diakonoff - external connections of the sumerian language

8/13/2019 Diakonoff - External Connections of the Sumerian Language

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External onnections o the Sumerian Language

I M. Diakonoff

The idea of the unity of Austroasiatic language family--or, rather, macrofamily, including the separate (but related) families Mon-Khrner, Mul .ga, Sumerian,and perhaps even Australian, has been launched as early as the beginning of this century by Wilhelm Schmidt, but later, in the middle of the century, was rejected, at leastas regards Sumerian, by authoritative linguists. However, it seems to me that thequestion deserves a closer study. I have tried to re-examine at least the possible relation between Sumerian and MUJ .Qa, especially Kherwari, mainly Santal and Mul .gari.The possible relations ofSumerian with other languages is one of the unsolvedriddles in linguistic scholarship. Being (along with the Old Egyptian) one of theworld s first languages which has ever been fixed in writing, Sumerian stands alone,and no languages related to it have as yet been identified. This is a rather uniquesituation, actually a riddle, which I will attempt-well not to solve, but at least tomake an attempt at its solution.Sumerian myths seem to point to the island Dilmun in the Persian gulf as thehomeland of the Sumerians. This is not very probable, because Dilmun (modemBahrein) is nothing but a big, partly bare rock, and seems not at all to be suited for therole of the homeland of an important civilisation. The Dilmun myth should probablybe treated as a remembrance of the arrival of the Sumerians from the East along thePersian Gulf; hence, we may be allowed to make, at least, an attempt to find somelinguistic contacts of the Sumerians with some peoples to the east ofthe Dilmun rock.This means Southern India, now partly inhabited by the comparatively backwardtribes of the MUJ .Qa linguistic family, which formerly might quite possibly have inhabited the whole region of the Indian subcontinent, from which they were driven bythe Dravidians, now (to my mind, and in spite of much criticism from traditionalistDravidologists) securely enough proved to be somewhat distantly related to theElarnites (the Brahui language in Baluchistan seems to be a link between Dravidianand Elamite). It were, possibly, the Dravidians who created the Harappa culture inNorth-Western India about the td millennium B.C.E. (the Harappan script is stillundeciphered). The Harappians, in their tum, were followed on to the subcontinent bythe Indo-Aryans.Trying to look for possible Sumerian-MUJ .Qa linguistic relations, we must keepin mind that the earliest Sumerian texts have come down to us from ca. 3000 B.C.E.,and a pre-literate period during an earlier sojourn of the Sumerians in Southern Iraq isvery probable. However, in the Xth-V1Ith millennia B.C.E. the plain of southern Iraq,like the territory of the Delta of the Nile, 1 was covered with water, and later withswamps, before finally the plain became a fertile lowland watered by the Tigris and

I. M. Diakonoff, Some Reflections o the Ajrasian Linguistic Macrojamily JNES, 55, n°4,(1996), p 294, n 3.


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the Euphrates. The date of the colonization of Lower Iraq by the Sumerians shouldhence be not earlier than the VIth millennium B.C.E. The date of the possible sojournof Sumerians in Southern India might have been somewhat earlier. This means, thatthe time distance between modem Mu:r;t< la and the loss of Sumerian-Mu:r;t


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denoting a state (also a state resulting from an action), and a verb as predicate of asubordinate clause. Neither Sumerian, nor Mut;tga has gender.2Mut;tQa has nob, Sumerian has no h. Supposedly, for Mut;tQa h Sumerian haszero. Mut;tga has a phoneme which is spelled either as k or h in the different dialects;this may in some cases correspond to the Sumerian b cf. Santal ka-ku fish (-ku is aplural marker), Mut;tgari ha-i fish , Sumerian b fish etc.Sumerian has no less than six types of plural:1) group plural (formally = singular);2) definite plural (stem+ plural marker -ene ;3) inclusive plural (implying all objects of that particular category by reduplication of the stem);4) inclusive-definite plural (implying all definite objects of that particularcategory by reduplication of the stem + plural marker -ene);5) distributive plural (name of the object+ one-one );6) sorting plural (pointing out that the multiplicity of objects mentioned aredivided into several distinctive sorts or types; expressed by adding the noun (or adjective) bit sort, type to the stem of the noun in the singular. t is possible that the typical Mut;tga plural indicator, -ko or -ku, is identical with the Sum. ba.The phonetic structure of a Mut;tga word is not unlike Sumerian. There are noconsonant clusters either at the beginning of a word-stem, or at the end; bisyllabicword stems usually are of a V1C1V1C2, or C1V1C2V1C3 type; a V in the second syllable is rather rare. The Sumerian lacks the series of retroflex consonants typical ofMut;tga; apparently, these have coincided with the simple voiced or unvoiced consonants. 3 Mut;tga has palatalized consonants c j, which are lacking in Sumerian, butcorrespond to Sumerian z, whatever the actual pronunciation of the latter was.On the other hand, Sumerian has a series of sibilants, conventionally transcribed by the assyriologists as z, s and This transcription is almost certainly wrong:I had suggested they should be reads, sands but my arguments were apparently notconvincing. Now it appears that Sumerian (supposed) z corresponds to Santalj and c.Kherwari has only one simple sibilant, s, corresponding to the Sumerian conventionals Kherwari has several nasals: m, n, iz (retroflex), n(palatal) and J (glottalized).However, iz and J appear (at least in Mut;tgari) only in non-initial position, so that n ninitial position stands also for iz or 1J. Sumerian has three nasals: m, n, and (or J , butthe last phoneme was tabooed for women, and does not appear in the women's language Erne-sal (ES), where m was pronounced instead. This women's pronunciation had in a few cases infiltrated also in the Sumerian man's language Eme-gir.Sumerian was certainly a tonal language, which is proved by the very numerous homonyms. Thus, there are more than forty words read as bar ; in rather numerous cases the semantics of these syllables is quite different.The M u t ~ g a languages do not distinguish (have not retained?) tones.

