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Learning Sumerian is Hard
Topic Started: Mar 14 2014, 07:13 AM (385 Views)
Sean Manning
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Hello,

My blog now has a few posts on the Age of Proper Metal, including one on the quirks of Sumerian. Most of my writing is on the Age of Cheap Substitutes because that is my research focus, but I should have a Bronze Age post every few months.

A book review of Josho Brouwers' book on early Greek warfare should appear next week.
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Edwin Deady
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Thanks for the link. Very clear exposition, I now know more about Sumerian than I had gathered over the years past.
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Gregory J. Liebau
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Must be a fascinating language to get into, Sean! I was only able to take three weeks of an introductory course on Middle Egyptian before my schedule clashes became weary, and was particularly fascinated by the same issue that you mention. Namely, that we aren't always certain that the sounds we're using to mimic the old languages were the same used by contemporaries who spoke and wrote them down. It seems like Egyptian and Sumerian have several things in common that I wouldn't have expected, including the inclusion of particular sets of syllables that follow the same rules without dependence on their circumstances within a word or phrase, yet others that vary according to use. A confusing concept... Makes me want to read up more on agglutinative language development.

Thanks for the post. Very straightforward. I will come back to it when I have ample time to ponder!

-Gregory
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Todd Feinman
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Thanks for the link to your blog Sean! You are a brave soul for studying Sumerian, but if you ever do Sumerian reenactment, you'll have it in the bag! :) I've often wondered, as Gregory suggested, whether or not the ancients would understand modern reconstructions of their languages, or if it would come through like the broken communication of modern tourists or immigrants -- but even more bizarre and broken.
"What? You want to stick your Tiamat in my what??" <king unsheathes dagger, archers nock arrows, you back away towards the time machine> :lol:
I'm bookmarking your blog for future reading!
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