Miia in Sumerian cuneiform

[François]

Hi everyone,

Google has led me here for my request, I hope you won't mind helping me  

I would like to tattoo my daughter's name on my inner forearm. Her name is Miia, which is the Estonian version of Mia, and she is half-Estonian, half-Belgian. Anyway, the reason I chose Sumerian is first because I didn't want to go the usual way of just writing the name in Latin script, and second because I am a linguist by degree, passionate about diachronic linguistics (although mostly of Indo-European and Finno-Ugric types!) and in awe of how much information about the paths taken by humans all around the world lies within languages. Therefore, I feel a very strong connection with what is probably one of the earliest writing systems, and as a citizen of the world I think it matters to remember how human peoples, traditions, languages and knowledge are deeply intertwined. 

About the name itself, Miia, it is very much pronounced like Mia /mee yah/ (not /mah ya/). I've been looking at these tables of characters and trying to make sense of the various combinations possible and came up with these potential contenders. 

It seems like an option would be to use 2 symbols: Mi and ia.
Here are the links to the respective signs:

Mi: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mi_(cuneiform)
ia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ia_(cuneiform)

Would it make sense?
Would you write MIIA any other way?

Thank you so much in advance!

François

[sheshki]

Hello François,
you found the right signs, but the MI is too new for Sumerian (probably Neo-Assyrian)
These are signs you could use.
MI.IA



Another possibility would be to use MI₂ instead of MI

They should be alligned horizontally tho (the IA sits too high).

MI in it´s form of GIGGI means "black", MI₂ means "praise" and IA is an exclamation (oh!)"

Give me a bit time and i find a nicer script for you.

Sheshki

Have a look here, just for fun
--->ePSD

[sheshki]

There you go.


MI.IA

MI₂.IA

[Francois]

Amazing, thank you so much Sheshki!!!

I really like the look of MI2, since this also has esthetic value. I looked it up and it seems like MI2 also means "woman" or "female" (munus), would that be correct? Is it still pronounced /mi/ in MI2.IA then? Sorry for the newbie question and thanks again for your time!

[sheshki]

The sign has these values: gal₄, mi₂, munus and sal.
It is pronounced according to the word or sentence it is part of.
In your case it is mi, since it is used to write your daughters name,
in dumu-munus (daughter) for example it is pronounced munus,
indicating that the offspring dumu  is female.
It is also part of other signs like nin (lady), el or dam (spouse)

PS.: I really like that you put so much thought into your tattoo! That´s how it should be!

[Francois]

Sheshki, I don't know how to thank you!

I also think that a tattoo is a very personal thing - I would never go for something that someone else might have. As far as the language is concerned, I could never have something permanently inked into my skin without knowing for sure that it means what I want it to mean (reminds me of these photos of spelling mistakes in tats... ewww! ).

I am finding Sumerian cuneiform fascinating and will be reading about it!

Thanks again so much and all the best - I'll post a picture of the tattoo when done

[sheshki]

For the same reasons i started to learn more about the cuneiform signs so many years ago.
And i have a feeling it is time for some new ink
Yes please, post a picture.

[nocodeyv]

Sorry to throw a potential tangent into the thread, but I saw an opportunity to raise one of my own questions here.

Sheshki, in replies above you noted that the sign has the values GAL₄, MI₂, MUNUS, and SAL. If it isn't too much trouble, could you perhaps explain to me how translators determine which value is implied when they encounter a sign? For example, as you said, a female child would be DUMU-MUNUS, but how do we know it wouldn't be DUMU-GAL₄, or DUMU.MI₂ instead? Is it solely based on the translator's discretion, or are there agreed upon rules collected somewhere?

[sheshki]

Translators usually don´t deal with single signs but with whole texts, therefore context is very important.
Also usually, or ideally, people who translate have a proper training in the language,
therefore they know the vocabulary and sentence structure.
If said translator for example finds the signs  and combined,
he or she can see in the text what the word is, given by the context.
In other words, and also because we had these issues here on board as well as on many websites before,
translating a Sumerian text does not mean someone picks up a dictionary like ePSD
and just cherry picks meanings of signs until it fits what they want or until it does makes some sort of sense.
So experience and knowledge of the translator and the context are most important.
Hope that helps.

[nocodeyv]

Using the contents of the entire text to find the context of each sign was how I figured it was done too, but lacking any real experience with cuneiform myself, I didn't know for sure. The explanation was very helpful, thank you.

[us4-he2-gal2]

Hello all - great thread Very good answers here Sheshki. Yes, I would agree that it is sort of context based. Should a translator see the signs DUMU.MUNUS he or she must use intuition to select the proper value, intuition - and deduction. It same signs could spell DUMU.MUNUS but at the same time they could also spell DUMU.MI2. There is no secret or no rule to determine one way or another. If there is a golden rule it is this: does it spell anything intelligible if I read it one way or the other? And does my reading of one word mark sense in the context of the entire sentence? If it doesn't you switch to another sign value and try reading again.

This is one reason why the cuneiform script is quite difficult to work with and its also why it can be ambiguous and it can allow for varying translations. Hence even in the published work of senior scholars, there will be disagreement about the specifics of some texts.