Only the following :X:Xfu century publications on the Mut;tga languages wereavailable to me:

2 Sudhidbhushan Bhattacharya (Sudhidbhushan Bhattacharya. Gender in the Mu Jl .a Languages,pp. 189-212, Austroasiatic Studies, Part 1 Honolulu, 1976) points out expressions like mother tigerfor tigress , or father goat for billy goat , and term this phenomenon grammatical gender . Asomewhat similar phenomenon can be noticed in Sumerian, where the noun igi eye is used as a pronoun before .3 Unless the retroflex consonants reflect the proximity of a former specific tone.

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1. P. 0 Bodding, A Santa Dictionary vol. I, Oslo, 1929- ; P 0. Bodding ASanta Dictionary vol. IV, Oslo, 1935-2. Hans-Jiirgen Pinnow, The Position o the Muw a Languages within theAustroasiatic Language Family. Linguistic Comparison in South East Asia and thePacific , School ofOriental and African Studies, London, 1963.3. Hans-Jiirgen Pinnow, Personal Pronouns in Austroasiatic: Indo-PacificLinguistic Studies. Part I Lingua , vol.14, Amsterdam, 1965.4. Arlene R K Zide and Norman H Zide. Austroasiatic Studies, Part II, pp.295-334, Honolulu, 1976.5. Sudhidbhushan Bhattachacya. Gender in the Mu1Jrfa Languages, pp. 189-212, Austroasiatic Studies, Part 1 Honolulu, 1976.6. Toshiki Osada. A Reference Grammar ofMu1Jrfari, Tokyo, 1992.In order to check the possible genetic connection of Sumerian and the M u ~ < , i alanguages we ought probably to use the Swadesh hundred-word list, which supposedlyretains the designations of objects and actions typically present in any civilization;

according to Swadesh, 20% of the most usual vocables are lost with the passage ofevecy one thousand years, and in each next millennium 20% of the preserved vocabulacy is again lost. Since the distance in time between the M u ~ Q a of the XX:th centucyA.D. and the arrival of the Sumerians in Iraq about 6000-5000 B.C.E. amounts to 7-8millennia-hence the number of lexemes common to u ~ Q a (actually Kherwari) andSumerian could be expected to be about 20. It must be noted, however, that in realhistocy the lexemes preserved may not actually be only the ones selected by Swadeshfor his list; the continuation (or otherwise) of the life of a lexeme would heavily depend on chance events in the histocy of local material and spiritual culture, on outsideinfluences etc. Anyway, the approximate number ofvocables retained from the protolanguage after a period of separate existence of the dialects of some 8000 years,would be about 20, although such a great expert as S. A Starostin, is of the opinionthat the retention of only 10% of the Swadesh list is sufficient to witness for the genetic connection of the languages in question. 4No amazing similarities are to be expected between Sumerian and the u ~ Q alanguages, but some material for thinking may perhaps emerge. For M u ~ Q a we haveused mostly Santal (and partly M u ~ < , i a r i material, as being seemingly the best preserved. M u ~ Q a like Sumerian, is a language which formally distinguishes verbs withan object from verbs which cannot have an object. However, the verbal structure issomewhat different from the ergative, so well known from many ancient Oriental languages, first of all from Sumerian.A serious difference between Sumerian and M u ~ < , i a is, that u ~ Q a lacks thetypical Sumerian space-direction markers at the beginning of the verbal form, including pronominal markers. But this phenomenon is not found in any known languageexcept Sumerian, and is apt to be an innovation in the latter language.

