Cuneiform Sign Logic

[us4-he2-gal2]

Thread Orientation: The following thread an open discussion of the logic or the semantics of cuneiform signs, in so far as we are able to perceive such today.

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Cuneiform Sign Logic

It has sometimes emerged in discussions at enenuru that cuneiform signs contain in their forms a valuable source of insight into the Mesopotamian worldview. This is not surprising of course as the earliest sign forms were pictographic, semi-abstract versions of actual things as represented by the Sumerian system. Often, when two or more elements combine to represent a new element, the opportunity to speculate at the logic behind these associations presents itself: the logic is either enticing or elusive, depending perhaps on the remoteness of the subject matter. While a sophisticated treatment of the symbolism employed by the early cuneiform system may make use of the field of semiotics or semantics, the intention here is simply to document some choice examples, at least for the time being. All members are invited to reply and contribute signs which they feel are relevant to the thread.

am

The am sign symbolizes the "wild bull" in Sumerian: am, in Akkadian rīmu - interestingly, the sign consists of gudxkur, that is gud sig (bull) with the kur sign (mountains/foreign lands/netherworld) inside. In a sense this does speak to the mentality of the Mesopotamian, as Wiggermann discusses, the wild and chaotic land outside the Mesopotamian interior was often exemplified in literature by the mountainous periphery: kur versus kalam. So while a domesticated bull is signified simply by the gud sign, a wild, untamed (or chaotic non-domesticated) bull is signified with the addition of the kur sign.

[us4-he2-gal2]

(see above post for context)

er2

The sign for the Sumerian word er "tears" is written with the er2 sign - itself composed of the signs A (water) and IGI (eye). In the archaic period, the sign more closely resembled an eye, although not easily recongizable:

www.cdli.ucla.edu/tools/SignLists/protocuneiform/archsigns/IGI.jpg



Here then, is a rather self-explanatory example of two pictographic signs coming together to signal something else.

i; e; e3 (UD.DU)

Okay so here we have a wonderful illustration of the array of signifying options available to the Mesopotamian scribe. I'm fairly sure Sheshki and I have talked this one over before. The goal of the scribe is to write the Sumerian verb e meaning "to go out, to come in" ; as those who may be critical of an attempt to interpret the logic of cuneiform signs may point out, signs could simply by phonetic.

Indeed, in some cases the scribe would simply use the e sign or the i sign in order to spell out phonetically the Sumerian word he is attempting to communicate: e "to go out, to come in" (see the first two signs pictured above). Interestingly, another way to signify this verb is to combine two pictographic sign forms UD (day/daylight) + DU (sign for "to go" which is a stylistic foot): this sign combination has been labeled "e3" by modern scholars, because these signs used together can only signify the verb e.


So what was the logic behind such a combination? It may be that the ancient scribes were making reference to cosmological notions with such a sign grouping, using the sun as the prime example of movement. Utu the sun god was (of course) thought to enter the netherworld each night and emerge from it each morning. If this is the case, they have chosen to symbolize the verb for movement using representations of the ultimate mover. It would be interesting to see how common this is, the tendency of cuneiform signs to reference the "archetype" of one or another subject.

Going forward, we will have to be careful to distinguish between signs which are merely acting phonetically (like e, i here) and signs which arguably have some grounding in the physical/ideological world of the Mesopotamians.

[us4-he2-gal2]

IGI.E2

Another sign, sometimes called IGI.E2, seems to signify an action with the combination of two elements. Like e3 and er2 above, the noun or verb is spelled out visually. In this case, the Sumerian noun u6 (wr. IGI.E2) means "wonder, amazement." The sign forms used to represent this in the writing is the IGI sign(eye) and the E2 sign (house, temple - the latter nuance being more likely here). This is another excellent example of how the writing itself can say important things about the ancient world view.

[us4-he2-gal2]

Archaic DU3



OB DU3

DU3 = "to build"

The DU3 sign does not combine two elements in the way that the signs discussed above do, and the way that some signs combine two things to symbolize a third is of high relevance to this thread. However, DU3 still represents symbolism of a sort and would make good material for semiotic discussion. Here is Hayes comment on the sign from his 1990 manuel of Sumerian (p.12):

"Thus, a certain amount of infonnation in the spoken language was not expressed in the
writing. The further back in time one goes, the less the Sumerian writing system expresses
grammatical elements which are assumed to have been present in the spoken language. For
example, the basic graphic shape representing the root for "to build" was originally a
picture of a wooden peg. In the earliest Sumerian, this one sign could be used for any
inflected fonn of the verb: any tense, mood, or person."

