AD) The earliest language written in Mesopotamia was Sumerian, an agglutinative language isolate. Along with Sumerian, Semitic languages were also spoken Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. It corresponds roughly to the territory of modern Iraq. Just beyond it lies southwestern Iran, where the region transitions into the Persian plateau, marking the shift from the Arab world to Iran. Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of th Ge… The earliest language written in Mesopotamia was Sumerian, an agglutinative language isolate. Along with Sumerian, Semitic languages were also spoken in early Mesopotamia. Subartuan, a language of the Zagros possibly related to the Hurro-Urartuan language family, is attested in personal names, rivers and mountains and in various crafts. Akkadian came to be the dominant language during the Akkadian Empire and the Assyrian empires, but Sumerian was retained for administrative, religious, literary and scientific purposes. Different varieties of Akkadian were used until the end of the Neo-Babylonian period. Old Aramaic, which had already become common in Mesopotamia, then became the official provincial administration language of first the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and then the Achaemenid Empire: the official lect is called Imperial Aramaic. Akkadian fell into disuse, but both it and Sumerian were still used in temples for some centuries. The last Akkadian texts date from the late 1st century AD. Early in Mesopotamia's history, around the mid-4th millennium BC, cuneiform was invented for the Sumerian language. Cuneiform literally means "wedge-shaped", due to the triangular tip of the stylus used for impressing signs on wet clay. The standardized form of each cuneiform sign appears to have been developed from pictograms. The earliest texts, 7 archaic tablets, come from the É, a temple dedicated to the goddess Inanna at Uruk, from a building labeled as Temple C by its excavators. The early logographic system of cuneiform script took many years to master. Thus, only a limited number of individuals were hired as scribes to be trained in its use. It was not until the widespread use of a syllabic script was adopted under Sargon's rule that significant portions of the Mesopotamian population became literate. Massive archives of texts were recovered from the archaeological contexts of Old Babylonian scribal schools, through which literacy was disseminated. Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as the spoken language of Mesopotamia somewhere around the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BC. Libraries were extant in towns and temples during the Babylonian Empire. An old Sumerian proverb averred that "he who would excel in the school of the scribes must rise with the dawn." Women as well as men learned to read and write, and for the Semitic Babylonians, this involved knowledge of the extinct Sumerian language, and a complicated and extensive syllabary. A considerable amount of Babylonian literature was translated from Sumerian originals, and the language of religion and law long continued to be the old agglutinative language of Sumer. Vocabularies, grammars, and interlinear translations were compiled for the use of students, as well as commentaries on the older texts and explanations of obscure words and phrases. The characters of the syllabary were all arranged and named, and elaborate lists were drawn up. Many Babylonian literary works are still studied today. One of the most famous of these was the Epic of Gilgamesh, in twelve books, translated from the original Sumerian by a certain Sîn-lēqi-unninni, and arranged upon an astronomical principle. Each division contains the story of a single adventure in the career of Gilgamesh. The whole story is a composite product, although it is probable that some of the stories are artificially attached to the central figure. Genetic studies on the modern day people of Iraq are limited and generally restricted to analysis of classical keys due to the country's modern political instability, although lately, there have been several published studies displaying a genealogical connection between all Iraqis and the neighboring countries, across religious, ethnic and linguistic barriers. Studies indicate that the different ethno-religious groups of Iraq (Mesopotamia) share significant similarities in genetics and that Mesopotamian Arabs, who make up the majority of Iraqis, are more genetically similar to Iraqi Kurds than other Arab populations in the Middle East and Arabia. No significant differences in Y-DNA variation were observed among Iraqi Mesopotamian Arabs, Assyrians, or Kurds. Modern genetic studies indicate that Iraqi Mesopotamian Arabs are more related to Iraqi-Assyrians than Iraqi Kurds. Dogan et. al (2017) states that contemporary Assyrian and Yazidis from northern Iraq might "have stronger continuity with the original genetic stock of the Mesopotamian people, which possibly provided the basis for the ethnogenesis of various subsequent Near Eastern populations." Among northern Iraqi Assyrians, J and R subclades were observed at 36% and 41% respectively, where R1a, R1b, J1 and J2 sub-clades accounted for 11%, 30%, 12% and 24%. For Yazidis, R haplogroup subclades dominate, where R1a and R1b account for 9% and 21%, respectively. The high prevalence of R and J macrohaplogroups is attributed to pre-Last Glacial Maximum events in the Near East. Many historians and anthropologists provide strong circumstantial evidence to presuppose that Iraq's Marsh Arabs share very strong links to the ancient Sumerians. While other studies indicate that the Iraqi-Assyrian population was found to be significantly related to other Iraqis, especially Mesopotamian Arabs, likely due to the assimilation of indigenous Assyrians with other people groups who occupied and settled Mesopotamia after the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire.

