What was the original writing system of the Sumerians? Secrets of the ancient Sumerians. Grand Palace of Marie

SUMERIAN LANGUAGE

SOUTH EUROPEAN TRUNK

49,000 BC a “Eurasian” monolanguage arose.

The estimated emergence of a monolanguage is “according to linguistic data, it is no deeper than 40 - 50 thousand years ago. This is the maximum, because those macrofamilies that we know have a dating of about 15 - 17 thousand. Bringing other language families together may require two or three more floors, but the starting point cannot be older than 40 - 50 thousand years.

In the "fertile crescent" zone (Sinai) the general or "Eurasian" language 38,000 l. n. began to break down into dialects."

The separation of the main proto-languages ​​emanating from the southern European trunk occurred in the region of 15-12 thousand BC.

There were three of them:

Sino-Caucasian,

Nostratic and

Afroasiatic (Semitic-Hamitic).

It is possible that other proto-languages ​​existed at that time, which disappeared without a trace in the future (these include the “banana” languages ​​of Mesopotamia and Sumerian, although the latter is often compared to Sino-Caucasian). The features of Sino-Caucasian languages ​​include complex verbal morphology, which is formed according to similar principles, and ergative construction of sentences, opposed to the nominative construction of Nostratic languages.

9 - 8 thousand BC there was a division of the Sino-Caucasian (Dene-Caucasian, Proto-Hurrian, Carian, Sino-Caucasian, Paleo-Eurasian) community, dislocated from Asia Minor ( CHAYONYU-TEPEZI) and the Balkans to the Pamirs.

- 8,700 BC - selection of the Sumerian language.

The settlement of the Nostrati throughout Central Asia and Iran divided the Sino-Caucasians into three zones: eastern, western and northern, between which the Ural-Dravidian-Altai Nostratic community was located. The most isolated was the northern one, formed back in 8,700 thousand BC. one of the first.

8,700 BC - identification of the northern Sino-Caucasian branch of languages ​​(Nadene family). Mosan, Haida, Tlingit, Athapaskan, Eyak.

7,900 BC - highlighting the Basque and Aquitanian languages.

According to genetic studies, after the inhabitants of Ethiopia, the most ancient are the inhabitants of Sardinia (Akkadians) and the Basques.

Some of the Sino-Caucasians who went west gave rise to the population of Western Europe who spoke Proto-Basque languages.

Small groups of Andites 7,900 BC headed to Japan (mixed with the Australoids, forming the Ainu race on the islands of Japan), to the south of China, Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia.

6,200 BC - highlighting the Burushaski language.

Some scientists consider Burushasks to be Western or Eastern Sino-Caucasians. They appeared in Kashmir before the Indo-Aryans and had no contact with the Dravidians.

5900 BC - identification of the Eastern Sino-Caucasian branch of languages.

5.100 BC - separation of the language of the Kets (Yenisei languages: Ket, Yug, etc.) and the Chinese, Tibetans and Burmese.

6 thousand BC The Sino-Caucasians in Asia Minor were divided into the Hatto-Ashu and Hurrito-Urartian groups (Alarodian), which began to develop autonomously, but there was no clear localization of these groups.

4500 BC - highlighting the language of the Hutts and Ashuis.

The Hutt language has clear overlaps with Adyghe-Abkhaz and Kartvelian, but has almost nothing in common with Nakh-Dagestan and Hurrian. The Hutt language was a link between the Sino-Caucasian and Nostratic (Kartvelian group).

4500 BC - identification of Nakho-Dagestan, Hurrian, Urartian languages ​​and the language of the “peoples of the sea”.

The Nakh-Dagestan language has clear similarities with Hurrian (about 100 common roots) - on the one hand, and Adyghe-Abkhazian - on the other, as well as points of contact with Chadian languages ​​of the Afroasiatic (macro) family. The Ingush language belongs to the Nakh (Vainakh) branch. The Ket language was associated with the Hurrian languages.

