Sumerian and Akkadian

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Introduction 281

Chapter 8 Beyond the Sinographosphere: Sumerian and Akkadian

I have laid out a theory of script adaptation based on observed phenomena in the history of various Sinographies. The theory proposes that when a source logographic script (such as Chinese) is borrowed by literate script users to rep- resent their target vernacular languages (such as Korean, Japanese, Vietnam- ese, and Zhuang), the typological features of the target language, including points of similarity and difference with the source language, significantly con- strain and motivate the possible pathways of adaptation. These motivations and constraints are powerful enough that they have predictive force, regardless of the specific cultural and historical circumstances that also shape the script borrowing situation. The theory assumes as axiomatic that semantic and phonetic adaptation of logograms are intuitively available to literate users of a logographic script. Our confidence in this assumption is reinforced by the empirical observation that semantic and phonetic adaptation are commonalities in all of the script adaptation scenarios explored in this study, and is further supported by the fact that such adaptations also appear to play a major role in the early development of the known ex nihilo script inventions of our species. The theory takes as a given the existence of a source logographic script writing a language of the isolating type, i.e. Chinese. It does not necessarily assume that its conclusions will apply when the source language is of a different type. The theory was developed in application to situations where the speakers of the target language have knowledge of and experience with only one type of writing and literacy, i.e. that for those speakers, the notions of “writing”, “written language”, and the source script are not meaningfully distinguished, at least initially. Thus our conclusions may not be valid for a historical situation that is not, to coin a term, monogrammatical.1

1 We can define monogrammatical as referring to a cultural situation in which only one script and one written language are generally known to exist in the world, and as a result the pos- sibility of the existence of other scripts or written languages may not be obvious. As noted earlier, one difficulty with our attempt to test the theory against the development of Khitan and Jurchen writing is that both of these scripts were developed in an environment that was not monogrammatical.

Finally, while the theory as it has been developed here recognizes all linguistic typological features as relevant, it places primacy on two major linguistic types as variables: isolating and agglutinating. We developed an isolating model for script adaptation based on Vietnamese Sinographic vernacular writing, and an agglutinating model of script adaptation based on Korean Sinographic vernacular writing, and tested those models against other historical script adaptation scenarios. If the theory is valid, it should apply equally well to other situations of this type. This is impossible to test, however, because none of the other ex nihilo writing systems were created for as strictly isolating a language as Chinese was at the time of its adaptation to other languages.2 To what extent might the theory be applicable, perhaps in modified form, to historical-linguistic situations that are not exactly parallel to what we find in the Sinographosphere? This question can be explored by an analysis of Sumerian writing and of the earliest writing system adapted from it, Akkadian.

8.1 Sumerian and Akkadian: an Imperfect Parallel to Sinographic Writing

The historical and cultural relationship among the Sumerian language, the Ak- kadian language, and cuneiform script is roughly analogous to that among the Chinese language, the mainstream Sinographic languages such as Japanese, and the Chinese-character script. These similarities allow for productive com- parison of Sinographic writing with Sumero-Akkadian writing as a way of test- ing and applying some of the hypotheses about script adaptation that have been advanced in this study. There are also, however, significant differences that make the analogy imperfect. Perhaps the most significant one is the typological difference between Chinese during the era when literacy first spread to Korea, Vietnam, and Japan, and Sumerian at the time that Akkadian speakers developed their own species of literacy. The rich and complex subject of the Sumerian and Akkadian languages and writing systems can be dealt with only in the most superficial way here. I will provide a broad and necessarily highly generalized overview before offering

2 We carefully distinguish time of adaptation from time of development. As noted in Chapter 2, the typology of Chinese at the time the script originated remains a matter of uncertainty, although all signs point to a considerably different morphology and phonology than that of isolating post-Hàn (i.e. after the 3rd century ce) Chinese.