There were still enormous difficulties to be surmounted in the full appreciation of the complicated script, but these would be solved by the combined labours of many workers. The cuneiform script had its origin in Babylonia and its inventors were a people whom we call the Sumerians. Before the Semitic Babylonians conquered the land it was inhabited by a people of unknown origin variously classified, by different scholars, with the Ural-altaic or even Origin. with the Indo-European family, or as having blood relationship with both. This people is known to us from thousands of cuneiform inscriptions written entirely in their language, though our chief knowledge of them was for a long time derived from Sumerian inscriptions with interlinear translations in Assyrian. Their language is called Sumerian (li-ša-an Su-me-ri) by the Assyrians (Br. Mus. 81–7-27, 130), and its characteristics are being slowly developed by the elaborate study of the immense literature which has come down to us. In 1884 Halévy denied the existence of the Sumerian language, and claimed that it was merely a cabalistic script invented by the priests of the Semites. Münter was more fortunate than Tychsen in his historical researches, and this made him also more successful in linguistic attempts. He rightly identified the builders of Persepolis with the Achaemenian dynasty, and so located in time the authors of the inscriptions (538-465 B.C. ). Independently of Tychsen he identified the oblique wedge as a divider between words, and found the meaning of the sign for “b.” These may appear to be small matters, but it must be remembered that they were made without the assistance of any bilingual text, and were indeed taken bodily out of the gloom which had settled upon these languages centuries before. They did not, however, bring us much nearer to the desired goal of a reading of any portion of the inscriptions. The whole case indeed seemed now perilously near a stalemate. New methods must be found, and a new worker, with patience, persistence, power of combination, insight, the historical sense and the feeling for archaeological indications. In 1802 Georg Friedrich Grotefend ( q.v. ) was persuaded by the librarian of Göttingen University to essay the task. He began with the assumption that there were three languages, and that of these the first was ancient Persian, the language of the Achaemenians, who had erected these palaces and caused these inscriptions to be written. It must, however, be supported by definite facts, and furthermore each word must be separated into its alphabetic parts, every one of them identified, and the words themselves be shown to be philologically possible by the production of similar words in related languages. In other words, the archaeological method must find support in a philological method. To this Grotefend now devoted himself with equal energy. His method was as simple as before. This was a most important discovery, and may be said to have revolutionized the study of these long puzzling texts. During the entire time of this slow process of decipherment, from the first essays of Grotefend in 1802 until the publication of Lassen’s book in 1836, there were more sceptics than believers in the results of the deciphering process. Indeed the history of all forms of decipherment of unknown languages shows that scepticism concerning them is far more prevalent than credulity or even a too ready acceptance. He had copied two trilingual inscriptions, and recognized at once that he had three languages before him. In 1839 ( Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , x. pp. 5, 6) he thus wrote of his method: “When I proceeded . . . He was not able to copy the whole of the Persian text, but in 1837, when he was more skilled in the script, he secured more of it. In the next year he forwarded to the Royal Asiatic Society of London his translation of the first two paragraphs of the Persian text, containing the name, titles and genealogy of Darius. This was little less than a tour de force , for it must be remembered that this had been accomplished without the knowledge of other ancient languages which his European competitors had enjoyed. Before the Semitic Babylonians conquered the land it was inhabited by a people of unknown origin variously classified, by different scholars, with the Ural-altaic or even Origin. with the Indo-European family, or as having blood relationship with both. This people is known to us from thousands of cuneiform inscriptions written entirely in their language, though our chief knowledge of them was for a long time derived from Sumerian inscriptions with interlinear translations in Assyrian. Their language is called Sumerian (li-ša-an Su-me-ri) by the Assyrians (Br. Mus. 81–7-27, 130), and its characteristics are being slowly developed by the elaborate study of the immense literature which has come down to us. In 1884 Halévy denied the existence of the Sumerian language, and claimed that it was merely a cabalistic script invented by the priests of the Semites. His early success has not been sustained, and the vast majority of scholars have ceased to doubt the existence of the language. The Sumerians developed their script from a rude picture-writing, some early forms of which have come down to us. In course of time they used the pictures to represent sounds, apart from ideas. The cuneiform writing, begun by the Sumerians in a period so remote that it is idle to speculate concerning it, had a long and very extensive history. It was first adopted by the Semitic Babylonians, and as we have seen was modified, developed, nay almost made over. Their inscriptions History. are written in it from circa 4500 B.C. to the 1st century B.C. From their hands it passed to the Assyrians, who simplified some characters and conventionalized many more, and used the script during the entire period of their national existence from 1500 B.C. to 607 B.C.

