part Edzard's 2003 grammar is a return to the old models of Falkenstein in the 1930's, '40's and '50's. Edzard's is an interesting book for many reasons, but only for people who know Sumerian already, not for students or amateurs. Thomsen's grammar is not that old; it's simply a representative summary of bibliography published before the early 1980's. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.58.75.246 (talk) 05:48, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Pseodoscientific esoteric teories
There are quite a few pseudoscientific teories regarding sumerian langue. Like sumerian langue was something like programming langue, used by aliens to programm humans;) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.148.71.250 (talk) 11:17, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Looks bad
Usage of this Template:FixBunching looks very bad: the article has an big introductory (more than one page-full) text-void that contains nil-nada. The immediate false impression is that the article is empty. Someone tried to fix something by using FixBunching, but the current state of the article is bad as well. I'll see if there's a better solution. Said: Rursus (☻) 12:50, 19 December 2008 (UTC)


 * by removing template; wasn't necessary anyhow. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 15:57, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

/z/
Okay, so Sumerian language says of /z/: "possibly a voiced alveolar affricate,, as in zip" and sources it to. But a voiced alveolar affricate is /dz/, not /ts/, and neither /dz/ nor /ts/ is the sound of zip (a voiced alveolar fricative), and the source doesn't say anything at all about how z was pronounced. What's going on? —Angr 20:15, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
 * It's not clear anyway, if it was voiced or not. Probably it was voiceless in the early Sumerian periods but changed to voiced later (that is also said for the stops usually transcribed b, d and g). It definitely was an affricate, not a fricative, at least, that's what very most scholars agree with. --Thogo (Talk) Some thoughts about enwiki 11:22, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * So should we change it to "possibly a voiceless alveolar affricate,, as in cats" so the sentence at least no longer contradicts itself three ways? —Angr 12:00, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Hehe, yes, I would say so. :) --Thogo (Talk) Some thoughts about enwiki 20:48, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I went with /z/ as in "zip" after all, since that's what one of the sources given said. (The other source mentions z but doesn't say anything about how to pronounce it.) If there are published sources for /ts/ we can add them too, of course. —Angr 21:16, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I think we need to find a cite. There is little sense that the sound itself was /z/; it wasn't even /z/ in Assyro-Babylonian. It was clearly an affricate and likely similar to /ts/. I am really swamped right now but I am sure we can get a cite for it.  Ogress  smash!  21:55, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
 * For Akkadian, M.P.Streck published an article in 2007. One should find it in his publication list. For Sumerian, I can only offer a cite in German: Zólyomi, Gábor (2005). Sumerisch. in: M.P.Streck "Sprachen des Alten Orients", Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt (Germany), p. 16. ISBN 353417996X Best regards, --Thogo (Talk) Some thoughts about enwiki 07:08, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, what it means in Akkadian isn't relevant to this article. I know z is /ts/ in Hittite, but that doesn't mean a priori that it must also be /ts/ in Sumerian! —Angr 12:41, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Conclusion
This is the only article I have ever encountered on Wikipedia that has a conclusion. Wapondaponda (talk) 21:42, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I've removed it. It was unencyclopedic, speculative, and non-neutral. —Angr 21:54, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Sumerian language
This essayistic part should be removed. It is full of original research.
 * It is very speculative if Emesal was only used by women, and if so, whether all women used it or which purpose it had.
 * Emeku is not a word that is used in Sumerian to describe their language, check the ePSD.
 * It's blatantly wrong that the Emeĝir/Emesal word pairs dub/zeb and gal/mal can't be linked. They show sound correspondences.
 * That "en" comes from "umun" is speculation and therefore OR.
 * How could such a gender specific split in language have occurred? Other human languages have a split for social status of the person addressed, for example Japanese. Such cases are generally found in cultures that have a great degree of inherited social stratification. Perhaps in a similar way the difference between male Emegir and female Emesal originated in a highly sexist, patriarchal and socially stratified culture? (citation from the section in the article) --- unencyclopedic, OR
 * "Sag ga gi" What?? They probably mean "saĝ ĝig" which does not mean "black-haired ones" but simply "black-headed". It's speculation whether that refers to the hair color.
 * the Sumerian names for the Tigris and Euphrates are not Sumerian words. But two lines further: Idigna was probably derived from *Id (i)gina, 'running water'  --- well...
 * Even the name Babylon, translated from the Akkadian the Gates of God is found in the Hurrian as Pabil or Pabal --- yes, and? That has nothing to do with Sumerian.
 * These words must have been loan words from a pre-Sumerian substrate language. Says who?
 * These differences allow us to make the following deduction. --- erm... OR.
 * The first farmers (Eridu and Hadji Muhammed cultures), were not probably Sumerian but speakers of a substrate language, possibly a sister language to the early Proto-Hurrian. Funny idea, but not more. OR.

--Thogo (Talk) 18:38, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I came to this talk page to announce my intention to delete the entire section, and find that user Thogo has already documented many of its problems. The history behind the idea of a Sumerian substrate is discussed at my Sumerian Questions and Answers page at:

http://www.sumerian.org/sumerfaq.htm#s87

And there is a discussion of Proto-Euphratean here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Euphratean

The old-fashioned ideas expressed are now known to be wrong.

John Alan Halloran (talk) 01:51, 5 May 2009 (UTC)