Notes on the New Sumerian Grammar by Dietz Otto Edzard

Koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Visiting Professor

Department of Liberal Arts

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

3^rd August 2012

A new book was published in 2003 by the Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden publishing in the Netherlands by the Society of Biblical Literature. The book was written by Sumerian expert Dietz Otto Edzard. Of the six editors, H. Altenmuller, B. Hrouda, B. A. Levine, R. S. O'Fahey, K. R. Veenhof, C. H. M. Versteegh, B. A. Levine is the only one that I have met personally some time in 1989-1992 at the Ecole Biblique with Abraham Malamat. At that time he told me that he is from New York University. I still have his photo. The book was published in a rush and with high speed since there are a number of spelling errors overlooked in the book. First of all, one should make an apology to the writer and to other participators whose first language is not English. The book is in English and that is all that counts. One will notice that on the first page Veenhof is spelled as Beenhof; page 98 friendly is friendlily; page 116 threat is spelled thereat. But be that as it may, the book is in English and all other-than-English writers should not be discouraged of publishing in English. One can read the book. There is a sentence by Edzard that removes all blame from the editors of the Publishing House of Brill, mrs. Tanja Cowall and Patricia Radder. Edzard said in the Preface that these ladies have "been extremely patient with the author's self-indulgent interpretation of the deadline originally set for the publication of the book". It is to be interpreted that the ladies wanted more proofreading but Edzard insisted, let us publish. Thus some spelling errors.

           Edzard completed his doctoral degree in 1955 in Assyriology at the University of Heidelberg. It is thus the work of a professor emeritus of Munich University. One should respect his grey hair but also appreciate his hard work.

           It is hard to characterize Edzard but there is one sentence that seems to be describing him the best, without knowing him at all: "There may, however, be more because - most probably - the correct readings of some ambigious cuneograms still escape us". For me this is equal to the saying: "People say that I am indecisive, but I am not so sure".

           Edzard does not indicate it at all, but Sumerian was with Akkadian a language that Noah and his sons knew well. After the tower of Babel miracle, which must have occurred in 2523 BCE or soon afterwards, Sumerian was one of the languages. Sumerian was called: eme-ki-en-gi-ra "tongue of Kiengir (Sumer). Noah was probably closer related to the Akkadian family of languages as one find it at Old Ebla and later with strong connections in Hebrew. It is not impossible that the language of Adam and Eve was Hebrew and that the history of Hebrew goes further back than Sumerian. Adam and Eve lived nearly 1634 years before the flood in 2523 BCE and traditions of Hebrew like the Rebellion in Heaven motif of Lucifer and his fall (Isaiah 14, Ezechiel 28, Genesis 3) could have had an influence on Sumerian after the flood due to Noah's influence. Noah lived more than three centuries after the Flood in the area of Sumer. His traditions and stories and experiences must have had an impact on the Sumerian world. The Society of Biblical Literature does not operate with this biblical paradigm since they have sold their souls out to the historical criticism of Julius Wellhausen and his associates. Myths is not history for them and the first eleven chapters of Genesis are myths. Not so for this writer. Sumerian is just as important to the Hebrew canon as is many of the other languages in the Levant including Middle Egyptian that Moses was very acquainted with.

           Sumerian is an agglutinating language. The morphemes are monofunctional and are stringed together to form a sentence (Edzard 2003: 1). Interestingly enough, the people in the days of Noah for the Smerian society did not distinguish gender. They only distinguished a person and non-person (Edzard 2003: 1).

A sentence is given by Edzard to illustrate Sumerian:

DN-ra object mu-na(n)-ru

to god NN, object, he-built-to-him

ru = build (Edzard 2003: 18).

muna = for him (dimensional ventive indicator, third person singular dative locative) (Edzard 2003: 93). Edzard has chart there and all the various non-ventive and ventive indicators are placed on a continuum as dimensional indicators in six different roles: dative-locative (for/to); comitative (with); ablative (from); terminative (at); directive (to) and locative 2 (in). The persons for the ventive are for dative: ma = for me; mura = for you; muna = for him; mma = for it; mea = for us; nothing for 2nd person plural; munea = for them. 

           Edzard's explanation is very instructive with his scheme on page 93 for the non-ventive.

The dative/locative element is actually [a] and it is attached to [er] to make it era = for/to you (singular). If one wants to make it comitative = with, one adds the comitative element to [er] namely [da] and eda = with you (singular) results. The [r] disappears. The 3rd person singular him/her is formed by [na] = for him/her. If one wants to form the comitative =with to this form, one has to add [da]. It will be nda with the [a] dropped, meaning with him/her. The ablative is from and the sumerian element for that is [ta] and if one wants to form the 3rd person singular = he/her, one has to add [na] in the front. Thus, it will be nta with the [a] element dropped, meaning "from him/her". If we go back to the dative/locative element [a] that is added to the 3rd person plural = them, one has to add the element (e)ne- = them to [a] which is the dative or locative element. The result is thus (e)nea = for/to them. The comitative element = with, is [da] and to make the 3rd person plural = them for this is to add (e)ne- to [da] resulting in (e)neda = with them.

