#sumerian case

[sumerianlanguage]

Hello! I'm new to Sumerian and I've done a little bit of research, but I can't seem to figure out how to properly translate a couple things. I understand the basic concept of possession being Y's X = X + Y + genitive case ending (a)(k)

So if I wanted to say something like "the fate of the universe", it would roughly translate to namanki

But what if I wanted to further describe the possession with an adjective, for example "a star's radiant light"? And what about in the case of multiple possessions, such as "a man's strength and wisdom"?

Thanks in advance!

Hello, and great questions! For a prior post on stacked genitives see here.

Adjectives attach to the noun they modify and are then treated as a single unit for case purposes. So "a star's (mul) light (si)" would be simula, and zalag "radiant" can be attached right after whichever element it's modifying: sizalagmula "a star's radiant light" (zalag modifies si) or simulzalaga "a radiant star's light" (zalag modifies mul). Note that in the latter case, the genitive -(a)(k) attaches after the adjective, as a noun and all of its adjectives are treated as a single unit for purposes of case.

For one genitive possessing multiple things, the clearest and most common is just to use the genitive phrase twice: a-lu namzu-lu "a man's strength and a man's wisdom". If the two possessed things form a clear unit, they can take just one genitive afterwards (ankilu "a man's universe" = technically "a man's heaven (and) earth"), but I wouldn't use this unless it was very clear.

Let me know if that's clear! And check out my Sumerian case tag for lots more.

[sumerianlanguage]

Silim!

I’m aware you’ve been asked a similar question in the past, but for the sake of (Sumerian!) grammatical/word-order correctness, I have a polite query:

How does one say, “child (born) of the prince/ss,” or “child (born) of Ereshkigal” in Sumerian (but not cuneiform, just transliterated English letters, plz)?

I figured the word-order would be something like the examples listed below:

Dumu-nun-tud-da, Dumu-nun-tu-da, Dumu-nun-dú-da (dumu ‘(noun) child, son, daughter, descendant’ + nun ‘(noun) prince/ss, noble, master/mistress’ + tud, tu, dú ‘(verb) to be born’ + -da, genitive)

Hi! You've found the right vocabulary, but are just a little off on the grammar.

For just a noun phrase like this, the simplest to do is dumu "child" + [name/noun] + genitive case ending -(a)(k) "of". Plugging in nun "prince", you'd get dumununa "child of the prince". Nun is usually used for a male prince; for "princess" I'd use egir, which is more specific, in dumuegira. "Child of Ereshkigal" would follow the same pattern, dumuEreshkigala. Note also that if the noun ends in a vowel, the final -a of the genitive ending disappears: dumuUtu "child of Utu".

If you want to use tud "be born", the set phrase structure is dumu + [name] + directive case ending -(e) + tud-da. "Child born of the prince" would thus be dumu nune tudda, "child born of the princess" would be dumu egire tudda, and "child born of Ereshkigal" is dumu Ereshkigale tudda. That final -e also disappears after a vowel, so dumu Utu tudda (as it appears in the Hymn to Nanše A line 85).

The interaction of verbs like tud with the different cases in Sumerian can be confusing. I hope that's clear, and let me know if I can clarify in any way!

[sumerianlanguage]

what is the longest attested sequence of =ak that you've seen in Sumerian texts?

Hmm! I did a little searching, and here's what I've got.

"=ak" is one rendering of the Sumerian genitive case ending, roughly corresponding to English "of" or the possessive "apostrophe-S". It links two nouns together, X-Y-(ak) being "X of Y". The -a sound appears only after a consonant, and the -k- element only before a vowel and not at the end of a word, so in some circumstances (end of a word, after a vowel) it disappears entirely: lugal-uru "the king (lugal) of the city (uru)".

You can have multiple nested genitives, in which case the same rules apply: lugal-uru-e-k-a "the king of (-a) the city of (-k-) houses (e)", with the first -k- being the "inner" genitive and the second -a being the "outer" one. Jagersma (2010) lists several examples of this "stacked genitive", like tug-gu-anshe-k-a "the cloth of the neck of the donkey", as well as instances where additional case endings can be added after the genitive(s), like igi-shabra-Enlilakash "before (-sh) the eyes (igi) of (-a-) the administrator (shabra) of (-ak-) Enlil" - the final -akash represents three case endings in a row.

