Sumerian Grammar Notes 2

Koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Visiting Professor

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

10th August 2012

             What is very exciting about the Sumerian Grammar of A. Poebel, is that he transliterated and translated many Sumerian-Akkadian bilingual texts on Grammar. It appears as if it were school texts in which the students practiced the various conjugations, grammatical structures, phrases in various forms for the pronouns and other aspects. Poebel was employed in 1913-1914 to copy and translate a number of grammatical texts. Thus, reading one of the texts will be something like this:

Text 142 Column 3 line 4-8

Sumerian                   Akkadian                   English

al-hul-hul-e-ne             u-te-bi-du                   they are lost

nu-hul-hul-e-ne            u-la u-te-bi-du             they are not lost

he-ha-ha-e-ne              li-te-bi-du                   may they be lost

na-an-ha-ha-e-ne          la u-te-bi-du                may they not be lost

nam-mu-un-ha-ha-en     la tu-te-bi-da-an-ni        mayest thou not be lost to me

With this data, one can analyze Sumerian:

                                          nu-     hul-hul-       e-ne

                           X      are lost       they

                           not     are lost       they

And the Akkadian:

                                          u-la              u-te-bi-du              

                                          X               are lost they

                           not             are lost they

1. May = he

2. The text was done by dictation, probably by the teacher and the student made some acoustic misperceptions or slips of the ear:

line 3 in the Akkadian it should be lu-te-bi-du not li-te-bi-du (Poebel 58 footnote 6).

line 1 in Sumerian should have been the proper hul sign. The one which was used by the student here means "rejoice" (Poebel 58 footnote 5). He chose the combination of nails that has the same sound as word but different semantics.

Let us analyze Column 4 lines 4-10

sag-si-sa he-a-e            li-she-ir            "may he prosper"

sag-si-sa na-an-a-e        a i-she-ir          "may he not prosper"

sag-si-sa-a                   lu i-sha-a-ra-ti   "mayest thou be prosperous"

sag-si-sa na-an-na-a-en   la te-she-ir        *"mayest thou prosper"

sag-si-sa al-a-e             i-she-ir            "he is prosperous"

sag-si-sa nu-a-e            u-la i-she-ir       "he is not prosperous"

The form used here is the precative "may" (see Poebel 70 for the conjugations).

The conjugations can be Indicative positive or Indicative negative and also Precative positive. In the examples above (Poebel 59) there is also an example of a Precative negative: "sag-si-sa na-an-a-e    a i-she-ir          "may he not prosper".

                                ROOT         precative        3rd person singular

                               sag-si-sa     he-              a-e     

                     prosper       may              be he

                    "may he prosper"

           ROOT     negative    precative        3rd person singular

          sag-si-sa na-         an-              a-e     

       prosper    not           may              be he

                    "may he not prosper"

                                ROOT         precative        2nd person singular

                               sag-si-sa-                     a        

                     prosper       may              be thou

                    "mayest thou be prosperous"

           ROOT     negative    precative        2nd person singular

          sag-si-sa- na-          an-                na-a-en        

       prosper     not          may              be thou

                    "mayest thou not prosper"

*Note: There is a possibility that the translation in English is not correct for Poebel. The form compares very well with that of the 3rd person singular supra. The positive precative cannot be correct as a translation by Poebel. Probably a printers' error.

                                ROOT         indicative       3rd person singular

                               sag-si-sa      al-a-            e        

                     prosper        be               he

                    "he is prosperous"        

           ROOT     negative    indicative       3rd person singular

          sag-si-sa- nu-         a-                  e        

       prosper     not          be                he

                    "he is not prosperous"

There is an interesting phenomenon listed in these texts by A. Poebel. He did not explain it the way I will here, but the best one can see this, in my estimation, is to consider the difference between written standard language and informal colloquial language. The same endresult is achieved even if some parts of the phrase is cut and paste elsewhere in the order and pronouns moved around. In Afrikaans, and I am sure in many other languages like Greek, it is also the case, Afrikaans is a SOV language. So the standard Afrikaans will say: Make close the door = Maak toe die deur. However, in colloquial Afrikaans the person may say: Make the door close = Maak die deur toe. We cannot miss the cut and paste and moving action here. It appears to me that the same happened in the language of Noah in 2523 BCE, namely, that the same result could be achieved by shifting words around in the word-order.

Instead of standard formal Sumerian reading me-en-de-da nam-me(-a) Col. 7 lines 25-27 "if not we (who could . . . )" the form that is used can be also nam-da-me-en-da-na (line 26) with the same meaning (Poebel 34 and 51). The teacher, dictating to the student is well aware of this difference.

What happened here in the cut and paste action?

Final meaning: "If it is besides us (who can  . . .)?"

            being us   besides it being

           ☆       ↓      ☆

                     me-en-de-da nam-me(-a)

                           ▼

                ▼

                     nam-da-me-en-da-na 

              nam  ↔ me

                   da  ☆

                   ↑

          besides it being   us

Final meaning: "If it is besides us (who can  . . .)?"

me = enclitic "to be" or "being"

mende = "being us" (Poebel 50).

de = "us"

en-de = "we" (Poebel 47).

One wonders if the second example is not colloquial Sumerian and the first example Standard formal literature Sumerian. That would mean that the phenomenon seems to be a reduction of repetition so that the element me = being is used only once. It saves energy and is a shortcut way to say the same thing. Younger speakers, like school students, will tend to use a shorter way of saying the same thing. Economical and creative use of language is one of the features of young speakers. Abbreviation was for example a common feature in Japan where the word of bicycle was shortened in Japanese similar to bike in English. The same phenomenon is present in Korean young speakers. Smartphones has created a culture of abbreviation. Smartphoneisms are carried into daily use as well.