Sumerian Grammar Overview (1)

Koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Visiting Professor

Department of Liberal Education

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

25 October 2012

The Cuneiformist Friedrich Delitzsch published in 1914 a book, Sumerische Grammatik (Leipzig: 1914) which is valuable for our understanding of Sumerian. Many other Grammars also help with the understanding of the subject. These are a few of the notes necessary to see how Noah and his sons and relatives had to deal with different cultures and languages. It is possible that Noah and his sons were Semitic which means the structure were more Eblaitic or Akkadian and thus a prepositional language as opposed to this one, also existing in Mesopotamia, Sumerian which is a post-positional language. It will become clearer as we proceed what the difference is. Korean is a post-positional language but English is a prepositional language.

Personal Suffixes added to Nouns

Overview

           Singular                                    Plural

my    mu  má                           our    mèn         mê

your  zu       za                            your  zu-(e)            nêne

his     ni       na       bi       ba       their  nêne   bi-(e)ne        bi-(e) nêne

Examples:

           ú-dug-šag-ni    

ú-dug                      -šag-                        -ni

Utuk                        merciful                  his

           ú-dug-šag-mu    

ú-dug                      -šag-                        -mu

Utuk                        merciful                  my

Sumerian is a post-positional language which agglutinates elements of speech. The opposite is English which is a prepositional language following a SVO structure. Sumerian is SOV. Subject, Object, Verb.

Nominative “Subject indicator”

ê-mu           

ê                              -mu

house                      my

dû-mu                                                                         (Akkadian mâr-î)

dû                           -mu

son                          my

a-a-mu

a-a                           -mu

father                      my                                                (Akkadian ab-î)

lugal-mu

lugal                       -mu

king                        my

ama-mu                                                                       (Akkadian um-mî)

ama                         -mu

mother                    my

Genitive “of”

lugal-má-gè

lugal                       má     -gè

king                        my      of

Accusative “Direct Object Indicator”

He (Subject) gave (Verb) me (Indirect Object) a pen (Direct Object).

Kùš-má

He gave me Kùš-má

Kùš                         -má

command                my