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SUMER and SUMERIAN. The Babylonian. name Shumer was used in the See also:cuneiform See also:inscriptions. together with See also:Akkad, viz. See also:mat Shumeri u Akkadi, See also:land of S. and A., to denote Babylonia in See also:general (see AKKAD). In. the non-Semitic ideographic documents the See also:equivalent for Shumer is Kengi, which seems to be a See also:combination of See also:ken, " land " + gi, " See also:reed," i.e. " land of reeds," and, appropriate: designation for Babylonia, which is essentially a See also:district of reedy marshes formed by the See also:Tigris and See also:Euphrates. It was formerly thought that Shumer was employed especially to denote the See also:south of Babylonia, while Akkad was used only of the See also:north, but this view is no longer, regarded as tenable. It is more probable that the expression Shumer designated the whole of Babylonia in much the same manner as did Akkad, and that the two words "Shumer and Akkad were used together as a comprehensive See also:term. That Shumer actually did mean all Babylonia appears evident from the biblical use of Shinar=Shumer to describe the district which contained the four See also:chief Babylonian cities, viz. See also:Babel, See also:Erech, Accad and Calneh (Gen. x. o), which, according to the Old Testament See also:account, constituted the beginnings of See also:Nimrod's See also:kingdom. The identity of Shinar and Shumer is also demonstrated by the See also:Septuagint rendering of Shinar in See also:Isaiah xi. xs by Babylonia." In See also:short, there can be no doubt that the biblical name Shinar was practically equivalent to the mat Shumeri u Akkadi=non-Semitic Kengi-See also:Uri of the Babylonian inscriptions. Furthermore, the fact.. that the See also:Syriac Sen`ar = Shinar was later used to denote the region about See also:Bagdad (See also:northern Babylonia) does not necessarily prove that Shinar-Shumer meant only northern Babylonia, because, when the term Sen'ar w as applied to the Bagdad district the See also:great See also:southern Babylonian See also:civilization had See also:long been forgotten and " Babylonia " really meant only what we now know as northern Babylonia. The actual meaning of the word Shumer is uncertain. Dr T. G. Pinches has pointed out' that Shumer may be a See also:dialectic See also:form of an as yet unestablished non-Semitic form, Shenger, just as the non-Semitic word dimmer, See also:god," is equivalent to another form, dingir. Others have seen in the See also:ancient Babylonian See also:place-name Gir-su an See also:inversion of Su-gir, = Su-figir, which has also been identified with Shumer. In this connexion Hemmers theory2 should be mentioned, that the word Shumer was a later palatalization of Ki-imgir, " land of Imgir, "=Shiimgir, subsequently Shingi with palatalized k=sh and elision of the final r. The form imgir (imgur), however, as a place-name for Babylonia is uncertain. All that can be said at See also:present about this difficult See also:etymology is that in the non-Semitic Babylonian the medial m represented quite evidently an indeterminate nasal which could also be indicated by the combination ng. Hence we find Shumer, probably pronounced Shumer, with a See also:sound similar to that heard to-See also:day in the Scottish Gaelic word See also:lamb, " See also:hand "; viz, a sort of nasalized w. This gave rise to the later inaccurate forms: See also:Greek, Senaar.; Syriac, Sen'ar; and biblical See also:Hebrew, Shinar=Shia ar. The so-called " Sumerian problem," which has perplexed Assyriologists for many years, may be briefly stated as follows. In a great number of Babylonian inscriptions an See also:idiom has long been recognized which is clearly not See also:ordinary Semitic in See also:character. This non-Semitic See also:system, which is found, in many instances, on alternate lines with a See also:regular Semitic See also:translation, in other cases in opposite columns to a Semitic rendering, and again without any Semitic equivalent at all, has been held by one school, founded and still vigorously defended by the distinguished See also:French Assyriologist, See also:Joseph See also:Hal.evy, to be nothing more than a priestly system of See also:cryptography based, of course, on the then current Semitic speech. This cryptography, according to some of the Halevyans, was read aloud in Semitic, but, according to other expositors, the system was read as an " ideophonic," See also:secret, and purely artificial See also:language. The opposing school (the Sumerists) insists that these s See also:Hastings's Dint. See also:Bible. iv. 503. 2 Ibid. i. 224b.
non-Semitic documents were evidently in an agglutinative language, naturally not uninfluenced by Semitic elements, but none the less essentially non-Semitic in origin and fundamental character. Scholars of this See also:opinion believe that this language, which has been arbitrarily called " Akkadian " in See also:England and " Sumerian " on the See also:European See also:continent and in See also:America, was primitively the speech of the pre-Semitic inhabitants of the Euphratean region who were conquered by the invading Semites. These invaders, according to this latter view, adopted the See also:religion and culture of the conquered Sumerians; and, consequently, the Sumerian idiom at a comparatively See also:early date began to be used exclusively in the Semitic temples as the written vehicles of religious thought in much the same way as was the See also:medieval Latin of the See also:Roman See also: In See also:order to comprehend the mysteries of the Sumerian problem a thorough examination of the beginning of every one of these signs is, of course, imperative, but it is equally necessary that every phonetic Sumerian value and word-combination be also studied, both in connexion with the equivalent signs and with other allied phonetic values. This etymological study of Sumerian is attended with incalculable difficulties, because nearly all the Sumerian texts which we possess are written in an idiom which is quite evidently under the See also:influence of Semitic. With the exception of some very ancient texts, the Sumerian literature, consisting largely of religious material such as See also:hymns and incantations, shows a number of Semitic loanwords and grammatical Semitisms, and in many cases, although not always, is quite patently a translation. of Semitic ideas by Semitic priests into the formal religious Sumerian language. Professor See also:Paul See also:Haupt may be termed the See also:father of Sumerian etymology, as he was really the first to place this study on a scientific basis in his Sumerian See also:Family See also:Laws and Akkadian and Sumerian Cuneiform Texts? It is significant that all phonetic and grammatical work in Sumerian tends to confirm nearly every one of Haupt's views. Professors See also:Peter See also:Jensen and Zimmern have also done excellent work in the same See also: See especially his Sumerian See also:grammar in this latter work, PP. 133-147. 'Cf. A. H. See also:Sayce's interesting See also:article in Philological Society (1877-1878), pp. 1-20. 4 See also:Prince, Materials for a Sumerian See also:Lexicon, pp. 18, 21.word-list is the conclusion that such a vocabulary could never have arisen in a regularly developed language. For example, anyone studying See also:Brunnow's Lists will find the same sign denoting pages of meanings, many of which have apparently no connexion with any other meaning belonging to the sign in question. A great multiplicity of meanings is also attributed, apparently quite arbitrarily, to the same sign, sound-value or word. In these instances, however, we can explain the difficulty away by applying that great fundamental principle followed by the Semitic priests and See also:scribes who played with and on the Sumerian idiom, and in the course of many centuries turned what was originally an agglutinative language into what has almost justified Halevy and his followers in calling Sumerian a cryptography. This principle is that of popular etymology, i.e. of sound-association and See also:idea-association which has brought together in the word-lists many apparently quite distinct meanings, probably primarily for purposes of mnemonic aid. The present writer in his Materials for a Sumerian Lexicon has mentioned this ruling phenomenon again and again. A very few examples, however, will suffice here. Thus the word ag = the sign See also:RAM = rdmu, " love " (proper meaning) is associated with ramdmu, " to roar," for phonetic reasons only. The word a= the sign A= " See also:water " (See also:original meaning) can indicate anything whatever connected with the idea moisture. Thus, a=" water, moisture, weep, tears, inundate, irrigate," &c. The word a can also mean " shining, glistening," an idea evidently developed from the shining rippling of water. See also:Note that in Turkish su means both " water " and " the lustre of a See also:jewel," while in See also:English we speak of " gems of the first water." The combination a-ma-1u, literally " water enter See also:ship," means abtibu, " See also:deluge," ordinarily, but in one passage a-mh-tu is made the equivalent of shababu, " See also:flame," a pure See also:pun on abu2bu, " deluge." Examples of this, the leading principle which was followed by the framers of the Sumerian system, might be cited almost ad infinitum. Facts of this character taken by themselves would perhaps be sufficient to convince most philologists that in Sumerian we have an arbitrarily compounded cryptography just as Halevy believes, but these facts cannot be taken by themselves, as the evidences of the purely linguistic basis of Sumerian are stronger than these apparent proofs of its artificial character. Briefly considered there are six most striking proofs that the Sumerian was based on a primitive agglutinative language. These may be tabulated concisely'as follows: r. Sumerian presents a significant list of See also:internal phonetic See also:variations which would not have been possible in an arbitrarily invented language. Thus, taking the vowels alone; e=a by the principle of umlaut. Hence, we find the words ga and ge, a and e for the same idea respectively. The vowel i could become e as de=di, &c. Consonantal variation is most See also:common. Thus, b.= m, as See also:baron=marun. Compare the modern Arabic See also:pronunciation Maalbek for See also:Baalbek. Perhaps the most interesting of these consonantal interchanges is that occurring between n and the sibilants sh and z; ner =slier; na=za, which by some scholars has been declared to be phonetically impossible, but its existence is well established between the modern See also:Chinese colloquial idioms. For example, Pekingese See also:alien, Hakka nyin, See also:Fuchow Hong, Ningpo thing and nying, Wonchow zang and hang all =" man." This demonstrates beyond a doubt the possibility of a strongly palatalized is becoming a palatal sibilant or See also:vice versa, between which utterances there is but a very slight See also:tongue See also:movement. The discussion of these phenomena brings us to another point which precludes the possibility of Sumerian having been merely an artificial system, and that is