In theory, genitive elements can be stacked as long as you want, just as in English: "the power of the throne of the king of the city of the houses of copper" (or "the copper houses' city's king's throne's power", if you prefer). However, Edzard (2003) makes clear that "Probably for reasons of euphony, no more than two genitive particles were allowed on a string, even if three or more genitive relationships are involved." Jagersma gives an example of mashdaria-dam-shangnga-Ebarbara-k-ak-am "This is (-am) the ceremonial gift of the wife of the administrator of the Ebabbar temple," with three "of"s being covered by the two genitives in -k-ak-. Jagersma doesn't give an example with more than three nouns linked by these two genitives, but in theory you could have as many as you want. So the example at the start of this paragraph would be a-ashte-lugal-uru-e-urud-ak-a, with just the final two "-ak-a" representing all of the genitives - not *a-ashte-lugal-uru-e-urud-ak-ak-ak-ak-a, which would of course be ridiculous (^_~)

So if the question is "longest sequence of genitives", then I can find examples of three, but wouldn't doubt there are longer ones out there, and can construct my own of any length. But if the question is "longest sequence of =ak", the answer is... two. I hope that answers your question!

[sumerianlanguage]

Silim! I recently attempted to come up with a sumerian name for something, with the meaning "it dances on sand". I ended up with "Saḫarebigud" from saḫar-e ("sand" + locative-terminative) and gud ("to dance") with bi as the intransitive verb prefix. And no 3rd person singular pronoun cause those are omitted in intransitive phrases, i think?

Did i get that right? How would you form a name with that meaning? Thanks :)

Silim! You're on the right track, but I'd make a couple of adjustments.

"Sand" is sahar 𒅖,also meaning "silt, loam, soil". I wouldn't use the directive (some call it locative-terminative, which is just confusing) -e case, though - I'd interpret sahare as "into sand" or maybe "towards (the) sand". Instead, the locative -a means "in" or "on", so I'd use sahara 𒅖𒊏 for "on sand". (Note that sahar is unrelated to the Sahara desert, which comes from Arabic ṣaḥrā'.)

"To dance" is indeed gud 𒄞𒌓, also "jump, leap, attack, flutter". It's a class II (hamtu-maru) verb, so only appears as gud in the past tense - its present root is gugud 𒄞𒄞𒌓. And you don't need an intransitive verb prefix, as the third person singular intransitive present is the base form gugud.

Thus the full phrase "(it) dances on sand" would be sahara gugud, written 𒅖𒊏 𒄞𒄞𒌓 in cuneiform. As for a name, naming conventions in Sumerian are pretty obscure, but I wouldn't call a combined saharagugud out as incorrect. I hope that's helpful!

[sumerianlanguage]

How would you show superlatives in sumerian (i.e best, greatest, tastiest, warmest, etc.)? Would there be a suffix to add onto the root word to show that it's the "best/most" of something?

Hello! This answer is, as with many things in Sumerian, more complicated than you might expect. The first part of the answer is that the Sumerians did this kind of superlative structure very rarely, especially in contrast to constructions of equality, which they used really often.

In fact, there's a whole case ending, called the equative, that is used just to compare two things as similar or equal - the case ending is -gin, and is best translated as "like, as, similar to." A simple sentence structure is "X Y-gin [verb]", where the verb has an adjectival meaning (like gal "to be big"). So, Ur egin gal "The dog (ur) is big (gal) like a house (e)", i.e. "The dog is as big as a house".

A rarer structure is comparison, corresponding to "more [adjective]" or "[adjective]-er" in English. Sumerian, like some other world languages, has a specific verb used for this, dirig "to exceed". So rather than saying "X is bigger than Y", you'd say "X exceeds Y as to its bigness" - "[X] + [nominalized adjectival verb with possessive suffix] + [Y in the locative or dative case] + dirig [conjugated transitively]". (Note that Y is in the locative case if it's an object and the dative if it's a person.) So, Ur namgalabi ea ibdirige "The dog (ur) exceeds (ibdirige) a house (e with locative case -a) as to its (-abi) bigness (namgal)," i.e. "The dog is bigger than a house."

And finally, superlatives, the "best, most, -est" structure. There is, in fact, no literal way to convey a superlative in Sumerian, and so the easiest way to translate this is to reframe it away from the superlative: "My dog is the biggest!" would be more naturally expressed as "My dog is bigger than those dogs!" (Urngu namgalabi ururbia ibdirige) or just "My dog is big!" (Urngu gal).

There is a structure that can be translated as a superlative, which is "X + [past participle of adjectival verb] + [possessive ending]": Ur galabi "the dog, its having been big...", which can be interpreted as "the biggest dog". But it's used very rarely and can be ambiguous in translation (Ur galabi tur "The dog, having (formerly) been big, shrank" doesn't imply the dog was the biggest at any point).

These structures can be super unintuitive for English speakers, so if you have a specific example to translate, let me know!

[sumerianlanguage]

Is there a toponymic suffix in Sumerian, similar to the Akkadian -āya/ia? I want to make a name that means "from Abzû" . Any info/suggestive would be appreciated. Thank you in advance and for this amazing blog. It's very informative ^u^

Hello! There isn't a specific toponymic suffix - instead toponyms (geographic places) are generally marked with a determinative, a written-only (unpronounced) sign that classifies what is being talked about. The geographical determinative is 𒆠, written after the noun in question, so the city of Uruk (Unug) is written 𒀕𒆠 rather than just 𒀕 unug which means "dwelling" or "fortress".

