Sumerian Questions and Answers

1. Hebrew and Sumerian

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2. Permission to Use Cuneiform Writing Sample

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3. Timeline of Mesopotamian History

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4. Sumerian Version, Biblical Story of Job

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5. Sumerian True Type Font

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6. "pukku" and "mekku" in Gilgamesh

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7. Sumerian Language ba- Prefix

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8. Sumerian Eden?

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9. Hungarian and Sumerian

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10. Enable Sumerian True Type Font

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11. Development of Cuneiform From Pictographs

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12. Sumerian Word for Venus

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13. Sumerian Alphabet?

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14. Sumerian "mashkim" as Demons?

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15. Zecharia Sitchen; Sumerian Language Suppressed?

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16. Hebrew ELOHIM

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17. Sumerian Proverbs Page

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18. Sumerian Audio File?

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19. "The Sumerian Problem"

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20. The Deity Ningishzida

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21. Organization of the Sumerian Lexicon

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22. Cuneiform Symbols in Sumerian Lexicon?

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23. Poetry to Woo a Sumerian Girl?

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24. Translate Sumerian Alphabet?

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25. Letters of Sumerian Alphabet?

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26. Importance of Sumerian Invention of Cuneiform Writing

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27. Sumer, Not Sumeria

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28. Could Sumerian "ur" Mean Ox or Cow?

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29. Pronunciation and Meaning of Sumerian Words

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30. Is Sumerian the Earliest Written Language?

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31. Preflood Mythology - Ziusudra, the Sumerian Noah

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32. How to Interpret "dirig-...-she"?

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33. The Planet Nibiru

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34. Zechariah Sitchin and Extraterrestrials

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35. Name of Sumerian Religion?

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36. The Sumerian People

Postscript added January 21, 2014. A 2011 study of the DNA of 143 Marsh Arabs and a large sample of Iraqi controls arrived at the following conclusions: "Evidence of genetic stratification ascribable to the Sumerian development was provided by the Y-chromosome data where the J1-Page08 branch reveals a local expansion, almost contemporary with the Sumerian City State period that characterized Southern Mesopotamia. On the other hand, a more ancient background shared with Northern Mesopotamia is revealed by the less represented Y-chromosome lineage J1-M267*. Overall our results indicate that the introduction of water buffalo breeding and rice farming, most likely from the Indian sub-continent, only marginally affected the gene pool of autochthonous people of the region. Furthermore, a prevalent Middle Eastern ancestry of the modern population of the marshes of southern Iraq implies that if the Marsh Arabs are descendants of the ancient Sumerians, also the Sumerians were most likely autochthonous and not of Indian or South Asian ancestry." "In search of the genetic footprints of Sumerians: a survey of Y-chromosome and mtDNA variation in the Marsh Arabs of Iraq", Nadia Al-Zahery1, Maria Pala1, Vincenza Battaglia1, Viola Grugni1, Mohammed A Hamod23, Baharak Hooshiar Kashani1, Anna Olivieri1, Antonio Torroni1, Augusta S Santachiara-Benerecetti1 and Ornella Semino, BMC Evolutionary Biology 2011, 11:288.

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37. Meaning of Sumer?

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38. Sumerian Speech from Buffy the Vampire Slayer

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39. Sumerian Planet Names

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40. Who Were the Sumerians?

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41. Annotated Version of Lexicon?

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42. Origin of Picture of Counting Tokens

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43. Another Translation into Sumerian

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44. Vowels in Sumerian Writing?

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45. Did Sumerian Have Vowel Harmony?

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46. Sumerians Live During or Before the Time of Biblical Moses?

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47. Different Dialects? - Text Partially in Sumerian

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48. Where Does One Learn Sumerian?

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49. What is the Relation of Sumerian to Other Language Families?

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50. Sumerian Money

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51. The Greatest Sumerian Ruler?