the undoubted existence in this language of at least two dialects, which have been named, following the inscriptions, the Eme-ku, " the See also:noble or male speech," and the Eme-sal, " the woman's language." The existence and general phonetic character of the " woman's language " were first pointed out by Professor Paul Haupt, 6 R. E. Brunnow, A Classified List of all See also:Simple and See also:Compound Ideographs (1889). who cited, for example, the following very common interdialectic variations: Eme-ku gir=Eme-sal meri, " See also:foot "; Eme-ku tier = Eme-sal skier, " ruler "; Eme-ku duga = See also:Erne-sal zeba, " See also:knee," &c. Such phonetic and dialectic changes, so different from any of the Semitic linguistic phenomena, are all the more valuable because they are set before us only by means of Semitic equivalents. Certainly no cryptography based exclusively on Semitic could exhibit this sort of interchange. It should be added here in passing that the See also:geographical or tribal significance of these two Sumerian dialects has never been established. There can be no doubt that Eme-sal means " woman's language," and it was perhaps thus designated because it was a softer idiom phonetically than the other See also:dialect. In it were written most of the See also:penitential hymns, which were possibly thought to require a more euphonious idiom than, for example, hymns of praise. It is doubtful whether the Eme-sal was ever really a woman's language similar in character to that of the Carib See also:women of the See also:Antilles, or that of the See also:Eskimo women of See also:Greenland. It is much more likely that the two dialects were thus designated because of their respectively harsh and soft See also:phonetics). 2. Sumerian has a system of vowel See also:harmony strikingly like that seen in all modern agglutinative See also:languages, and it has also vocalic dissimilation similar to that found in modern Finnish and Esthonian. Vocalic harmony is the internal bringing together of vowels of the same class for the See also:sake of greater euphony, while vocalic dissimilation is the deliberate insertion of another class of vowels, in order to prevent the disagreeable monotony arising from too prolonged a vowel harmony. Thus, in Sumerian we find such forms as numunnib-bi, " he speaks not to him," where the negative prefix nu and the verbal prefix See also:mun are in harmony, but in dissimilation to the infix nib, " to him," and to the See also:root bi, " speak," which are also in harmony. Compare also an-sud-See also:dam, " like the heavens," where the ending dam stands for a usual dim, being changed to a hard dam under the influence of the hard vowels in an-sud. 3. Sumerian has only postpositions instead of prepositions, which occur exclusively in Semitic. In this point also Sumerian is in See also:accord with all other agglutinative idioms. Note Sumerian e-do. " in the See also:house " (e, " house," +da, " in," by dissimilation), and compare Turkish ev, " house," de, " in," and evde, " in the house." 4. The method of word formation in Sumerian is entirely non-Semitic in character. For example, an indeterminative vowel, a, e, i or u, may be prefixed to any root to form an abstract; thus, from me, "speak," we get a-me, " speech "; from ra, " to go," we get a-ra, " the See also:act of going," &c. In connexion with the very complicated Sumerian verbal system2 it will be sufficient to note here the practice of infixing the verbal See also:object which is, of course, absolutely alien to Semitic. This phenomenon appears also in Basque and in many North See also:American languages. 5. Sumerian is quite devoid of grammatical gender. Sefnitic, on the other hand, has grammatical gender as one of its basic principles. 6. Furthermore, in a real cryptography or secret language, of which English has several, we find only phenomena based on the language from which the artificial idiom is derived. Thus, in the English " Backslang," which is nothing more than ordinary English deliberately inverted, in the similar Arabic See also:jargon used among school See also:children in See also:Syria and in the See also:Spanish thieves' dialect, the principles of inversion and substitution See also:play the chief See also:part. Also in the curious See also:tinker's " Thary " spoken still on the English roads and lanes, we find merely an often inaccurately inverted Irish Gaelic. But in none of these nor in any other artificial jargons can any grammatical development be found other than that of the language on which they are based. 7. All this is to the point with regard to Sumerian, because these very principles of inversion and substitution have been . Prince, Materials for a Sumerian Lexicon, p. 14. 2 Ibid. pp. 20-34.cited as being the basis of many of the Sumerian combinations. Deliberate inversion certainly occurs in the Sumerian documents, and it is highly probable that this was a priestly mode of writing, but never of speaking; at any See also:rate, not when the language was in common use. It is not necessary to imagine, however, that these devices originated with the Semitic priesthood. It is quite conceivable that the still earlier Sumerian priesthood invented the method of orthographic inversion, which after all is the very first See also:device which suggests itself to the primitive mind when endeavouring to See also:express itself in a manner out of the ordinary. For example, evident Sumerian inversions are Gibil, " the See also:fire god," for Bil-gi; ushar for Sem. sharru, " See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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