Etymologie, Etimología, Étymologie, Etimologia, Etymology, (griech.) etymología, (lat.) etymologia, (esper.) etimologio
IQ Irak, Iraq, Irak, Iraq, Iraq, (esper.) Irako
untergegangene Wörter, Archaismen, Arcaísmo, Archaïsme, Arcaismo, Archaism, (esper.) arkaismoj

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ETCSL (W3)

Introduction

Sumerian is the first language for which we have written evidence and its literature the earliest known. The "Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature" ("ETCSL"), a project of the University of Oxford, comprises a selection of nearly 400 literary compositions recorded on sources which come from ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) and date to the late third and early second millennia BCE.

The corpus contains Sumerian texts in transliteration, English prose translations and bibliographical information for each composition. The transliterations and the translations can be searched, browsed and read online using the tools of the website.

Funding for the ETCSL project came to an end in the summer of 2006 and no work is currently being done to this site or its contents.

For more information, see the About ETCSL menu or the site map

Tools and resources

• Show the complete ETCSL catalogue
• List corpus content by category
• List corpus content by composition number
• Search the Sumerian transliterations
• Search the English translations
• Go to the ETCSL glossary
• Display the proper nouns list
• Display the Emesal glossary
• Show the ETCSL sign list

About ETCSL

• General information
• Technical information
• The ETCSL manual
• Transliteration principles (pdf)
• Hyphenation principles (pdf)
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Using ETCSL

• Introduction
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Sumerian

• Sumerian literature
• Cuneiform writing

Miscellaneous

• Full catalogue of Sumerian literature
• ETCSL bibliography
• ETCSL 1st edition
• Links

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Sumer (W3)

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Sumerian (W3)

howstuffworks search results for: Sumerian - Your search for "Sumerian" returned 26 articles

• Sumerians - The Sumerians were an important part of ancient Asian history. Learn more about the Sumerians at HowStuffWorks...The Sumerians developed cuneiform script, the earliest known system of writing.The Sumerians were an agricultural people. They discovered how... - History > Peoples & Empires
• Amorites - with prior settlers to form the Canaanites. On the east side of the crescent the Amorites conquered the Akkadians and Sumerians about 2000 B... - History > Peoples & Empires
• Ur - settled before 4000 B.C. and was one of the first centers of civilization, emerging around 3500 B.C. as an important Sumerian city-state. About 2135 B... - History > Cities & Sites
• Akkadians - the Sumerian city-states to the south and part of Assyria to the north, establishing the Akkadian Empire. The empire gradually declined until it was overthrown... - History > Peoples & Empires
• Civilization - From Babylonia - Images - Videos - and preserved many elements of the civilization developed there more than a thousand years earlier by the Sumerians. Through commerce and conquest... - History > Peoples & Empires
• A Noah by Any Other Name -- Noah's Prequel - From Could Noah's ark really have happened? - Images - Videos - Rather, he made his first appearance about 2,000 years or so earlier in the Sumerian civilization of Mesopotamia. Holding power from roughly 3500 B... - History > History by Country
• Fertile Crescent - that forms the eastern half of the Crescent, has been called the “cradle of civilization.” The Sumerians, who were living there by 3500 B.C ., learned... - History > Cities & Sites
• 4. Brick - From 5 Long-lasting Building Materials - Images - Videos - structures, like the Roman aqueducts, the Pantheon and the Great Wall of China. The Sumerians made the earliest recorded bricks, and we can deduce that those... - Home & Garden > Construction Materials
• Mesopotamia - of the Mesopotamian valley. A highly developed civilization was established by the Sumerians about 3500 B.C. on the Persian Gulf. About 2400 B.C. the Akkadians, who had... - History > Cities & Sites
• History - From Babylonia - of the Sumerians, sometime before 3500 B.C. Along with the Akkadians, a Semitic people, the Sumerians dominated southern Mesopotamia until about 2000 B.C., when... - History > Peoples & Empires
• The Real Cult of Cthulhu - From How Cthulhu Works - Images - Videos - comes from the Sumerian word Kutulu, seeming to give the cult of Cthulhu at least some historical legitimacy. Several researchers argue that Kutulu... - Entertainment > Literature
• Assyrian Civilization - From Assyria - .Culturally, the Assyrians were greatly influenced first by the Sumerians, then by the Babylonians, and later by the peoples they conquered. The expressive bas... - History > Peoples & Empires
• Ancient History - From Middle East - Images - Videos - of cultivated land called the Fertile Crescent. Crops were also grown along the Nile River in Egypt.A people known as Sumerians settled in southern Mesopotamia... - Geography > Terms
• World History - From World - Images - Videos - Written History. The beginnings of recorded history date back to about 5,000 years ago, when the Sumerians invented cuneiform writing and the Egyptians invented... - Geography > Terms
• 8. Paper - From Top 10 Ancient Chinese Inventions - Images - Videos - came up with the notion to convert thoughts into a written language. There was a horserace between the Sumerians in Mesopotamia, the Harappa in present... - History > Peoples & Empires
• Earliest Calendars - From Calendar - The Sumerians, Babylonians, and ancient Egyptians had calendars based on the lunar month. The Egyptians, however, adjusted their system so... - Science > Astronomy Terms
• Introduction to History of Iraq - , was one of the first centers of civilization. The Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Chaldeans established great empires in this area... - History > History by Country
• Are plants used in modern medicine? - Images - Videos - as surgery. At least as far back as the Kemites (ancient Egyptians), whose first pharaoh studied plants, and the Sumerians, who worshipped a goddess... - Health > Modern Medicine
• How did ancient civilizations use sundials to tell time? - Images - Videos - accurate. The Sumerians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Mayans, Greeks and Chinese all devised clocks and calendars that reflect our current numerical model in a... - History > Glossary
• The Language of the 'Necronomicon' - From How the Necronomicon Works - Images - Videos - of the "Necronomicon" contains Sumerian mythology and a mishmash of occult rituals.In 1228, Olaus Wormius, a priest, translated the Arabic text... - Entertainment > Literature
• The History of Archaeology - From How Archaeology Works - Images - Videos - Sumerian civilization to life -- helped glamorize archeology. Archaeologists began to work beyond the Near East, Mediterranean and Europe, and the subject... - Science > Paleontology
• How Debt Works - Images - Videos - into the cuneiform writing system, the earliest in the world. The Sumerians invented the concept of interest around 3,000 B.C. The Hebrew Bible... - Money > Credit & Debt Management
• History - From Assyria - For most of the years between 2400 and 2000 B.C., Assyria was subject first to the Akkadians and then to the Sumerians. During this period, its people were... - History > Peoples & Empires
• Ancient Asia - From History of Asia - Images - Videos - the adjacent hills included the Sumerians, who created the earliest known civilization, and the Elamites, Kassites, and Hurrians, all of whom ruled kingdoms... - History > History by Country
• The People - From Geography of Turkey - of Istanbul (1773). At Ankara are the University of Ankara (1946), noted for studies in Hittite and Sumerian civilization, and the Middle East Technical... - Geography > Turkey
• Ancient and Medieval Armies - From Army - C., the Sumerians used the first war chariots. These chariots were driven by small wild asses and, later, by horses. Organized armies that were equipped with spears... - Science > Branches