Periods of Sumerian language

Five main periods in the history of the Sumerian language are identified according to the nature of writing, language and spelling of written monuments.
1.Archaic(3500-2750 BC), the stage of pictography, when grammatical morphemes are not yet graphically expressed. The order of characters in writing does not correspond to the order of reading. The subject matter of the texts is interpreted ambiguously.

2.Old Sumerian(hereinafter SS, 2750-2136 BC), the first stage of cuneiform writing, when a number of the most important grammatical morphemes are already transmitted in writing. It is represented by texts of various subjects, both historical (Lagash, Uruk, etc.) and religious and literary (Abu Salabih, Farah and Ebla). During the reign of the Akkadian Dynasty (2315-2200 BC), bilingual royal inscriptions first appeared.

In the Old Sumerian period, the Sumerian language was the interstate language of communication not only for the purely Sumerian city-states of Southern Mesopotamia, but also, for example, the city-state of Ebla (in northern Syria).

During the Old Sumerian period (when there were several Sumerian city-states), it is difficult to identify significant dialect differences in the royal inscriptions and economic texts from Lagash, Ur and Nippur. . Thomsen admits the existence of a southeastern (Lagash) dialect of the Sumerian language due to such a fact as the distinction between two groups of vowels (in verbal prefixes): open (a, ě, ŏ) and closed (ē, i, u) in contrast to common Sumerian, where this has not been revealed.
Perhaps there was also professional jargon: the so-called. ‘the language of the boatmen’ (eme-ma2-lah4-a), ‘the language of the shepherds’ (eme-udula) and ‘the language of the priests nu’eš’ (eme-nu-eša3), but no written monuments were found on it. .

3. Neo-Sumerian(hereinafter NS, 2136-1996 BC), when almost all grammatical morphemes are expressed graphically.

Represented by religious, literary and business texts of Gudea, ruler of the 2nd dynasty of Lagash (2136-2104 BC) in the Lagash dialect.

Numerous texts of a business and legal nature have come down from the III dynasty of Ur (2100-1996 BC), including the laws of Shulga, correspondence of kings and officials.

It is believed that the religious and literary compositions that survived in later copies were recorded during this period.

The Sumerian language was the official state language in the territory of Mesopotamia, and, in particular, during the 'Kingdom of Sumer and Akkad' (the so-called III dynasty of Ur, 2112-1996 BC) - royal inscriptions were compiled in it , religious and literary texts, economic and legal documents

Subsequently, during the Old Babylonian period (2000-1800 BC), the Sumerian written language was gradually replaced by Akkadian. Thus, the royal inscriptions were already compiled in two languages.

4. Late Sumerian or Old Babylonian Sumerian (hereinafter NE, 1996-1736 BC), when all grammatical morphemes are expressed graphically.

Represented by religious, literary and magical texts mainly of the Nippur school, Sumerian-Akkadian dictionaries, lexical, grammatical and terminological reference books, laws of Lipit-Ishtar, King Issin. Bilingual royal inscriptions come from the First Dynasty of Babylon (1894-1736 BC). The vocabulary and grammar are influenced by the Akkadian language.

After the destruction of most of the Sumerian population by the Babylonian king Samsuiluna during the uprising of Rome-Sin II in 1736 BC. e., followed by the death of the Sumerian schools (‘eduba’) and the transfer of the center of learning to the suburb of Babylon - Borsippa, and especially after 1450 BC. e. (the end of the last Mesopotamian dynasty of Primorye with the Sumerian names of the rulers) there is no more information about the spoken Sumerian language.

In the period from 1736 to the 1st centuries BC. e. The Sumerian language remains the scientific and liturgical language of Mesopotamian culture, fulfilling the role of medieval Latin in the Ancient East. Numerous scientific (eg Astrolabe 'B') and religious texts of both narrative (eg Lugal ud me-lam2-bi) and magical (eg Udug-hul-a-meš, Akkadian Utukkī Lemnūti) existed in two versions: Sumerian and Akkadian, ensuring the bilingual status of the Assyro-Babylonian civilization. The matrix nature of the ideographic script, borrowed from the Sumerians, used in East Semitic Akkadian, Urartian and Indo-European Hittite, contributed to the centuries-old use of Sumerian ideogram words in these languages ​​and thereby the second life of the vocabulary of the Sumerian language.

5. Post-Sumerian(hereinafter PS, 1736 BC - 2nd century BC). Represented by religious, literary, liturgical and magical texts (copies of the late Sumerian period), including those in the Eme-sal dialect, Sumerian phrases and glosses in Akkadian texts.

Sumerian is an agglutinative language. At the syntactic level, the language is classified as ergative.

WRITING

Stone Age, fourth millennium BC, people use stone tools, have the most primitive skills, almost zero skills and the most barbaric knowledge about the world around them. They live either directly in the open air or in dwellings like dugouts. No bows, no swords, no ships, no jewelry, no pyramids, no kings, no furniture - none of this chaotic set existed at that time, and could not have arisen, given the stage of human evolution.

So it seemed to scientists for a long time, until the Sumerian civilization was discovered, which with its existence created a real sensation among scientific minds. The scale of the shock was so great that few people wanted to believe in the reality of the Sumerians until the facts became too many. What so amazed and continues to amaze the most enlightened minds of humanity?

Judging by the finds discovered in the cities of the Sumerians, they were the inventors of almost everything that we use to this day. In principle, it is high time for historians and literary publishing houses to rewrite history, because much that was attributed to other peoples was invented by the mysterious Sumerians. The Sumerians came, and out of nowhere entire cities appeared with huge pyramids, ziggurats, real smooth roads covered with a substance similar in composition to modern asphalt.

So, six thousand years ago, an incomprehensible civilization either itself invented something that could not yet exist at that time, or used more ancient inventions, which means that all our ideas about this stage of the development of our planet are fundamentally incorrect. Here is the little that the Sumerians knew and used:

In those days, one could already find markets on the streets, people opened something like culinary shops where they could have a snack on the way. Sumerians walked through the streets in beautiful outfits, decorated with various jewelry. And this is not the only thing that shocks researchers. Most of all, no one understands why a nation that was supposed to develop, having achieved everything in the first centuries of its existence, then suddenly began to degrade! Assumptions have been and are being made. And the worst thing is that it is the scientists and romantic writers of recent generations who can become those thanks to whom the Sumerian civilization will acquire absurd legends, which will subsequently prevent our descendants from continuing the study of this most interesting mysterious people.

Sumer was a civilization with a historical site in southern Mesopotamia and occupied the territory of modern Iraq. This is the most ancient civilization known to man, the cradle of the human race. The history of Sumerian civilization spans more than 3000 years. With beginnings in the Ubaid period during the first settlement of Eridu (mid-6th millennium BC) through the Uruk period (4th millennium BC) and dynastic periods (3rd millennium BC) and until the emergence of Babylon at the beginning second millennium BC.

Sumerian civilization and features of ancient writing.

It is the birthplace of writing, the wheel and agriculture. The most important archaeological discovery made on the territory of the Sumerian civilization is undoubtedly writing. A huge number of tablets and manuscripts with records in the Sumerian language were found during the study of the Sumerian civilization. Sumerian writing is the oldest example of writing on earth. At the beginning of their history, the Sumerians used images and hieroglyphs for writing; later, symbols appeared that formed syllables, words, and sentences. Triangular or cuneiform signs were used for writing on reed paper or on wet clay. This type of writing is called cuneiform.

A huge variety of texts that the Sumerian civilization wrote in the Sumerian language have survived and survived to this day, both personal and business letters, receipts, lexical lists, laws, hymns, prayers, histories, daily reports, and even libraries have been found filled with clay tablets. Monumental inscriptions and texts on various objects, on statues or brick buildings, have become widespread in Sumerian civilization. Many texts have survived in multiple copies. The Sumerian language continued to be the language of religion and law in Mesopotamia even after the Semites took over the historical territories of the Sumerians. The Sumerian language is generally regarded as a lonely language in linguistics, since it does not belong to any of the known language families; The Akkadian language, unlike the Sumerian language, belongs to the languages ​​of the Semitic-Hamitic language family. There have been many unsuccessful attempts to connect the Sumerian language with any language group. Sumerian is an agglutinative language; in other words, morphemes ("units of meaning") are joined together to create words, unlike analytical languages ​​where morphemes are simply added to create sentences.

Sumerians, their oral and written language.

Understanding Sumerian texts today can be challenging even for experts. The most difficult ones are the early ones
time texts. In many cases Sumerians and their texts cannot be fully grammatically assessed, that is, they have not yet been completely deciphered. During the third millennium BC, a very close cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians and Akkadians. The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian (and vice versa) is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a large scale, to syntactic and morphological, to phonological convergence. Akkadian gradually replaced the language spoken by the Sumerians (around the 2nd-3rd centuries BC; exact dating is a matter of debate), but Sumerian continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary and scientific language in Mesopotamia until the first century ad.

Type: syllabic-ideographic

Language family: not installed

Localization: Northern Mesopotamia

Propagation time:3300 BC e. - 100 AD e.

The Sumerians called the homeland of all mankind the island of Dilmui, identified with modern Bahrain in the Persian Gulf.

The earliest is represented by texts found in the Sumerian cities of Uruk and Jemdet Nasr, dated 3300 BC.

The Sumerian language still continues to remain a mystery to us, since even now it has not been possible to establish its relationship with any of the known language families. Archaeological materials suggest that the Sumerians created the Ubaid culture in the south of Mesopotamia at the end of the 5th - beginning of the 4th millennium BC. e. Thanks to the emergence of hieroglyphic writing, the Sumerians left many monuments of their culture, imprinting them on clay tablets.

The cuneiform script itself was a syllabic script, consisting of several hundred characters, of which about 300 were the most common; these included more than 50 ideograms, about 100 signs for simple syllables and 130 for complex ones; there were signs for numbers in the hexadecimal and decimal systems.

Sumerian writing developed over 2200 years

Most signs have two or several readings (polyphonism), since often, next to Sumerian, they also acquired a Semitic meaning. Sometimes they depicted related concepts (for example, “sun” - bar and “shine” - lah).

The invention of Sumerian writing itself was undoubtedly one of the largest and most significant achievements of the Sumerian civilization. Sumerian writing, which went from hieroglyphic, figurative signs-symbols to the signs that began to write the simplest syllables, turned out to be an extremely progressive system. It was borrowed and used by many peoples who spoke other languages.

At the turn of the IV-III millennium BC. e. we have indisputable evidence that the population of Lower Mesopotamia was Sumerian. The widely known story of the Great Flood first appears in Sumerian historical and mythological texts.

Although Sumerian writing was invented exclusively for economic needs, the first written literary monuments appeared among the Sumerians very early: among records dating back to the 26th century. BC e., there are already examples of folk wisdom genres, cult texts and hymns.

Due to this circumstance, the cultural influence of the Sumerians in the Ancient Near East was enormous and outlived their own civilization for many centuries.

Subsequently, writing loses its pictorial character and transforms into cuneiform.

Cuneiform writing was used in Mesopotamia for almost three thousand years. However, later it was forgotten. For tens of centuries, cuneiform kept its secret, until in 1835 the unusually energetic Englishman Henry Rawlinson, an English officer and lover of antiquities, deciphered it. One day he was informed that an inscription had been preserved on a steep cliff in Behistun (near the city of Hamadan in Iran). It turned out to be the same inscription, written in three ancient languages, including ancient Persian. Rawlinson first read the inscription in this language known to him, and then managed to understand the other inscription, identifying and deciphering more than 200 cuneiform characters.

In mathematics, the Sumerians knew how to count in tens. But the numbers 12 (a dozen) and 60 (five dozen) were especially revered. We still use the Sumerian heritage when we divide an hour into 60 minutes, a minute into 60 seconds, a year into 12 months, and a circle into 360 degrees.

In the figure you see how over 500 years hieroglyphic images of numerals turned into cuneiform ones.

Modification of Sumerian numerals from hieroglyphs to cuneiform

Type: syllabic-ideographic

Language family: not established

Localization: Northern Mesopotamia

Distribution time: 3300 BC e. - 100 AD e.

Sumer, one of the most ancient civilizations of the Middle East, existed at the end of the 4th - beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. e. in the Southern Mesopotamia, the region of the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates, in the south of modern Iraq.

The first settlements in this territory began to appear already in the 6th millennium BC. e.

Where the Sumerians came to these lands from, among whom the local agricultural communities disappeared, has not yet been clarified.

Their own traditions speak of eastern or southeastern origin. They considered their oldest settlement to be Eredu, the southernmost of the cities of Mesopotamia, now the site of Abu Shahrain.

The Sumerians called the homeland of all mankind the island of Dilmui, identified with modern Bahrain in the Persian Gulf.

The earliest Sumerian writing is represented by texts found in the Sumerian cities of Uruk and Jemdet Nasr, dating back to 3300 BC.

The Sumerian language still continues to remain a mystery to us, since even now it has not been possible to establish its relationship with any of the known language families. Archaeological materials suggest that the Sumerians created the Ubaid culture in the south of Mesopotamia at the end of the 5th - beginning of the 4th millennium BC. e. Thanks to the emergence of hieroglyphic writing, the Sumerians left many monuments of their culture, imprinting them on clay tablets.

The cuneiform script itself was a syllabic script, consisting of several hundred characters, of which about 300 were the most common; these included more than 50 ideograms, about 100 signs for simple syllables and 130 for complex ones; there were signs for numbers in the hexadecimal and decimal systems.

Sumerian writing developed over 2,200 years

Most signs have two or several readings (polyphonism), since often, next to Sumerian, they also acquired a Semitic meaning. Sometimes they depicted related concepts (for example, “sun” - bar and “shine” - lah).

The invention of Sumerian writing itself was undoubtedly one of the largest and most significant achievements of the Sumerian civilization. Sumerian writing, which went from hieroglyphic, figurative signs-symbols to the signs that began to write the simplest syllables, turned out to be an extremely progressive system. It was borrowed and used by many peoples who spoke other languages.

At the turn of the IV-III millennium BC. e. we have indisputable evidence that the population of Lower Mesopotamia was Sumerian. The widely known story of the Great Flood first appears in Sumerian historical and mythological texts.

Although Sumerian writing was invented exclusively for economic needs, the first written literary monuments appeared among the Sumerians very early: among records dating back to the 26th century. BC e., there are already examples of folk wisdom genres, cult texts and hymns.

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Due to this circumstance, the cultural influence of the Sumerians in the Ancient Near East was enormous and outlived their own civilization for many centuries.

Subsequently, writing loses its pictorial character and transforms into cuneiform.

Cuneiform writing was used in Mesopotamia for almost three thousand years. However, later it was forgotten. For tens of centuries, cuneiform kept its secret, until in 1835 the unusually energetic Englishman Henry Rawlinson, an English officer and lover of antiquities, deciphered it. One day he was informed that an inscription had been preserved on a steep cliff in Behistun (near the city of Hamadan in Iran). It turned out to be the same inscription, written in three ancient languages, including ancient Persian. Rawlinson first read the inscription in this language known to him, and then managed to understand the other inscription, identifying and deciphering more than 200 cuneiform characters.

In mathematics, the Sumerians knew how to count in tens. But the numbers 12 (a dozen) and 60 (five dozen) were especially revered. We still use the Sumerian heritage when we divide an hour into 60 minutes, a minute into 60 seconds, a year into 12 months, and a circle into 360 degrees.

In the figure you see how over 500 years hieroglyphic images of numerals turned into cuneiform ones.

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