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Writing ≠ language
Writing is not a mapping of speech
Conventional system of marks used to represent the symbols and structures of language |
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| Ideogram/logogram: represents a particular concept (often a word) |
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| Represents a single speech sound (vowel or consonant) |
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| Represents a particular syllable |
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| Any set of written symbols that record information but are not systematically related to language |
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Greek, “(the land) between the rivers”
The rivers are the Tigris (east) and Euphrates (west), now mostly in Iraq
Often called the “cradle of civilization” or “Fertile Crescent”
Proto-writing in Mesopotamia: the (in)famous “tokens”, 8000 B.C. onwards |
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| Date of earliest Cuneiform |
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“wedge-shaped”, from Latin cuneus “wedge”, referring to the shape of the strokes making up the signs
Strokes inscribed into wet clay with a stylus
Classic wedge-shaped strokes weren’t there right at first
Doesn’t refer to just one writing system
Is not a language; cuneiform writing systems were used to write numerous languages
We’ll focus on the first cuneiform system to develop, which started in Sumer—though this was not the first one to be deciphered by scholars |
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High school teacher who took the first serious steps towards decipherment.
Figured out that single slanting wedges which occurred at frequent intervals must be word dividers, and that the system must be alphabetic NOT syllabic.
Not exactly correct, but it served well in identifying names which were spelt alphabetically.
He compiled an alphabet of Old Persian. But because Old Persian is partially syllabic and partially alphabetic, so for anything beyond proper names he wasn't correct. |
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the language likely to be nearest to the inscription (Zoroastrian) spellings.
Like Sanskrit, it is derived from a common Indo-European ancestor along with Old Persian, and is the most closely related to Old Persian. |
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Belongs to Indo-European family, like Latin, Greek and English
Ancestor of Modern Persian (Farsi)
Attested 6th-4th century B.C.
First written down during Darius’ reign |
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He was able to copy the lower lines of the Old Persian inscription by standing on the narrow ledge. Using ladders he copied higher up. Rawlinson is generally credited with the decipherment of Babylonian cuneiform.
He was able to identify in the Behistun inscriptions the names of peoples rled by Darius, mentioned in the Greek histories of the Persian empire. He thereby allotted values to many more sings in Old Persian.
The fact that he knew Avestan and Sanskrit helped him competely translate the portion of the Behistun inscription in Old Persian. |
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He was able to copy the lower lines of the Old Persian inscription by standing on the narrow ledge. Using ladders he copied higher up. Rawlinson is generally credited with the decipherment of Babylonian cuneiform.
He was able to identify in the Behistun inscriptions the names of peoples rled by Darius, mentioned in the Greek histories of the Persian empire. He thereby allotted values to many more sings in Old Persian. |
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Authored by Darius the Great sometime between his coronation as king of the Persian Empire in the summer of 522 BC and his death in autumn of 486 BC, the inscription begins with a brief autobiography of Darius, including his ancestry and lineage. Later in the inscription, Darius provides a lengthy sequence of events following the deaths of Cyrus the Great and Cambyses II in which he fought nineteen battles in a period of one year
The inscription includes three versions of the same text, written in three different cuneiform script languages: Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian (a later form of Akkadian). In effect, then, the inscription is to cuneiform what the Rosetta Stone is to Egyptian hieroglyphs: the document most crucial in the decipherment of a previously lost script. |
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| usually made of reed. easily trimmed to give a circular end, a pointed end, a f lat end, or a diagonally cut end. |
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We don’t know where they came from; language not related to any other
Probably already in place by the fifth millennium B.C. or earlier
Called themselves “the black-headed people” (ùg sag gíg-ga)
Height of their power was before the mid-3rd millennium B.C., after which they gradually got assimilated by the Akkadians |
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| Sumerian lang. and literature |
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While the language was still spoken (until ?2000/?1800 B.C.): Archaic, Classical, Neo-, and Late Sumerian
After it had died out (until 100 B.C.): Post-Sumerian (artificial written lang.)
Date of its death uncertain, but majority of documents using Sumerian were not written by Sumerian speakers |
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| Difference between Sumerian and Akkadian |
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Sumerian: “agglutinative”, that is, lots prefixes and suffixes added to a single base to indicate grammatical info
Akkadian: like other Semitic languages, you start with a root of three consonants and add and subtract vowels inside and outside the root |
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| This family includes the ancient and modern forms of Akkadian, Amharic, Arabic, Aramaic, Ge'ez, Hebrew, Maltese, Phoenician, Tigre and Tigrinya among others. |
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King of Babylon in 18th century B.C.
Law Code predates Mosaic Law, has some identical laws
Though basically “eye for an eye”, has one of the earliest examples of presumption of innocence |
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Oldest preserved Indo-European language, 1700-1200 B.C.
Cf. wātar ‘water’, et- ‘eat’, newa- ‘new’, kuis/kuit ‘who/what’ (= Latin quis/quid)
> 10,000 clay tablets and tablet fragments in Anatolia (modern Turkey), plus one bronze inscription |
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Hittite Empire (14th-13th centuries B.C.) rivaled Egypt (ruled by Ramesses II for part of that time)
King Tut’s widow frantically wrote the Hittite king to send her one of his sons to be her consort. But he was murdered on the way
They had donuts (kugulla-) and voodoo dolls (more or less) |
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When the Hittites picked up cuneiform, they inherited a system invented by Sumerians for Sumerian and further developed by Akkadians for Akkadian
Now they folded into the mix a third language, their own
Note that Sumerian, Akkadian, and Hittite are all totally unrelated! |
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| Sumerograms and Akkadograms |
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Akkadians had used some signs in their old logographic (Sumerian) values; Hittites continued that practice
Some of these signs could be used as syllabograms
A single sign could have several logographic and syllabic values |
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