[us4-he2-gal2]

J. Cale Johnson and U₂.KI.SI₃.GA

( U₂.KI.SI₃.GA - Thanks to Sheshki for providing the above cuneiform)

In 2013, J. Cale Johnson wrote an article entitle Indexical Iconicity in Sumerian Belles Lettres (in Language & Communication vol. 33/1 p. 26-49). In this hefty and technical article, Johnson seeks to examine the Sumerian word gud₃, written U₂.KI.SI₃.GA which is translated "nest," and its occurrences key Sumerian literature. Johnson will argue, with a very dense vocabulary, that there is some interplay between the writing of this word and the "the role of iconism in [the] logographic writing" in certain literary passages.


These arguments seem to have resonance with the line of investigation which has been taken up on the "cuneiform sign logic" thread. We have been interested in the way in which logographic signs may be used in combination to signify something entirely new, a way of signalling that lends itself to semiotic investigation. Johnson's article examines this phenomenon as well as more sophisticated layers of meaning, an angle which the author states is somewhat unusual: "Although cuneiform sign forms often play a decisive role in all manner of lexical lists and commentaries, the manipulation or configuration of cuneiform signs so as to code anything more than scribal whimsy has often been denied in Assyriolgoical circles." (p. 15). However, a statement which is more directly relevant to our interests here, and which I find even more compelling, was made by the author on page 2: "The manipulation of individual cuneiform signs so as to arrive at a global interpretation of a given name or term lies at the very heart of Mesopotamian semiotic theory, logic and even underpins Mesopotamian science, tout court."


The "science" Johnson refers to is likely a reference to the lexical texts (among other things); lexical texts, and the knowledge encoded thereon, are often considered by modern scholars as the closest to science that the Mesopotamians got. Eckart Frahm (2010 - see footnote 1) explains that the later scribes preserved the rich tradition of the cuneiform script in all its complexity, and traditions of signaling meaning: "Literati of later times believed that language and writing were intimately connected, and that their basic elements, words and signs, were not arbitrarily chosen conventions, as claimed by Aristotle and Saussure, but representations that denoted their objects by nature. Consequently, Sumerian and Akkadian words, however obscure and rare, had to be collected in lexical lists to be never forgotten, and so had the numerous signs used to write them. Giving up any of them, or reducing the complexity of their meanings, would have meant to lose access to some
particular truth they conveyed."




The Signs U₂.KI.SI₃.GA/




U₂.KI.SI₃.GA are the signs which, when written together, spell out (or signify) the Sumerian word gud₃, "nest." According to Johnson, these sign components must be analysized individually in order to discern the scribal logic, and he gives the following explanation (p.16)- " meaning ‘plant,’ ‘food,’ or even ‘drug’ (hereafter I simply use ‘food’ as a cover term), [ki] meaning ‘location’ and [siga] a nominalized form of a verbal root meaning ‘to put down’ or ‘to place.’" Therefore, the place where food is put down is, of course, the nest (i.e. the mother bird feeding the young in the nest).









Footnote 1: E. Frahm, 2010. Reading the Tablet, the Exta, and the Body: the Hermeneutics of Cuneiform Signs in Babylonian and Assyrian Text Commentaries and Divinatory Text. in Divination and Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World ed. Amar Annus.

[us4-he2-gal2]

Signs formed with IGI = Eye

The igi signs present a particularly interesting study in my opinion. These signs in particular seem ideal material of semiotic discussion. For example there is pa3:

pad3 (=pa3) which means "to find, discover"



Interestingly, the signs used to write pad3 are igi (eye) + ru (to receive, to bring back). Perhaps it is not surprising two signs with these meaning, when combined, signify pad3. That is, when the eye sees being brought back, that thing is found ("to find.")


.