           One must remember that Sumerians do not distinguish between genders and thus they have a second category for 3rd singular non-persons = it, which is [b]. This is added to the dative/locative element [a] to form ba = for/to it. If one wants to create a comitative = with one has to add the comitative [da] to the [b] element for non-persons = it, thus bda = with it.

           The ablative = from for the non-persons is formed by adding the [b] element for non-persons 3rd singular it, to the element for the ablative = ta = from, thus resulting in bta = from it. We are talking here about a language that Shem, Ham and Japhet as well as Noah and their children were familiar with. It was known in Old Sumerian which predates 4112 which is the date of the starting of the Ur III period under Urnammu, the Akkadian loving Sumerian.

           We can go back to all the descriptions supra which were for the non-ventive verbs. When one considers the ventive verb forms a whole new set of elements are added to the string.

           We already indicated, as did Edzard 2003:18 that ru means "build". To say the dative/locative [a] = for/to added to the 1st person singular = me we have to use [m]. Thus maru will means "build for me". The second person = you (singular) is indicated by putting [mu] together with the dative/locative element [a] thus muraru "build for you". To say "build for him/her" we have to put [a] together with the element [m(u)] together with [na] to get muna and together with build ru thus munaru "build for/to him/her".

           The non-person 3rd singular "it" is indicated by mma so that if we connect it to ru it will be mmaru = "build for it".

           The first person plural = us for the dative locative [a] = for/to is added to the [m] element with an [e] in between as mea = for us/to us. With the verb ru it will be mearu = "build for us/to us". The 2nd person plural = you, is not available but for the 3rd person plural = them the [m(u)] element is added with the [e] and [ne] as in the non-ventive as well. With the [a] at the end it will be munea = for them or to them. As munearu it will be "build for them/to them".

           The whole discussion is continued for the ventive verbs in the dimensional indicator with a comitative function = with, as follows. The comitative indicator or element is [da] the same as for non-ventive verbs and it means "with". By adding the prefix [m(u)] for the first person singular "me" to the comitative [da] = with will result in meda meaning "with me". If it is added to the verb ru it will be medaru = "build with me".

           The [r] element in the 2nd person singular "you" is left alone in the following unclear way: mueda resulting in muedaru "build with you".

           The [na] element for the indicator of the 3rd person singular in non-ventive verbs is important also for the comitative = with of the ventive verbs. By adding [m(u)] to the [na] element for the 3rd person singular we end up with an additional comitative with = [da] element added thus: munda and if this is added to the verb ru = build, it results in "build with him/her".

           In the non-ventive verbs there is an element [b] added to indicate the 3rd non-person singular. In the ventive verbs that [b] is squashed aside it seems since it is only [m(u)] plus [da]. This is mda = "with it" or added to the verb ru = build as mdaru = "build with it". This is the language that was common knowledge of Noah and his sons and the ancestors of Abraham, as a second language to their own, probably Hebrew in Akkadian forms of an unknown kind as to yet.

           What seems to have happened for the dative/locative indicator for the 1st person plural = us, is that the (u) in [m(u)] is an optional element which may or maynot be present. For the dative/locative it is absent but for the comitative it is present, thus mea for the dative/locative "to/for us" is mueda for the comitative = with/da. The word combination mueda = "with us". The addition of the verb ru = build will result in muedaru = "build with us".

           The "them" indicator for the ventive verbs mune added to the dative/locative [a] = to/for as munea "to/for them" and is for the comitative [da] = with, muneda "with them". Add the verb for "build" = ru and it will be munedaru = "build with them".

           There are other dimensional indicators discussed by Edzard but which we did not mention yet.

           For the ventive verbs, the 3rd non-person singular "it" elements is [m] added to the ablative element [ta] = from as mta = from it. If the verb ru is used it will be mtaru = build from it. For the non-ventive verbs it will be nta for the 3rd person singular = him/her [n] plus the ablative element [ta] = from thus nta = from him/her and added to the verb ru = build it will be ntaru = build from him/her. These are the ablative indicators.

           The terminative indicators will be "at" and the element added for this is shi. For the ventive verbs the first person singular will be me = mu added to the shi element, which is the dimensional indicator, thus mushi. If we add the word for look = bar to it, then it will be mushibar = "look at me". The 3rd person "him/her" is [na] added thus nshi = "look at him/her". For the 3rd non-person they used the element [ba] "it" added to shi thus bshi "at it".

