Sumerian Study Group

[Eril]

Great! I haven't continued yet - I guess let's just start with the exercises next and see how fast it goes?

[vijayjohn]

Sure!

[Eril]

Started a bit on the exercises today.

I took a short look at 4.3 but came to the conclusion that I don't find any patterns of sign-usage through time quickly and don't care to look more closely.

Then I did 4.4. It's a really good exercise, I think, finally something to put into practice what one learned.
Took a break half-way-through, which might be actually helpful to better internalize how the syntax works.
Those genitive constructions are quite counter-intuitive - for such exercises I can do them without too much hassle, but if I were to actually use that in spoken language... arghh, or rather ak ak ak

I found a few mistakes in the solutions however (missing words, mainly). Seems like the author is also getting confused xD
And he does not mention that when one has a genitive as a modifier and an adjective as a modifier, the genitive comes before the adjective - but that's how he writes it in the solutions. Semantically it makes sense, though.

I started with 4.5 but only did a-d thus far.

There were also some words required but not provided that had not occurred in any examples before. But I could find all of them by searching the PDF for the meaning in question.

[Eril]

No further updates yet - but I guess you might have overlooked this one again?

[vijayjohn]

No, I didn't, actually. I've just been kind of busy lately.

[Eril]

No problems!
I'll be on a business trip the next 2 weeks, so I'll also not do much studying then (except during the traveling perhaps), but then I'll be on vacation and will certainly have opportunity to continue.

[vijayjohn]

Okay, I kind of rushed through 4.4 just now and got everything wrong. I'm very puzzled by the new words in this exercise...they're all nouns, so why do they have TAM markers on them? Also, why does (a) have a plural marker on it? The son and the king are both singular...

I guess I need to find some way to take some time and internalize the syntax, too.

[Eril]

Hi! How are things going?

I finished all but the last of the exercises (the last involves reading cuneiform - but I read the transliteration and translation) and started reading the next chapter, which is on pronouns.

And yes, there are some mistakes in the solutions, that plural marker being one of them. But TAM-markers? Those are only on the adjectives, aren't they?

[vijayjohn]

Yeah, you're right. They're on the adjectives. That makes more sense, at least if adjectives behave more like verbs than like nouns in Sumerian.

Hi! How are things going?

Really slowly! I reviewed exercise 4.4 and did 4.5. I screwed up again on the first few questions for 4.5, but then I finally got the hang of it and got the rest of my answers correct. I tried 4.6 as well but overthought the answer. I don't really understand how to take something with suspended cliticization and then remove the cliticization, though, so I stopped before doing 4.7. How would that work with example (41), for instance? Something like enlil=e lugal kur~kur=ak=e abba diŋir~diŋir=enē=ak=e?

[Eril]

For me progress is also very slowly atm - I did add some of the grammar of the next chapter to my Anki some weeks ago, but nothing since, so you can certainly try and catch up.

I don't really understand how to take something with suspended cliticization and then remove the cliticization, though, so I stopped before doing 4.7. How would that work with example (41), for instance? Something like enlil=e lugal kur~kur=ak=e abba diŋir~diŋir=enē=ak=e?

Seems correct to me.

[Antea]

I have just read on the net, that for studying Akkadian it was necessary to know first Hebrew grammar or Aramaic, and that a lot of grammar books refer to it. Is that true? Could it be easier to learn it through Hebrew? They were also saying that for studying Sanskrit it was necessary to know first Ancient Greek What do you think about it?

[księżycowy]

Maybe if you're using old ass resources.

Most textbooks I've seen for Akkadian and Sanskrit deal with the language in their own right. What you've described makes it sound like some textbooks I've seen for Aramaic, where knowledge of Hebrew is nessicary, and the textbook makes references between the two. This kind of textbook, for someone with no knowledge of Hebrew, would be hard to learn Aramaic effectively from.

That's not to say that Hebrew wouldn't help you with Akkadian, or Greek wouldn't help you with Sanskrit. I just don't think it's absolutely nessicary to know them in order to tackle either language. Depending on what you're using to learn them, of course.

[Antea]

Ok, yes, that’s what I thought also. But as I am not acquainted to learn languages “formally”, like at university context, I didn’t know if that was the usual way.

[księżycowy]

Perhaps in University courses they assume some knowledge, but that would depend on the university and program they have for such languages.

Even then, though, I would anticipate lower level classes in Sanskrit at least, to not require Greek. For Akkadian, I could reasonably see a requirement of at least some knowledge of something like Hebrew, or maybe even more likely, Sumerian.

[Eril]

When I attended that introductory Sumerian course in university a couple years ago, the participants were surprised that I did not previously had taken the Akkadian course there
If we would have learnt cuneiform there, it might have made sense, or if we had progressed far enough to read longer texts and encounter loanwords from Akkadian, or Sumerian words loaned into Akkadian someone studying Akkadian already knew.
But since those two languages aren't even related...

Well for Hebrew and Akkadian it makes more sense, but still, it wouldn't seem necessary to me (knowing neither of these languages).

[księżycowy]

Yeah, they are related, but only about as related as Hebrew and Arabic, as opposed to, say, Hebrew and Ugaritic.

[vijayjohn]

He means Sumerian and Akkadian aren't related.

EDIT: Also, Hebrew and Arabic are more closely related to each other than either is to Akkadian.

[księżycowy]

Whatever, Vijay.

[vijayjohn]

I have just read on the net, that for studying Akkadian it was necessary to know first Hebrew grammar or Aramaic, and that a lot of grammar books refer to it. Is that true? Could it be easier to learn it through Hebrew? They were also saying that for studying Sanskrit it was necessary to know first Ancient Greek What do you think about it?

Knowing other Semitic languages probably helped with the decipherment of Akkadian, and in universities, most people who study Akkadian are probably in Semitic Studies and thus already speak multiple Semitic (and possibly other) languages anyway. I agree with everyone else, though, that you don't have to know any such language to study Akkadian (or Sanskrit, for that matter).

[Eril]

The university courses were of the ancient orient studies department, if I remember correctly, so not even that focused on any specific language family but early history of that area in general. The other students in the course certainly were not studying anything linguistical, from how long it took the lecturer to explain them for example what is an ergative.