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sumerian
Sumerian Lexicon
Version 3.0
by John A. Halloran

The following lexicon contains 1,255 Sumerian logogram words and 2,511 Sumerian compound words. A logogram is a reading of a cuneiform sign which represents a word in the spoken language. Sumerian scribes invented the practice of writing in cuneiform on clay tablets sometime around 3400 B.C. in the "Uruk" / "Warka" region in the south of ancient Iraq. [The etymology of "Iraq" may come from this region, biblical "Erech". Medieval Arabic sources used the name "Iraq" as a geographical term for the area in the south and center of the modern republic.] The Sumerian language spoken by the inventors of writing is known to us through a large body of texts and through bilingual cuneiform dictionaries of Sumerian and Akkadian, the language of their Semitic successors, to which Sumerian is not related. These bilingual dictionaries date from the Old Babylonian period (1800-1600 B.C.), by which time Sumerian had ceased to be spoken, except by the scribes. The earliest and most important words in Sumerian had their own cuneiform signs, whose origins were pictographic, making an initial repertoire of about a thousand signs or logograms. Beyond these words, two-thirds of this lexicon now consists of words that are transparent compounds of separate logogram words. I have greatly expanded the section containing compounds in this version, but I know that many more compound words could be added.
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• Sumerian vowel-only (V) words
• Sumerian vowel-consonant (VC) words
• Sumerian consonant-vowel (CV) words
• Sumerian vowel-consonant-vowel (VCV) words
• Sumerian consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC[V]) words
• Sumerian's phonetically more complex logograms
• Sumerian compound-sign words - initials A through E
• Sumerian compound-sign words - initials G through K
• Sumerian compound-sign words - initials L through R
• Sumerian compound-sign words - initials S through Z

Sumerian Lexicon
Version 3.0
by
John A. Halloran
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Sumerian Language (W3)

Borrowed Words From Sumerian

• "abyss" = dt. "Abgrund", "Schlund", "Hölle" = engl. "bottomless"
• "cane" = dt. "Schilfrohr" = engl. "reed"

Sumerian language

• Context
• Phonemes
• Morphemes
• Word classes
• Nouns
• Verbs
• Noun phrases
• Non-core adverbal case markers
• Core adverbal case markers
• Adnominal case marker
• Clauses
• Clause structure
• Clause type
• Abbreviations

Sumerian Grammar

In the lessons below, you'll be introduced to aspects of Sumerian grammar in (hopefully) bite sized chunks. If any of the lessons are confusing, don't hesitate to edit them for style, or use the discussion boards for suggestions! That's the spirit of the wiki, after all.

The Lessons

• Lesson One - The Plural Marker -- This lesson introduces us to some simple nouns and how to mark them as plural.
• Lesson Two - Possessives -- Here we learn how suffixed particles can modify the meaning of a noun, like "house", to be possessive, like "my house".
• Lesson Three - The Genitive -- The basics of the Sumerian case system for nouns is outlined here.
• Lesson Four - The Copula -- Before introducing verbs in general, the copula is introduced, along with simple predicative sentences.
• Lesson Five - The Verb Chain -- The Sumerian verb is discussed in simple situations.
• Lesson Six - A Sumerian Sentence -- Putting it all together, we translate a complete Sumerian sentence.
• Lesson Seven - Ergativity in Sumerian -- A discussion of ergativity and how it is used in Sumerian.
• Lesson Eight - The Case System -- Discussion of the cases used in Sumerian
• Lesson Nine - Cuneiform -- Some introductory comments about the system of writing used by the ancient Sumerians

Sumerian language

Sumerian ("native tongue") was the language of ancient Sumer, spoken in Southern Mesopotamia since at least the 4th millennium BCE (BC). It was gradually replaced by Akkadian as a spoken language somewhere around the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BCE (the exact dating being a matter of debate), but continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary and scientific language in Mesopotamia until the first century CE (AD). Then, it was forgotten until the 19th century, when Assyriologists began deciphering the cuneiform inscriptions and excavated tablets left by these speakers. Sumerian is a language isolate.
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