Also interesting is the sign for "evil" that is to say, hul:

The Sumerian hul "evil" consists of the signs igi (eye) + ur (dog). So why did the Sumerian scribes feel the best way to signify "evil" was to use signs with these particular values? Well, scholars have noted that at this point in time dogs, even if semi-domesticated, were less then cuddly and, in fact, were still quite dangerous. Dogs occur fairly often in incantation lore, their poisonous fangs (rabies) are the target of white magic, although not as often as snake bite or scorpion sting. As H.W.F. Saggs pointed out, demons could also be compared to ravenous dogs, like the so called Udug-hul "evil demon." So in this way, the signs involved in the spelling of hul make a certain sense. However, this being the case, I don't understand why the Sumerian word for "hero" is ur-saĝ, that is to say "dog-head" (?) Ah well.

[enkur]

ur-mah means a lion. A magnificent dog literally. Seems that the Sumerians didn't realize that the lion is feline rather than canine. Yet for me ur is a fierce beast in general. Wolf is ur-bar-ra, there are also different specifications for dogs like domestic dog = ur-gir15, or rabid dog = ur-idim, where idim = spring specifies a dribbling mouth. The hero ur-saĝ should rather mean the one eminent in fierceness.

[us4-he2-gal2]

These were some great thoughts on ur by the way Enkur - I'm not sure what the nature of it is at the moment but this is all reasonable. Just encountered ur-mah in a text today and I was reminded of this thread. Will keep your ideas in mind and see if I can find complimentary information at some point.

[us4-he2-gal2]

- Signs involving DU (=the foot): Messenger and Foundations -

In class in the last few weeks, Prof. Krebernik has mentioned to me his view on a few signs and how the idea behind some of the archaic forms may have been. Despite being one of the top Sumerologists in the field, even Krebernik maintains a tentative tone in discussing this sort of information which I have been calling 'sign logic' - this reinforces that caution is and has been prudent.

The sign kaš4 from ePSD

Earlier forms of the sign kaš4 from Labat

So the sign kaš4 can carry the meanings "runner, trotter, messenger; to run." The first thing I was told about this sign is that it is composed of two signs really : KASKAL + DU . You can't see that in the later forms, but in one of the early versions given in Labat (see above), you can see the DU (the foot sign, which carries various meanings like carry, go, stand etc.) and the KASKAL sign (a bunch of crossed lines meaning 'road'). Therefore, we have this equation underlying kaš4: FOOT + ROAD = "runner, messenger" or the verb "to run."

The sign maškim from ePSD

So here we have the signs used for writing the word maškim "bailiff" in most translations, the maškim was both a historical court functionary and the name of a class of demons (since bailiffs had the power to execute the will of the court, i.e. in carrying persons off to prison, they were doubtlessly feared officials because of this power - thus they came to lend theie name to a class of demons, so Geller says, who are also known for carrying persons off to the netherworld in literary texts). The sign maškim could possibly be analyzed as the PA sign + the kaš4 sign. PA is often Gidru, that is, the stick or rod which could represent power/authority. Darkl2030 mentions to me that the PA sign often paired with another element to indicate something like 'he who has control/authority of element X'. Here, the word bailiff seems to be written with signs that could be explained as signifying 'he who has power/authority over the road' i.e. transfer of prisoners, for one thing.

The sign maškim-e-gi4 from ePSD

Maškim-e-gi4 is given the translation "messenger" at ePSD. So we have again maškim, with e-gi4; gi4 is a Sumerian verb which here likely has the meaning 'to return.' The /e/ here is likely a grammatical element although I'm not sure exactly what it is doing here (it can't be locative/terminative as they attach to inanimate nouns only, it may be the ergative). Messenger, in any case, is written by combining the signs for bailiff and to return, which may indicate, of course, that these functionaries had something to do with intra-city diplomacy in ancient times.

The sign suḫuš from ePSD

Interestingly, the sign represents generally the base or sole of the foot, and the DU sign (FOOT) is the important element in this sign. But the translation that is required in most cases is "foundations" meaning that the Sumerian writing system depicts the foundations of the building using the symbolic metaphor of the foot of a person (the DU sign). DU plus another sign element which I have not identified or seen identified. Krebernik mentions that when the sign is used in Akkadian (išdu, the grammar indicates that the object is in the dual, that is, there are always 2 feet, likewise the foundations are also grammatically 2 in number.

