Cuneiform 98-363: Lecture 5 Midsemester grade • Thanks for staying past the drop deadline! • Percentage grade = 50% Homework + 50% Exam 1 • Pass iff percentage grade >= 40% Topics to cover by Exam 2 • Cuneiform • Numbers • Pronouns • Sound changes Cuneiform signs • A sign may represent: • (part of) a syllable → syllabogram • a whole word → logogram • a determinative (classifier) • Ridiculously complicated Syllabograms • Type V a, e, i, u • Type CV • Only b, m, š, t have different signs for Ce and Ci • Plus some other exceptions… • Type VC • Only l, n, š have different signs for eC and iC • Plus some other exceptions… • Type CVC • No distinction between e and i, voiced/voiceless/emphatic. How do we refer to syllabograms? • We write the name of a polyphonous sign in capital letters. • e.g. the sign UD can represent ud, ut, uṭ, tam • Given a set of homophonous signs, we refer to: • the most common sign as is; • the 2nd most common sign with acute accent on the vowel; • the 3rd most common sign with grave accent on the vowel; • the rest with subscripts. • e.g. sa, sá, sà, sa4 • We refer to other signs by their phonetic values. Akkadian orthography • Words are spelled following the syllabification rule Most importantly, this means no (C)VC-V(C) • CVC syllables are more often written as CV-VC than just CVC • kaspum can be ka-as-pu-um • Double consonants are not always indicated • qaqqadum can be qa-aq-qa-dum or qa-qa-dum Extra vowel signs (e.g. šū as šu-u not šu) Vowel length Word-initially Word-medially Word-finally Short Almost never (e.g. a) Exception: some 1-syllabic words (e.g. ul as u-ul) Usually not Usually not Macron Occasionally Exception: some 1-syllabic Exception: some 1-syllabic (e.g. ā) (e.g. kīn as ki-i-in) words (e.g. šū as šu-u) words (e.g. lū as lu-ú) Circumflex May or may not Almost always (e.g. â) (e.g. rabîm as ra-bi-im or ra-bi-i-im) (e.g. imlâ as im-la-a) How do you know the variants of a (potentially) polyphonic sign? • Look it up in the Cross-Index of Sign Values • Textbook p. 575 (PDF 615/700) • Look up the index in the Sign List • Textbook p. 563 (PDF 603/700) • Polyphonic variants, logographic values • Run example with UD • This assumes that you somehow know that this sign might be polyphonic or logographic • How do you know that? Practice! • Normalize: This is the • ag-ra-am šu-a-ti a-na ga-ma-ar ba-ne-e bi-tim (Roman) a-gu-úr-ma i-na ba-ne-e bi-tim ú-ul ig-mu-úr. transcription • a-wi-lum šu-ú bi-tam ù eq-lam i-ša-am-ma i-ni-iš. • šar-ru-um ṭe4-ma-am it-ti eṭ-lu-ti-im iš-ku-um-ma na-ar-ka-ba-ti-im a-na ša-di-im an-ni-i-im ir-ka-bu. • i-na ep-še-tim i-ša-ra-tim ša ru-be-em šu-a-ti na-pí-iš-ti ma-tim i-ṭi-ib-ma ma-tum iḫ-du. Logograms • Represent whole words • Given in capital letters and in their Sumerian pronunciation • e.g. NUN (= rubûm) ‘prince’ • Some signs have a phonographic value and a logographic value • ____ is bu, pu and GÍD (= arkum) ‘long’ • ____ is an, AN (= šamû) ‘sky’ and DINGIR (= ilum) ‘god’ • Sometimes compounded • __________ DUMU.MUNUS (= mārtum) ‘daughter’ consists of DUMU (= mārum) ‘son’ and MUNUS (= sinništum) ‘woman’ Special use of logograms 1: Plurality • Logogram + MEŠ ‘(Sumer.) they are’ • e.g. DINGIR.MEŠ GAL.MEŠ (= ilū rabûtum) ‘great gods’ • Logogram + ḪI.A (ḪÁ) for non-human beings • e.g. GUD (= alpum) ‘ox’, GUD.ḪI.A (= alpū) ‘oxen’ • Reduplication • e.g. EN KUR.KUR (= bēl mātātim) ‘master of (all) the lands’ Use case 2: phonetic complements Practice! • Normalize: This is the • ŠE-um i-na eq-le-tim i-te-er-ma ni-šu ba-ab-tim (Roman) an-ni-tim ŠE-am wa-at-ra-am a-na KUG.BABBAR transcription i-na-di-na. • i-na UD-mi-im šu-a-ti i-na-ni UTU ú-ul i-ṭú-la. • da-an-na-tum ma-tam ša-a-ti is-ḫu-up-ma ni-šu ma- da-tum i-mu-ta-ma MUNUS.MEŠ DUMU.MEŠ ú- ul ul-da. More realistic normalization task Reminds me of the Japanese writing system • Phonograms represent sounds, logograms represent words/phrases • Japanese has 3 writing systems /nihongo/ ‘Japanese’ • Kanji (stems) Logo 日本 語 • Hiragana (inflections, functionals) Phono にほんご • Katakana (loanwords, foreign names) Phono ニホンゴ • Kanji’s were first used logographically to write Chinese, then used phonographically to write Japanese syllables, which developed into the two phonographic writing systems From kanji to hiragana/katakana.