.: #* {{quote-book|fr|year=1963|author=Congrès international d'études gauloises, celtiques et protoceltiques|title=Actes |text=A similar phenomenon occurs often, and also in connection with old Celtic toponyms which, if deonyms, were often suppressed by the growing might of the Church, [these other] deonyms serve to prove the Pelasgians spoke an Indo-European language far }} #* {{quote-book|en|year=1979|title=The Journal of Indo-European Studies |text=It is a known fact that many Greek deonyms are not based [on] Hellenic roots (just as the oldest Sumerian place and river [name]s are neither Sumerian nor Semitic }} #* deonym - Wiktionary, the free dictionary Jump to content From Wiktionary, the free dictionary English [ edit ] Etymology 1 [ edit ] From de- +‎ -onym ( “ name ” ) . Compare Italian deonomastica ( “ words of a language that are derived from given names, last names, ethnonyms, and toponyms ” ) , from de- +‎ onomastica . Noun [ edit ] deonym ( plural deonyms ) A term which derives from a proper name ( proper noun ), such as brand name ( genericized trademark ), a given name or surname ( eponym ), or a place name ( toponym ). 2021 , Doris Berger-Grabner, Strategic Retail Management and Brand Management: Trends, Tactics, and Examples , Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, →ISBN , page 318 : In linguistics, such terms that have managed the transformation from a proper brand name to a generic name are called deonyms [ … ] The field of deonyms is not limited to brand names: The verb “röntgen,” for example, is derived from the discoverer of the rays named after him and is also a deonym . 1963 , Congrès international d'études gauloises, celtiques et protoceltiques, Actes : A similar phenomenon occurs often, and also in connection with old Celtic toponyms which, if deonyms , were often suppressed by the growing might of the Church, [ … ] [these other] deonyms serve to prove the Pelasgians spoke an Indo-European language far   [ … ] (please add an English translation of this quotation) 1979 , The Journal of Indo-European Studies : It is a known fact that many Greek deonyms are not based [on] Hellenic roots (just as the oldest Sumerian place and river [name]s are neither Sumerian nor Semitic [ … ] 2012 December 6, C. Retrieved from " https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=deonym&oldid=88273045 " Categories : English terms prefixed with de- English terms suffixed with -onym English lemmas English nouns English countable nouns English terms with quotations English terms derived from Latin French terms with quotations English hybridisms Hidden categories: Pages with entries Pages with 1 entry Translation table header lacks gloss Entries with translation boxes Terms with German translations English undefined derivations Requests for translations of French quotations Search Search deonym 1 language Add topic

# Similarities between Sumerian and Semitic languages Tags: borrowing, semitic-languages, sumerian - Score: 3 - Views: 1012 - Answers: 1 - Answered: yes - Asked by: iat (41 rep) - Asked: 2020-05-21 - Edited: 2020-05-22 - Site: linguistics ## Question I noticed that the Sumerian words for mother and father, ama and abba respectively, are very similar to the Hebrew words for mother and father, being ema and abba respectively. Given that Sumerian is not in the Afro-Asiatic language family, let alone the Semitic one, are the words for father and mother unrelated in each language, or are they Semitic loanwords into Sumerian (or vice versa)? ## Answers ### Answer by Draconis (score: 9 [ACCEPTED]) First off, it's worth noting that the main contact between Semitic and Sumerian involved Akkadian, not Hebrew, and the Akkadian words are a bit different—"mother" is ummu, and "father" is abu. And there was another Sumerian word for "father", ad(a); ab(a) probably originally meant "elder" (it's sometimes translated into Akkadian as šību, "elder" or "witness"). This makes the loan hypothesis a bit less likely. But even so, this is a very striking coincidence. Compare also Navajo amá, Mand