11
votes
Accepted
What's going on with ŠÁR?
TL;DR: The sign ŠAR2 was originally a numeral sign meaning 3600 = 60 × 60. Like all early cuneiform numerals, it was made by pushing the tip of a round stylus into the clay. When these round styli ...
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11
votes
Tabannusi in cuneiform script
As noted by Draconis, this is not a Sumerian but an Akkadian word, specifically a form of the verb banû, "to build".
Specifically, I would analyze it as the G-durative (for the D-stem, the ...
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11
votes
Accepted
Representation of /o/ phoneme in Cuneiform
It's likely that Hittite had an /o/ (and represented it in cuneiform!), but most transcriptions still don't reflect this.
In Hittite cuneiform, the signs U and Ú were both used frequently for phonetic ...
- 63.8k
10
votes
Accepted
How to find source for cuneiform sign PAN 𒉼?
The first step is finding a good sign list for the period you're interested in. This is where you'll find accurate drawings of the sign for different periods. My specialty is Hittite, so the one I ...
- 63.8k
10
votes
How to find source for cuneiform sign PAN 𒉼?
As an addendum to Draconis' excellent answer, one source worth trying if you're looking for attestations of a sign in a certain period would be CDLI, whose advanced search form allows searching by ...
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9
votes
Tabannusi in cuneiform script
This is an Akkadian word, a form of banû "to build". My grasp of Akkadian conjugation isn't the best, especially for "weak" verbs that lose one of their consonants, but it looks ...
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8
votes
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What is Ugaritic "Ž"?
In the monograph Угаритский язык [1965, Сегерт С.] (“The Ugaritic Language”, 1965, by Stanislav Segert), page 22, section 3.14, the author states that in the latest stages of the existence of Ugaritic ...
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8
votes
How do Sumerian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs differ?
The biggest difference, as you mention, is that the oldest forms of hieroglyphic writing don't indicate vowels at all and the oldest forms of cuneiform writing do. (By "oldest forms" here I ...
- 63.8k
7
votes
What is Ś in Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform?
ś is the conventional transliteration for Hebrew שׂ ( śīn ), and is used also for its Semitic source, now more usually transcribed as s₂. It is believed that Old Akkadian (at least) still retained ...
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7
votes
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How are cuneiform glyphs numbered?
In theory, the signs with the lowest index numbers are the most frequent. In practice, the numbers were assigned when the pronunciation of signs were first identified. For example, after u1, u2, u3 ...
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7
votes
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How to find translation for cuneiform script containing "man" and "heaven/god"
It appears to be a made-up combination of signs from different periods, with one of the signs flipped backwards.
The first sign appears to be a combination of the Neo-Assyrian forms of LÚ = "man" (...
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7
votes
Accepted
Phonetic reconstruction of "Haremhab"
Egyptian hieroglyphs, in general, only record consonants, not vowels. The hieroglyphic name of the pharaoh Horemheb records the consonants ħr-m-ħb with no indication of the vowels to be used.
This, of ...
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6
votes
Accepted
Is there a standardized graphical encoding for cuneiform?
I haven't heard about anything like that concerning cuneiform glyphs, but there's a very interesting paper, The Xixia Writing System (Bachelor of Arts Honours Thesis), 2008, by Alan Downes (...
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6
votes
How do we know that Sumerian determinatives were not pronounced?
Another good indication is the use of determinatives in linguistically-unrelated languages that share the same writing system.
Classical Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform was used to write Sumerian (a ...
- 63.8k
5
votes
What is Ugaritic "Ž"?
To add on to Yellow Sky's excellent answer, and based on suggestions by Vladimir F in the comments, here's an excerpt from Segert's later A Basic Grammar of Ugaritic Language (1985):
In some late, ...
- 63.8k
5
votes
How do we know that Sumerian determinatives were not pronounced?
A good argument for determiners being silent can be this: names of different kinds of trees and names of wooden things were preceded by the determiner G̃IŠ (tree, wood, tool), for example:
G̃IŠ.nàd, ...
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5
votes
Accepted
How is Urkesh spelled in cuneiform?
It's not that surprising for the cuneiform spelling of proper names to sometimes vary, as they indeed seem to do here.
The first tablet (AO 5678) on the page you linked to is somewhat damaged, but ...
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4
votes
Accepted
How to decode the Cuneiform ORACC data?
A is the conventional name for a particular cuneiform glyph, typically its most common or best-known pronunciation. But the sign A can be read as a, aya₂, e₄, ea, ŋa₁₀, or many others. The JSON is ...
- 63.8k
4
votes
Accepted
Can you build words by sound in Sumerian Cuneiform?
Yes, Sumerian scribes did sometimes write words entirely or partly phonetically using syllable signs. This could occur for several reasons:
As Draconis already noted, grammatical prefixes and ...
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4
votes
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Are there non-binary or gender-neutral cuneiform determinatives?
If I'm not mistaken, the determiner DIŠ (which is literally just the sign for "one", a single cuneiform wedge) can sometimes be found also with female names. The double determiner DIŠ.MUNUS is also ...
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4
votes
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Were long vowels distinguished in cuneiform?
In Akkadian, Ca-a, Cu-u, Ci-i are often used to indicate Semitic long vowels, but this is not consistent. For example, dabābu “word” is usually written as da-ba-bu, but sometimes it appears as da-ba-...
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4
votes
Accepted
How many sibilants did Old Akkadian cuneiform distinguish?
Gelb proposes that there were four sibilant series, somewhat confusingly named z, š₁₂, š₃, and š₄.
The z series was written with signs ZA, ZÉ, ZI, ZU, and represented the outcome of what Semiticists ...
- 63.8k
4
votes
How do we name a sign when we don't know any of its readings?
A relatively common convention (see e.g. the ETCSL sign list and Wikipedia) is to notate such "juxtaposed" compound signs by joining the component sign names with a period (.). That is, ...
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3
votes
Accepted
A question about cuneiform transliteration
Yes, when a sign is transliterated in lowercase, it's being used to indicate the pronunciation of an Akkadian word—but the origin of that pronunciation is not specified. For example, the sign a is ...
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3
votes
Representation of /o/ phoneme in Cuneiform
According to this article (esp. note 8) Middle Elamite had the phonemes /o/ and /u/, which in Achaemenian Elamite shift respectively to /u/ and /i/.
https://www.academia.edu/102655890/...
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2
votes
Accepted
How do I know if a cuneiform character is a logogram or determinative?
As has already been noted, it's not always possible to be sure. Scholars can and do have legitimate disagreements on whether a particular sign in a particular context was read out loud, or whether it ...
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