[damansky]

Gentlemen, in the hopes of fostering productive future collaboration on the topic delineated here I present the current state of my cuneiform etymology research. Most likely rife with dilettante and naive mistakes and probably embarrassing at places to a real sumerologist, this is presented merely as a draft illustration of the product that I hope you will help to develop.

cuneiform20.pdf

I must remark that any etymologies can be only as perfect as the ones initially used by the creators of Sumerian writing themselves. The explanations can only get as good as the original concepts of the ancient Sumerians. Even if an etymology hypothesis comes out kind of weak and not definitive, one must keep in mind that a quite a portion of cuneiform etymologies were probably weak and not definitive from design.

[us4-he2-gal2]

damansky:





Well, that certainly is quite alot of material for consideration! Its good to see the interest in this writing system, as I mentioned before, this is probably a understudied aspect of cuneiform, the ideographic logic behind the signs. There are reasons scholars avoid these problems as well, probably the biggest is that we have no means of seeking confirmation for one or another interpretation of a signs logic. Without the necessary confirmation these endeavors are probably deemed to be overly speculative, and appearing to be overly speculative is quite dangerous to academics. This is why I would only discuss this here, on an informal internet forum.



So one issue is that the way you are referencing these signs "U+12000" would likely be confusing to many readers. This is the unicode numbering system (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode) put together by a team of computer specialists intent on creating digitized databank of all writing systems. It is not however the terminology of Assyriology, in this pdf, pg. 6, you can see a correspondence of unicode numbers to Assyriological values. So sign U+12000 is the "a" sign. We would simply call it the a sign. U+1201C is the ab sign. We would simply call it the ab sign. And so on.


As for your actual suggestions, I will try to make comments on some of them:


a: with the value "cry" your comment suggests a cry that it is common like water - possible, although another possibility is that the sign may reference tears, which like semen, may have been conflated by the Sumerians with water.



duru5: with value 'to be wet' is written with signs ru+a ; as you say it may be received + water. Also, the verb ri (see ePSD) can mean 'to pour out' and it can be written with the ru sign also. So to pour out + water = 'to be wet'


eduru: 'heir' written AxA ; here I would suggest that the imagery of staircases is not involved in either the sign a by itself or in AxA as we have here. To glimpse something of the original pictogram, you must reference the earliest archaic cuneiform as is included in the enenuru freq document - these signs occur originally on the texts from the Uruk period, they were carefully documented by Sumerologists and fill several large volumes - conveniantly digitized now and available here. You see the sign a resembles if anything a winding river, and this is likely the original intent. AxA then is the water in the water, more specifically, the semen in the semen - progeny in the plural.




zah3/zah2: 'to disappear, to move away, etc' ; here were have Axha (ha an be read ku6 = fish), this is definitely a good candidate for having an ideogram and logical which is transparent. As you say, a fish disappeaing deeper into the water seems to fit the semantic range of the word values associated with the sign.



isiš: 'sorrow' written AxIGI (water and eye) - this one is another transparent and definite ideogram, with a logic we can infer certainly.

i-si-iš: 'sorrow' written i+si+iš - in this case, what we have here is called a 'phonetic writting'; in other words, the ancients knew this sign sounds like 'i' in other uses, this sign sounds like 'si' in other uses, this sign sounds like 'iš' in other uses so lets spell out the sounds in order to communicate the word. In this case any ideogrmas connected with this signs involved i.e. dust/mountain etc. are coincidental and we cannot interpret these signs as we could for the signs in the above entry, isiš, for example.


šedu2: 'spirit ; also read udug 'demon' - good observation that this sign can be read either way. I have noted that in the Early Dynastic period, this same sign form carries the values udug 'demon' but also gidim 'ghost'. Its interesting to contemplate whether there was some sort of conceptual commonality between these different values. The earlier forms of the sign seem to resemble a human head and upper body.

[santakku]

Hi damansky! I too am willing to contribute. I am happy to comment on your document sometime. I agree with us4-he2-gal2 that this is an interesting and understudied area, and that many such etymologies do exist. In fact, it is probably the only way we can further our understanding of the oldest texts. I also agree that some signs do not have such an etymology, and that the semantic range of many signs drifted away from their etymology before the earliest extant documents. In general, I would say that single signs are difficult to analyse, but that compounds will provide ripe pickings. To give a simple example, GAL as "great" is tough to justify (although, believe me, I've heard theories!), but LUGAL "man-great" -> "king" is pretty certain. But I absolutely believe we should create and assess hypotheses for every sign, even if we abandon some.

I also love your use of Unicode, as I think it should appear more often. But yeah, you need the earlier forms than CuneiformComposite, which is largely Ur III. Anyone thought of compiling the images in the sign list into a font?

Statistical analysis of proto-cuneiform texts is the right idea. But you'd largely have to collect the data yourself. Perhaps that's not impossible. Have a look at cdli.ucla.edu/search/search_results.php?SearchMode=Text&PrimaryPublication=unpublished&MuseumNumber=&Provenience=&Period=Uruk&TextSearch=&ObjectID=&requestFrom=Submit
At least here you can see actual sign forms.

I attended a couple of talks recently by Ulrike Steinert on this topic, but she has no publication on it yet. I'll keep a look out. For example, she saw a correlation between gunu wedges and concepts of heat or passion, which may be something like steam or heat waves.

We should also discuss what this study can and can't achieve. The etymological meaning is not the 'true' meaning in most senses of 'true'. If I say something is "incredible" I don't mean that I cannot believe it. Sure, I've technically said I can't believe it, but in reality I'm not even alluding vaguely to concepts of credibility. Neither can etymologies explain my culturally inherited mindset. "Wednesday" and "Thursday" are words I use frequently, but I am not indoctrinated in Norse religion. Or again, if I call someone "looney" or "hysterical" I am not revealing a subconscious belief that the moon or womb has an influence on behaviour. In ancient terms, etymologies are therefore only relevant to their inventors. Furthermore, the instantiation of abstract concepts in concrete ones, as /zah/ "disappear" as a fish in water is a necessity of writing. It is probable that such inventions needed as much explaining to Mesopotamians as to us - something like 'rofl' is not comprehensible even within its culture without explanation. So I think that sign logic can serve one of three purposes:

- Insight into the development of writing and literacy.

- The scratching of that weird itch (to borrow from the other thread) some few have to understand how and why. It's my own opinion that 99% of Assyriology falls into this category of useless knowledge that makes us happy, so nothing bad about this!

- Magic. Just sayin'. The interpretation of words and symbols, the attaching of huge abstract concepts to these, the connection of these signs in order to draw together the attached ideas in new ways, is magic-esque. Or at least the level of magic most people think to participate in when getting a Chinese peace tattoo. I would even include in this category an attempt to recover a more primal mode of thought from ancient peoples to learn from for oneself. I do not believe in either endeavour personally, and would debate the historical accuracy and modern merit of such, but I will not dismiss it out of hand. I even think that cuneiform makes an ideal tool for these efforts, and was employed by some in this way in ancient times. If someone wants either to reconstruct this history, or to develop the etymological meaning into a modern lexicon for philosophy or devotion, then I can help too, but I would be reluctant to say that the 90% of scribes who were accountants had an interest in 'philological theology'.

Do you have a live version of the document I could add comments to?

[damansky]

Right, seeing as Sumerian is purely a constructed language, I prefer to believe that every unit of the sign set was constructed with a view to it's subsequent reliable decoding in posterity. From individual signs to phonetic writing synonyms, I believe there was in 100.00% of cases used a measurable method of origination that can be traced and later statistically verified (or disproved). If we get more results that fit, for example, into the "bogus/crackpot" paradigm logic of the A and eduru or i-si-iš signs that both us4-he2-gal2 and myself find suspect and controversial and perhaps even embarrassing to some point, if we get more entries that share the same logic as these, then it can be inferred as a legit explanation, and if the contrary happens and these cases stand out as both unusual and weak, then their explanation ought to be corrected so as to be based on the presence of a systematic method that can be seen aplenty elsewhere, in other signs and logograms. Only thus, I believe, is this controversy to be settled with definiteness. To explain exactly how did the Sumerians originate specific units of writing, we must first study the general method by attempting repeat explanations of the written language and thus gaining general experience of the correct method sought for.
If there appear more signs transcribed with a principal systemic similarity to the ones in question, then that proves the assumption, and if the contrary happens, the controversial etymologies must be taken out of circulation. And of course there is zero notion of defending personally suggested etymologies as a means to establish one's ego: this has no place anywhere, as always. Therefore only a firm, constant application of the scientific method will clear any doubt regarding each individual etymology.

>- Magic. Just sayin'.
That paragraph makes perfect sense to me. I prefer to live in a magical, if not maniacal, realm, where the spirits themselves communicate to me the meaning/explanation that they intend for me to hold as the correct one, aside from any reference to scientific truth and any notion of objective meaning. In my experience, a less precise translation can be at times much more profound and meaningful than a more precise one. When asked what the general purpose or criterion for this entire project is, I'll answer "magic" without much thought. I enjoy the depth of some of the etymologies, and if distributed anywhere, the work ought to state clearly the circumstances and the approach as to not to mislead the public. Offering an unlikely, tentative, speculative etymology where no other, clear explanation exists is for me better than leaving a blank entry.

Anyways, what I propose is to discuss the work itself instead of the particular etymologies. Santakku and us4-he2-gal2, would you like to input such workflow details as what sort of work/contribution you would like to add, how many hours and which hours you could contribute, and how it would be best to contact you for further discussion? We could open an etherpad, and we could discuss the work itself via Skype or Jabber or email, although Skype would probably be the most suitable. Can you guys name your Skype, or add my Skype (skype:un86Rn) so live talk can be had? Because otherwise there is not enough commitment and therefore motivation drops.

[damansky]

By the way, us4-he2-gal2, I'd like to add that your comments on certain etymologies are purely awesome and I like them better than my originals and will include all of them and update my work. I really liked your AxA and ri + A etymology corrections. I think with your consecutive and constant help we may be able to nail the best explanations. I did not reply earlier mostly due to the fact I felt I was doomed to do the entire job alone anyways DDDD:

If you guys leave me your skype, we can get an etherpad going in minutes and get all of your comments flowing there. I also must add that I am distracted a bit by some priority stuff I'm translating from Chinese at the moment, but if a team is formed, I'll deliver.

[santakku]

I like this. A well defined project with clear goals and methodology. So long as we're not reading religious symbolism into tax accounts, I'm good with it. In fact, it's a study the scribes themselves would have appreciated. I'm not sure what you mean by saying Sumerian is a constructed language though. Cuneiform is obviously artificially constructed and as such it is reasonable to assume some logical etymology exists for every sign. As for recovering 100% of this logic, I'd be happy with 25%. Sumerian, however, was almost certainly a living language. It is even debatable whether Sumerian was the language for which cuneiform was invented, as the grammar of the earliest texts is sparse. What I mean to say is, we must maintain a distinction between Sumerians (or any other people) and the scribes who invented the script.

Some explanations of the type you are concerned with may not be true etymologies. For example, my supervisor believes a writing like DIFIR^EN.ZU for the god Zuen is a retrospective etymology for the substrate name /zuen/ or /sI^n/. That is, scribes wrote /zuen/ EN.ZU to get the meaning something like "Lord of knowing" by analogy with gods such as EN.KI, "Lord of the earth". Such a process is philologically flawed, but revealing. Or again, AMAR.UTU ("Bull of Utu") for Marduk is probably a false Sumerian etymology for a Semitic name (on this, see W. G. Lambert's work). Such things are false as etymologies of the words or names, but true as an etymology for the writing of the name. If it's the signs you're interested in, not the language or extra-scribal culture, this won't make a difference to you. What do you think?

I am going to be generally more skeptical than you in each case, I believe, but am eager for the debate. My familiarity in this area is probably less than us4-he2-gal2; I am far less likely to offer alternative etymologies, but will be able to prevent anything obvious being missed.

However, there's no way I can commit to hours any time soon. I've too much of my own research to do. My contribution can only be to read through your work as you do it and offer comment. But get me in on the Etherpad. Skype probably isn't the best way to communicate, as I have a disability that makes me less than clear in conversation. But I would be happy to swap e-mails and continue that way or on here.

[damansky]

Well, a theory I advocate, based upon the notable sumerian.org speculation upon the role of phonemes of archaic Sumerian, where word formation was described as an agglutinative practice where the meaning of the resulting word was roughly equivalent to the meaning of it's morphemes, is that at least the entire V, CV, VC and VCV part of the sumerian lexicon was generated by operating on the set of clearly defined primitive phonemes, both vowels and consonants, so that knowing the original meaning of particular letters one can reconstruct the etymology of a word. I am hesitant to provide any further example, but this theory is what I firmly believe and would implore you to believe as well.
Now the process of conversion of spoken words to written cuneiform is a complete mystery to me, of course. I wouldn't even know where to begin if tasked with formulating any hypothesis regarding the said process.
However, I think that any 'phonetic writing' as referenced to by us4-he2-gal2 would only be adopted if it's components could fit accurately into the meaning of the phonetic original, which is supported by what I see in the work. For example, the phonetic writing used to construct 2 synonyms of 'agam' (pond) would be a-ga-mu-um, a-ga-am3 and a-ga-am, and what I am saying is that in 100.00% of cases any phonetic synonym used does correspond to the original in the direct meaning of the compound unit. So a-ga-am3 and a-ga-am both have an etymology that relates them to the agam, while a-ga-am2 will never be found in any instance because am2 does not produce any semantics that can in any way tie the phonetic synonym to the original. And I trust this is true for absolutely any case of phonetic writing. Such is the virtue of the scribal conlang.
So even if any false etymologies of Semitic or other words are found, they still have a inner structure to them, a meaningful relation of their components that makes sense, and it is this meaning that can be more or less reliably reconstructed by etymological analysis (which consists of pure bruteforcing actually).
Arriving at an estimation of any percentage of proximity to the original etymologies, whether 25% or 100%, is a complex methodological issue that I am not sure can be resolved at all, however, what we can do is to consistently propose the best etymologies only, meaning that it is impossible to propose a better explanation than ours. This is measurable to some extent. You can't get much better than providing only the best etymologies.

Anyways, regarding organizational matters: Skype was proposed for text chat only, so if you are okay with that, let me know. In any way it seems I'll have to do most of the work alone. But I am sure you will be able to greatly improve the general order of the work and offer a chance of consensus that is so badly needed in this quite subjective undertaking. So drop a Skype and I'll get in touch :-P

P.S.: I think AMAR.UTU if translated as the Solar Calf had quite a firm theological basis to be proposed as Marduk's real etymology, though; I used to remember the correct reasoning but now I think I've forgotten it DDDD:

[santakku]

Right, only got a second now, but will come back to you soon. I never realised that came from Halloran, thank you for joining the dots. I think that there is little in what he says that is both true and cannot be said of most modern languages. There is also a great deal that I do not believe to be true. The theory of phomemes applies to proto-language. Presuming it to be true, the effects resonate in 'post-proto'-languages, including current languages. Therefore, we would expect some influence on Sumerian too. But I have yet to see any evidence whatsoever that the phonemes in Sumerian carry any semantic value, either in my own reading of Sumerian or provided by Halloran. If you want to study the influence of phomemes in the earliest recorded languages, Sumerian is a good choice. However, I do not think I would call Sumerian an early language. The idea of written language has no necessary connection to complex, abstract, or 'mature' language. In fact, writing is not a major contributor to linguistic evolution - it has a hard job keeping up! To avoid writing more, I'll direct you to www.dropbox.com/s/xo350pnex6mq377/Halloran.pdf?dl=0 for the other side of the argument. The review is rather scathing, but I don't include it because of that. I won't be so dismissive, but would argue for some of its positions. Therefore, to convince me, it's worth reading and considering.

I don't understand your point about phonetics. a-ga-am and a-ga-am3 are not synonyms; they're the same word - /agam/. a-ga-mu-um would seem to be an Akkadian loanword from Sumerian - /agammum/. A quick look at ePSD suggests to me the etymology of a-ga-am3 is its similarity to a-ga-am, which has some other etymology more like the sort you're interested in. So a-ga-am3 would be not as appropriate for your analysis. It's like "forever" or "4ever" - one is a written semantic compound, one is not. The word "pond" is made of the signs p, o, n, d. p means "mouth" originally, o is "eye", n is (I forget...), d is "door". Yet these meanings are irrelevant to the meaning of "pond". I think you are saying something like us4-he2-gal2's i-si-isz is different. But way do you say this?

[us4-he2-gal2]

damansky - We could cover some things on skype, add lukurkurra

[damansky]

Right, a status update. After exchanging a few emails with Santakku, we've organized a shared Dropbox folder and a remotely accessed workstation for enhanced collaboration. We discussed the profitability of analyzing particular signs with unknown etymology by finding context occurrences of their derivatives in the CDLI tablets, referring to the signs that are outside of both ePSD and Unicode, but present in the CDLI archaic sign list. I argued that this might be a bit out of scope of the project, being incredibly labor-intense.

In theory, precise etymological meaning can be deduced for every compound idiom, not just the synonyms of individual cuneiform signs from the Unicode table. This process, however, would make the project several times longer, and seeing the current wavering, unstable enthusiasm for the work as is, I would suggest leaving that work to a follow-up project, if touch upon it at all. It would expand the volume of work from some 3-4 thousand entries to perhaps 30-40 thousand entries, becoming a complete etymology of the entire written Sumerian language. Therefore the current work ought to be regarded as an Incomplete Etymology only.



I must admit, however, I have a feeling we've come, at this point, to a permanent or a temporary dead end that can only be resolved by extensive, vast research, if at all. It seems that we will again and again encounter points where a live comprehension of the Sumerian culture was presupposed by the designers of the script. It seems many of the signs involve things obvious to a contemporary Sumerian and absolutely cryptic to us, who are living four thousand years later. We were lucky enough to deduce that the AL sign might be the picture of a plough, but before long there are things that are way more exotic than a plough for a modern reader. It's safe to assume the script does reflect Sumerian culture not just because of the convenience of understood illustrations, but for higher, aesthetic, historical reasons as well.



Anyway, the sign in question is MAH , with the archaic forms of MAH~aand MAH~b  .
I absolutely refuse to skip this sign and feel like we must decipher it right here, right now. With the Akkadian glosses of "heavy; important", "to be(come) many, numerous"; "to be big; to grow" and "exalted, supreme, splendid, outstanding", me and Santakku found no viable explanation for this. Is it a silo where some objects are hoarded? Is it a piece of jewelry? I guess the precise answer lies within the Sumerian culture.

I am afraid a very intimate knowledge of the entire Sumerian culture and everyday way of life is required to succeed in our task, otherwise more and more of such dead end signs will appear and prevent us from a conclusion of our work. 

[damansky]

OK I'd like to update this thread here with the details of our proposed Telegram conference; I'll just paste the initial text:

"I would like to propose to use the Telegram application for a group chat where we can both share images and keep an accurate chat history; it's a browser app and you do not have to install any software and I believe it will prove very handy for our purposes.
telegram.me/joinchat/CAmlRQZ_NRVI8JLkQFgB-g Use this link to register a Telegram account and join the group; the same link I will forward to the others and I propose to move all and any communication to Telegram. You can keep the browser tab open and we'll see that you are online."

[damansky]

Hahaha. Mystery solved. This is great fun :DDDDDDD
When the time arrived for the re-rendering of the archaic signs into the classic cuneiform aesthetic standards, I think what happened is that the scribes too, just as us, didn't know what the heck MAH~a and MAH~b meant, and inspecting MAH~a closely, drew a very realistic picture of a piggy. Because MAH~a does look like a piggy ^^

[damansky]

this is a serious thread

[sheshki]

I have the suspicious feeling that this is some kind of weird joke. You can´t be serious!

[sheshki]

Another nice example is KAR , which means harbour or quay.
It consists of two signs, TEMEN and A, foundation and water.


      TEMEN               A







ePSD entry
kar [HARBOR] (251x: ED IIIa, ED IIIb, Old Akkadian, Lagash II, Ur III, Early Old Babylonian, Old Babylonian) wr. kar "harbor, quay" Akk. kāru

[us4-he2-gal2]

Sheshki recently recommended to me the sign hul:







Seeing as the sign is composed basically of IGI + UR, I commented on this: I think the semantic range of ur is basically 'fierce' - a dog is ur, a man is ur, a lion is ur-mah (great ur) a warrior is ur-saĝ (fierce head). So hul is the signs igi + ur , i.e. seeing fierce. hul is usually given the English translation 'evil' but good and evil are ethical values fit better with Christian thinking than with Mesopotamian thinking. A better translation may be hul = danger/threat