However, the abzu primordial sea, being only quasi-geographic, is written simply 𒍪𒀊 and doesn't take this determiner. Instead, to say "from [place]", we use the ablative case ending -ta 𒋫. So "from abzu" would be simply abzuta 𒍪𒀊𒋫.

Thanks for the kind words, and let me know if that's clear!

[sumerianlanguage]

Good afternoon! I’m a huge fan of your blog & a stickler for correct grammar (no matter the language!), & had a question - or several! - about usage of genitives & plurals in Sumerian; for instance, how would I translate the phrases 1) “woman’s house”, 2) “woman’s houses”, 3) “women’s house”, and 4) “women’s houses”?… but also 1) “companions’ house”, 2) “companions’ houses”, 3) “house of companions”, and 4) “houses of companions” into proper Sumerian?

Hello, and glad to hear from another grammar enthusiast!

A couple first notes: "plural" marking in Sumerian isn't obligatory the way it is in English - so oftentimes the plural will look identical to the singular, at least on the noun. I'm going to assume for the purposes of these examples that the given phrase is the subject of a transitive sentence, a situation when the plural (of persons, like "woman" and "companion") was marked most of the time. The plural of "house", a non-person, would almost always look exactly the same: e "house", e "houses" (reduplicative pluralization e-e would mean something like "very many houses", emphasizing their plurality).

The genitive setup is [X]-[Y]-(a)(k), meaning "X of Y" or "Y's X". In general, the plural marker (-(e)ne for persons) attaches directly to the noun it modifies... but not in the case of an intervening genitive, which appears between the relevant noun and -(e)ne. (This doesn't come up in the examples you gave, but see below.*)

So, using e "house" and munus "woman", the examples here would be: Emunusa(k) "woman's house" / Emunusa(k) "woman's houses" (or E-emunusa(k) "woman's very many houses" / Emunusene(k) "women's house" / Emunusene(k) "women's houses" (or E-emunusene(k) "women's very many houses", maybe if each woman had multiple houses).

Similarly, if we use dusa "friend, companion", the forms are Edusa(k) "friend's house" / Edusa(k) "friend's houses" (or E-edusa(k) "friend's very many houses") / Edusane(k) "friends' house" / Edusane(k) "friends' houses" (or E-edusa(k) "friends' very many houses").

Note that the final (k) in each example above is silent/disappears unless followed by a vowel in the same word, or by certain case suffixes: Edusake "towards the friend's house".

*To make this element relevant, we'd have to have a person noun as the possessed (core) noun, as in Dusamunusa(k) "woman's friend" / Dusamunusakene "woman's friends" / Dusamunusene(k) "women's friend" / Dusamunusenekene "women's friends". Though in these last examples, the -(e)ne modifying munus could often be dropped from context, if we already know we're speaking of multiple women, so dusamunusa could be "women's friend" too.

Interactions between case, number and personhood in Sumerian is a complex topic, as you can see! If you'd like any further clarification or other examples, let me know.

[sumerianlanguage]

Hello! Finding this blog has been a complete lifesaver. I've always been interested in the Sumerian language and culture, and recently I've been trying to figure out how to say some phrases for a story I'm writing.

I dont't think I need whole translations, I've been using my own research, but I'm a bit stuck when it comes to some grammar conventions. My main question is, how would "of" be translated into cuniform and then pronounced. For example, in a phrase of "Heart of God" (I know Heart is Shag 𒊮 and God would be Dingir 𒀭), what would there be in place of "of"?

Another part is other words like "of", such as "in", "to", "the"? You don't have to answer all of them, but the "of" question being answered would be VERY appreciated. Thank you!

Hello, and thanks for the kind words!

One important distinction between Sumerian and English is that Sumerian doesn't use prepositions, words like "of, in, on, to, for, from, towards, like", etc. These are instead conveyed by case endings, of which Sumerian has ten. Each case ending can have any of several meanings, and operates in subtly different ways. I recommend the posts in my Sumerian case tag for lots of examples & details!

In general, "of" is replaced by the genitive case, which is kinda complex, because it actually attaches the two nouns in question together. The basic pattern is that "X of Y" becomes "X + Y + {genitive case ending}". In the case of an isolated phrase like this, the genitive case ending generally appears as -a after a consonant and disappears after a vowel. (This recent post has more details on its different appearances.) So "heart of (the) deity" would be shag + dingir + -a, shagdingira.

Unfortunately, the way this -a ending looks in cuneiform adds a whole nother layer of complexity. Following dingir and most other words ending in R, it uses the sign 𒊏, so shagdingira would be written 𒊮𒀭𒊏.

As for "the, a, an", there are no articles in Sumerian, so when translating into the language you can just delete them. I hope that helps, and if you'd like any other examples let me know!