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52. Vinca Culture Writing - Tartaria Tablets in Romania

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53. Sumerian Determinatives

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54. Sumerian Vocabulary from a Woman's Viewpoint

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55. Sumerian Words in CAPITAL Letters

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56. English to Sumerian Dictionary?

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57. Sumerian Origins

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58. Out-of-Print Jacobsen Book

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59. 'I Love You' in Sumerian

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60. Determinative Before Month Names

i 3 -

tud

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61. Sumerian Words in Akkadian and Hebrew

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62. Teachings of Suruppak to His Son Ziusudra

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63. Sumerian Freedom Tattoo

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64. Age/Location of Sumerian Vocabulary

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65. Hungarian Roots

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66. Dilmun, Lemuria, and Sumer

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67. Need Background for Novel that I Am Writing

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68. Disputing the Etymology of the Sumerian Word for 'Breast'

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69. Symbols for Mesopotamian Gods?

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70. Sumerian and Babylonian Holy Days

Postscript added January 30, 2014. CDL Press has just announced the publication of:

Hemerologies of Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars

by Alasdair Livingstone

Price:$90; pp. 290; ISBN 9781934309520

Within Babylonian literature there is a widespread but specialized group of texts that deals with the days of the months one by one, the hemerologies, and with the months of the year, the menologies.

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71. Yet Another Translation into Sumerian

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72. Permission to Use Tokens Picture

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73. How Did Writing Start?

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74. Books to Study Day-to-Day Life of Sumerians?

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75. Necronomicon; Learning Sumerian

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76. Sumerian Tenses?

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77. Cuneiform Words?

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78. Letters or Sounds Missing from Sumerian

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79. Sumerian Pictographic Writing

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80. History of Bookkeeping and Sumerian Term "shubati"

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81. Sumerian "danna" and Akkadian "beru"

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82. Dilmun, Paradise, Bahrain, Eridu, Enki

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83. How Reliable Is John M. Allegro?

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84. Definite Article in Sumerian?

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85. Which Style of Cuneiform to Learn?

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86. Info on Sumerian Music?

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87. What Did the Sumerians Call Themselves?, Sumerian Predecessors?

>Secondly, I was wondering what the Sumerians called themselves

>and Sumer in their own language. I see in your lexicon that there is kalam

>and ki-en-gir/gi (r) or ki-en-gi(r) for Sumer; dum-gir/gi - for a Sumerian; and

>eme-gir/gi for the Sumerian language. Do I interpret this correctly?



The late S.N. Kramer was very proud of his idea that the Sumerians came from somewhere else and enjoyed a Heroic Age in Sumer which he believed had parallels among other migratory peoples. The idea that the Sumerians were late invaders is, however, probably wrong. There are actually good Sumerian or Akkadian etymologies for most of those city names and if you look in my lexicon you can see the Sumerian etymologies for the Tigris and the Euphrates river names. Nippur comes from an Akkadian word that means "ferry-boat", so it was the site of a river crossing. Thorkild Jacobsen wrote an article about the Sumerian etymologies of Eridu, Ur, and some other cities.

The Halaf culture of northern Mesopotamia was characterized by colorfully glazed pottery that is completely different from Ubaid pottery, so I don't know anyone who thinks that it was a predecessor other than chronologically to the southern Ubaid culture.

The Sumerians either called themselves the 'civilized children' or the 'black-headed people'.

sag-gi6(-ga): black-headed people; Sumerians ('head' + 'black' + nominative; cf., dumu-gir15/gi7 and ki-en-gi(-r); ki-en-gir15/gi7(-r)).

un sag-gi6: black-headed people = Sumerians ('people' + 'heads' + 'black').

dumu-gir15/gi7: freeborn man, Sumerian [in contrast to slaves from foreign countries] ('child' + 'native group').

It seems like originally it may have been sang-gi7, but consonant harmony changed gi7 to ngi6, thereby changing the meaning from 'civilized, native group' to 'black'.

Here is a relevant exchange from the now defunct Language Evolution mailing list: