Sumerian Lesson 1
Sumerian Language Periods
The Sumerian language can be broken down into four major periods. Understanding which period your text dates from is an important part of translating, reading, and speaking Sumerian!
The Sumerian Language
Sumerian existed as a living language from the 4th millennium BCE to the end of the 2nd millennium BCE when Akkadian became the dominant language in the region. See Wikipedia’s full breakdown.
In other words, people actually spoke Sumerian for a full 2,000 years!
Even after it ceased to be a spoken language, it continued to be used for religious, scholarly, literary, and administrative writing right up until the common era—another 2,000 years!
Implications for Learning Sumerian
Consider how much the English language has changed in the last few centuries, let alone during your lifetime! That Sumerian changed so little is absolutely mind-boggling!
Despite Sumerian remaining relatively in-tact over the millennia, changes did occur. Understanding when will help you date and translate your Sumerian texts, and generally make learning Sumerian easier!
POINTS OF INTEREST: The importance placed on the Sumerian language by so many cultures makes you wonder: 1) by how many millennia does the Sumerian language predate the Sumerian people, and 2) what ancient knowledge is encoded in the cuneiform texts which has yet to be discovered or translated?
Implications for Learning Sumerian
Throughout these Sumerian lessons, I’ll refer to the significant linguistic periods as follows:
Your Sumerian Language Journey Continues!
Fantastic! You now know about the 4 major Sumerian language Periods! In the next lesson, you’ll learn how to pronounce Sumerian like a pro, so be sure to subscribe to my Substack, so you can get the latest post as soon as it drops!
