#sumerian translation

[sumerianlanguage]

Hello! Is there any chance you would be able to translate "bye-bye boys, have fun storming the castle!" Long story, but it's a running joke in my family that that quote belongs in the epic of gilgamesh and I would LOOOVE to get my dad a clay tablet with it inscribed. There's a guy on etsy who makes custom cuneiform tablets but he doesn't do any translations so you may be my only hope 😅

Love the blog either way!

Hi there, and thanks for the kind words! I do recognize this Princess Bride quote, and would love to translate it. There's one big issue with this translation, though, which is that I have yet to encounter a way to say "goodbye" or "bye-bye" in Sumerian. If someone has an example of Sumerian usage on taking leave from another, please let me know!

I can translate the rest of the phrase, however. Assuming the people being addressed aren't children (dumu), I'd use ursangene 𒌨𒊕𒂊𒉈 "heroes, young men" in place of "boys". For "castle" I'd use egal 𒂍𒃲 "palace". "To storm" would be the phrasal verb agakar sig 𒂇𒃸 𒋧 "to invade, conquer, defeat, massacre". And for "to have fun" I'd use dug 𒄭 "to enjoy". "May you (plural) enjoy (it)" would be hebdugenzen 𒃶𒅁𒄭𒂗𒍢𒂗, with "it" being the nominalized verb phrase agakar ibsigenzena 𒂇𒃸 𒌈𒋧𒂗𒍢𒂗𒈾 "that you conquer (it)".

Putting it together, I'd translate this quote as Ursangene, egal agakar ibsigenzena hebdugenzen! "Young men, may you enjoy as you conquer the palace!" Cuneiform always has slight variations, but I'd render this as 𒌨𒊕𒂊𒉈 𒂍𒃲 𒂇𒃸 𒌈𒋧𒂗𒍢𒂗𒈾 𒃶𒅁𒄭𒂗𒍢𒂗. I hope that helps, and if you do get a custom tablet please do show me the results!

[sumerianlanguage]

hi! might be a little out of your wheelhouse, but i was recently watching a video about math and sumerian architecture (we found a lost temple using maths sent by an ancient sumerian god | curator's corner w. matt parker) and at roughly 15:00, the curator says that this one bit of text translates to "to make things function as they should"

i tried to find a more in-depth translation of this but couldn't find anything, so maybe i'm just not looking in the right places, but any help would be great!

Hello, and thanks for sharing this video! Link is here for anyone who wants to watch, it discusses Sumerian math, architecture and Gudea. Note first that the text in question is written vertically along the statue's skirt, so you have to tilt your head to the right to be able to read the signs.

I couldn't seem to find a version of this statue in transliteration, but I do recognize some of the listed signs, so found a similar phrase: Ningdu irinake pa bie, which the ETCSL translates as "He had everything function as it should in his city." From that I was able to piece together the rest, as the initial ningdu "propriety, what is as it should be" is the same, 𒃻𒌌, and the verb pa ... e 𒉺 𒌓𒁺 "to show, make manifest" appears too, though here with bonus verb prefix muna- 𒈬𒈾 "for him/her". The third sign looks to me like a mistranscribed final -e 𒂊, the directive case ending.

So the full phrase would be Ningdue pa munae 𒃻𒌌𒂊 𒉺 𒈬𒈾𒌓𒁺. And searching for that led me to several instances of this phrase, which Oracc generally translates as "For [him]... he made an eternal thing appear" or "For [him]... he made it appear in its correct form", with the [him] being a person referred to earlier in the text. (The muna- prefix isn't gendered, so it could also be "for [her]" etc, but all the examples I found refer to a man or male deity.) See also the similar phrase at the start of The Song of the Hoe "Not only did the lord make the world appear in its correct form..." Ene ningdue pa nan'gamine.

I'd translate this phrase more fluidly/generally as "He made manifest the proper form/function for (so-and-so)". Parker's translation as an infinitive is an approximation given it's being pulled from context. I hope that's helpful!

[sumerianlanguage]

Hi, I've been loving your blog for a few days, and hope your hiatus is fun. I was wondering if it is possible to translate the phrase "we're all stories in the end" into Sumerian? Thanks!

Hello, and thanks for your patience! (This ask is from a while ago - back when I was on hiatus!)

This is a tricky one to translate into Sumerian because there is no exact word for “story” I know of in the language, nor for similar terms like “tale”, “myth”, “epic” etc. The closest match is dub 𒁾 “tablet”, which by extension means “book, text, piece of writing”. Alternatively, mashdara 𒄑𒈦𒁰 means “inscription”, and could work here to try to match the meaning - that in the end, we remain as inscriptions or tales rather than physical beings.

“End” is egir 𒂕, so “in the end” would be locative egira 𒂕𒀀. Putting it together with -menden, the “we” form of the verb “to be”, we get Egira dubmenden 𒂕𒀀 𒁾𒈨𒂗𒉈𒂗 “we are writing(s) in the end” or Egira mashdaramenden 𒂕𒀀 𒄑𒈦𒁰𒈨𒂗𒉈𒂗 “we are inscriptions in the end.” (”All” is tough to convey in Sumerian without a separate head noun, which would require a stilted translation like “We are all of the people who become inscriptions in the end”, so I’ve left it out.)

[sumerianlanguage]

Heyy!! I am trying to translate a phrase from sumerian, but no luck so far. It goes something like i-té aš, or iti aš, Thank you!

Hello! Not sure if you have a specific source for this phrase - it may be easier to narrow down in context. The sign "té" would mean te2, an alternative form of ti2, which is only found in Akkadian; the equivalent Sumerian form is shar2 𒊹, which means "3,600". Iti is an alternate reading of itud 𒌗 "moon, month", so iti ash 𒌗𒀸 could mean "first month, month #1", or maybe "only month, one month alone".

I hope that's helpful, and if you have further context or info, please let me know!