Edzard provided an example which we should use here (Edzard 2003: 98):

igi-zi ba-shi-bar which is in reality [ba-b shi-n- bar]

friendly                            it at he looked

"he looked friendly at it".

For the terminative of the 3rd person plural "them" we have the (e)ne (see Edzard 2003: 56) added to shi thus (e)neshi = "at them". The word bar = look will mean (e)neshibar = "he looked at them".

           For the ventive we have the 1st person singular element [ma] as [mu] "me" added to the terminative element [shi] = at as mushi = "at me". The example of Edzard (Edzard 2003: 106 at 12.8.2.48) is 1mu-2shi-3in-4she "1me 2at 3he 4favored" properly in English given as "he favored me".

           For the 2nd person singular element added to a ventive verb it will be [mue] you added to [shi] as mueshi = at you. If it is mueshibar it will be "he looked at you".

The 3rd person singular element is [mun] which is a [mu] and a [na] together added to [shi] = at thus munshi = at him/her.

The 3rd non-person is [m] = it added to [shi] = at as mshi = at it and with the verb mshibar as "he looked at it".

The 3rd person plural element [mune] = them is added to [shi] = at to make muneshi which is "at them". If this is added to the verb bar = look it will be muneshibar "he looked at them". Edzard did not have an example of this available (Edzard 2003: 107).

           For the dimensional indicator of directive, Edzard discussed "to" as follows: for the second person singular "you" the Sumerian element was (e)ri "to you" is used. If one uses the example of Edzard, e = rise it will be dUtu-eri-e which is "the Sungod has risen to you".

           For the 3rd person singular "him/her" [ni] = "to him/her" is used so that dUtu-ni-e will be "the Sungod has risen for him/her".

           For the non-person 3rd singular "it" [bi] = "to him/her" is used so that dUtu-bi-e will mean "the Sungod has risen for it".

           For the 3rd person plural "them" [(e)ne] "to them" is used so that dUtu-(e)ne-e "the Sungod has risen for them".   

           That is for the non-ventive verb. For the ventive verb a number of dimensional indicators are used for the directive aspect "to". "To me" is mu and "make" in Sumerian grammar texts published by A. Poebel in the Sumerian Grammar of studies done in 1912-1914, the edition of G. B. Gordon used page 57 used, is ab-dim as dim-ma-ab = make. With mu added to this, we will have it in the front position as mu-ub-dim-e as it was used in Text 142 Reverse Column 2 line 19 translated by Poebel as "he makes for me". It is probably the same what Edzard meant by the directive so that it is "he makes me" or "he makes to me". A. Poebel's grammatical texts are understood better if one uses Edzard together with Poebel. It is no offense to Edzard but the two books works well together. What one can appreciate of Poebel is that it is the actual grammatical texts used in the past and carefully guiding the modern reader to the understanding of the grammar. Edzard is of course critically discussing the theory of Sumerian grammar and posing his own conclusion by his book in 2003.

           We can extend the discussion of the ventive for the dimensional indicators with the directive aspect "to" for the 2nd person singular "you" as muri-ub-dim-e as "he makes to you".

           For the 3rd person singular in the ventive directional indicator "to" it is muni "him/her" and will be muni-ub-dim-e "he makes to him/her".

           For the 3rd non-person singular "it" the mmi is used and thus mmi-ub-dim-e will mean "he makes to it". 

           The 1st person plural "us" for the directive indicator "to" is me thus me-ub-dim-e will mean "he makes to us".

           The 2nd person plural "you" for the directive indicator "to" is muri and thus muri-ub-dim-e will mean "he makes to you".

           For the 3rd person plural "them" the directive indicator "to" will be mune and thus mune-ub-dim-e will mean "he makes to them".

           The sixth dimensional indicator mentioned by Edzard is the locative "in". There are only two examples provided by him: one for the non-ventive verb 3rd non-person singular and one for the ventive verb 3rd non-person singular "it". The ni element is discussed by Edzard in great detail. He spent three nights at the house of Postgate (Edzard 2003: xi). Postgate and Edzard agree on the point to criticize Falkenstein and Gragg, namely that ni should be kept apart and that ni in mini and im-ma-ni are not identical. As Edzard insisted after a long discussion: "At any rate, the directive dimensional indicator [ni for the 3rd person singular] and locative 2 [3rd non-person singular] may follow each other and do not fall into the same "slot", so that they definitely have to be kept apart" (Edzard 2003: 102). This sixth category or locative 2 as Edzard called it, is their contribution to Sumerian grammatical theory. Whether it is correct, is not the issue here.  

           The other example is mini for the ventive verb. It is also for the 3rd non-person singular "it". The phrase mini-ub-dim-e will mean "he makes in it" while ni-ub-dim-e will mean "he makes it" with "in" implied.