Showing posts with label Akkadian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Akkadian. Show all posts

Monday, August 07, 2006

Sumerian grammatical texts

Sumerian Grammatical Texts available online! The title is a misnomer - most of the texts given are early Sumerian-Akkadian lexica arranged by topic, or just plain Sumerian texts - but there are other interesting things, such as a phonetically organised syllabary (vowel order: u-a-i), and a series called "ana ittišu" (p. 30) with some rather paradigm-looking stuff, such as:

SumerianAkkadian, English
ùrsûnu, lap, bosom
ùr-bisûn-šu, his bosom
ùr-bi-šúana sûni-šu, upon his bosom
ùr-bi-šú in-garana sûni-šu iškun, he placed upon his bosom

which I guess offer a clue about the teaching methods used. These tablets were used to teach young Akkadian-speaking would-be scribes Sumerian, long after Sumerian itself had become extinct.