Sumeria/The First Civilizations

[jiacinto]

Where were they? What was the first society that had written languages?

[Wwagsthedog]

1. Iraq I think

Yes, the Sumerians were thought to have been the first to use a form of writing on clay tablets. I don't want to carry on about the abuse the artifacts have taken as a result of the Iraq war. Sad.

http://www.fsmitha.com/h1/ch01.htm

[jiacinto]

2. Interesting

What was their language like?

[Wwagsthedog]

7. Probably more than you want to know

Language question answered here.

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/MESO/SUMER.HTM

[Astarho]

8. Sumerian

It was unrelated to any language in the area (except possibly Dravidian), and it was agglutinative. They are beleived to have come from the Zagros mtns and there are traces of a substrate language in it as well.

[Snow]

24. Agglutinative??

so that would make them Korean? Dang, those Koreans were travelers even then! Or Finns! Any saunas or kimchee pots been uncovered in the area?

[MissMarple]

3. Tigris Euphrates area.

That seems to the first conventionally understood area for the first writing samples. They used cuniform. Remember Hamurabi? :D

[jiacinto]

4. Can anyone speak cuniform?

I Wonder what it sounds like.

[MissMarple]

9. Cuniform is a form of writing like hyroglyphics. Bad bad spelling.

Carlos, what are you on?

[jiacinto]

10. It can't be spoken?

nt

[MissMarple]

13. You get major nuggies! And chocolate chip cookies after.

:evilgrin:

[Bozola]

11. Clarification...

People wrote using cuniform characters, they spoke Sumerian.

We don't speak alphabet, wir sprechen Amerikaner.

Some scholars can speak Sumerian, but you can bet their pronunciation of the language is worse than an American trying to speak Latin.

[jiacinto]

12. What does it sound like?

What language is it closely related to?

[MissMarple]

15. Do you think Jiacinto is trying the Socratic method?

.

[Don_G]

5. The First Society Were The Neandrathals/Homeo Sapins

In working together, they gave up the "right" to hunt and eat each other as prey. Who could have predicted it would lead to complex co-operative efforts like language, music, food, religon or engineering?

Then again, I think of duds like Haggis, Dimbo, Lawyers-At-Large, the RIAA and Freepers.

[jiacinto]

6. Why did they give up the right to "eat each other as prey"

nt

[Don_G]

14. "Watch Your Back" Co-Operation

More effective as hunters to share the spoils time-and-again hunting together than not to come back at all hunting prey with superior capabilites in some areas...like smell and cammoflauge.

[jiacinto]

16. Ok

I see what you mean.

[legin]

17. The Epic of Gilgamesh (sp?)

is published by Penguin Classics for about a fiver ($10) in britain, so it should be avilable over there.

It's the earliest book written that we still have (I think). It's about that era.

[jiacinto]

18. How long is that book

nt

[legin]

21. It's at this link

in poetry form, which I don't remember it being when i saw the book in a bookshop, mind you that is a long while ago.

http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/

It was about 6 inches long, 4 inches wide and a half an inch thick, to answer your question. :P

[Snow]

25. Pardon, but

isn't the I Ching older than Gilgamesh? I CHing is the first enyclopedia, Carlos - an attempt to understand and describe the physical world.

[Don_G]

26. The Book Isn't That Long

Who would want to carry around a thousand-pound bible around 2000 BC?

What, we're stupid?????

[cliss]

19. Jacinto, would you please

cut it out? Move your articles to the Meeting Room

[greekspeak]

20. Cuneiform is a fun language to learn!!

And Sumer has a fascinating history. They have a month called "The Month to Eat Gazelles." Too, some think the work "I am Shulgi," a work about a king in Sumer, is the basis for the biblical Solomon narrative.

[Clete]

22. Excuse me for asking, but

I thought cuniform was a system of writing the languages of Mesopotamia in ancient times. You obviously have studied this, but I am curious if there is a specific language you are referring to?

[Astarho]

23. Cuneiform was used

to write Sumerian, Akkadian (& it's later variants, Assyrian and Babylonian) Hattic, Hittite, Hurrian, Urartian, Elamite and cuneiform derived scripts were used for Ugaritic and Old Persian.

The language he is referring to is probably Sumerian. Most of the later languages used Sumerian logograms for native words and Sumerian was a scholarly language throught the Middle East for centuries (like Latin in Europe)