Ebook: A Sumerian Grammar and Chrestomathy

Paris: Librairie Paul Geuthner, 1911. — 310 pages.With a vocabulary of the principal roots in Sumerian and a list of the most jmportant syllabic and vowel transcriptions (from the title page).PrefaceIn presenting this outline of the Sumerian language 1 wish to make a few preliminary statements for those who will be unable to control my statements from lack of first hand acquaintance with the inscriptions. The difficulties of Sumerian are not alone grammatical and lexicographical but also epigraphical and it is in fact the latter difficulty which must be first overcome. It will never be possible with transcriptions, even though they be most accurate, to gain a clear idea of the genius of the language. The idea in the mind of the writer is often conveyed by the form of the sign as well as by the sound of the word and the grammatical inflection. In the list of phonetic values appended to this volume 1 have attempted to give some indications on this point, but a grammar cannot be extended to include epigraphy. The reader will observe also that 1 have written no chapter upon Syntax. This is due to the fact that the language is so thoroughly agglutinative that Etymology and Syntax cannot be separated. The preponderating influence of Sumerian in Babylonian and Assyrian culture has become so manifest in recent years that Sumerology must now be regarded as indispensable to a thorough understanding of Babylonian grammar, as well as of Babylonian religion, law, literature and art. 1 have no theory concerning the linguistic affinities of this remarkable people. As a negative result of my studies 1 am convinced that it has no affinity with either the Caucasian, Aryan or Semitic groups. This side of the problem has not occupied my attention as the futility of such efforts is at once apparent. Our task at present must be rather to interpret the literary remains of this ancient civilisation, whose language continued to be sacred in religious literature even in the last century before our era.