Now let us tty to show, what really serious reasons for deliberation on Sume r i a n - M u ~ < , i a linguistic connections we have if any such reasons can be forwarded atall at this preliminacy or experimental stage):Personal pronouns, 1st p. sg.: M u ~ Q a : 1 , i1J l}ga, etc.; Sum. 1Ja e), ES ma(e)(NB: -e is a relic of the ergative marker).--2nct p. sg., M u ~ Q a : am m-, me-); Sum.4 S. A Starostin, Comments on the Basque-Dene-Caucasian Comparisons, Mother Tongue IT1996, p.l02: Statistical considerations tell us that to be considered related, languages must have no lessthan 10% of their most basic vocabulary in common (within Swadesh' 100-word list). If they have less,they may also be related Gust separated too long ago), but a figure of about 5% may also be due to achance coincidence .

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za(e). Cf. Bolowen (Mon-Khmer) sou Niaham (Mon-Khmer) sa 3rd p. sg. Mur;u;lais expressed by different demonstrative pronouns (e.g. MuQ.c;lari en-); Sum.: ane, ene.Possessive pronouns: 1st p. sg., MuQ.c;la: i}IJ ; Sum. 1 U10 , -mu. nd p. sg.,MuQ.c;la: ma; Sum. -zu (cf. the Bolowen and Niaham personal pronouns). 3rd p. sg.MuQ.c;la -a ; Sum. -ani, (animate), -hi (inanimate). NB: For 3rd p. dual and pluralMuQ.c;la can also use the dual mark -kin, and the plural mark -ko. NB: Sumerian has nodual, nor does Sumerian mark inclusive and exclusive plural, as does MuQ.c;la.Demonstrative pronouns: MuQ.c;la: ni nia, and similar.-MUQ.Qa possesses alsoa series of demonstrative pronouns (sometimes used as 3 d person of the verb), of thetype hini, ini inti, reminding of Hurro-Urartian, but perhaps also connected with theSum. demonstrative pronoun ene. Note the 3rd p. personal pronoun en- in MuQ.c;lari.Any MuQ.c;la noun can, in principle, also act as a verbal stem. A very importantfeature common to both languages is the verbal suffix-ed (Sum.) or -et (MuQ.c;la). InSumerian this suffix signals that the verbal action in question is possible or imminentin the future; in MuQ.c;la it marks the present tense.In MuQ.c;la, an a marks the end of any verbal sentence ("categorical -a"), inSumerian, a ends a subordinate clause. In both languages a very important role isplayed by the postpositions, corresponding to the European pronouns: MuQ.c;la (wequote mainly from Santal and MuQ.c;lari): -ak (-a') genitive; adjective final mark;reak , rean, ren do., for inanimate nouns. The use of the -ak case with animate orwith inanimate nouns seems to be not quite standardized through the dialects,although here I may be in error. Furthermore: MuQ.c;lari -re "in", -te "to, by , -ate, -ete"from, after", -lo "with, while, along", -a "possesive for animate nouns", -sa lk,"from, on the side," -ta lk "near", -ko "approximate"; Santal -ak "possesive", -re"in", -te "in, into, by means of', -ate, -ete "from", -lak "with, together", etc.S . 1 . " (. ) /. ) /. ) d . " (menan: -a- ocatlve m , -1e- ra-, -1e- re-, -n-ra- > -na- atlve to,for), -da-, etc. "comitative" (with), -ta-, etc. "ablative" (from), -eSe- -si- "allative"(to, towards).Here follows a list of words common to Sumerian and Kherwari:

Comparative Lexical ListSumerian

1. a marker of dependant clause,passive participle2. a,ad 'nearest kin' [Lallwort]3. aha apa apu, ad 'father'4. ad 'dead person, forefather'5. ag 'make, do'6. -ak genitive marker7. am- III (rare ) 'gift, present'

Kherwari1. a marker of all conjugated verbalforms2. a aha ad 'grandfather, nearest kin'3. apa aplhu 'father'4. vide #25. agu- 'bring'56. -ak , -a genitive marker (for animateor inanimate in different languages?)7. Vm- (om-, am- etc.) 'to give'

[a], [e] in a syllable before [u], [i] is pronounced otherwise than [a] in other positions; but thishas no etymological value.5


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8 ama mother (possibly originally anErne-sal form


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33 d . 8. surx og; warnor , etc.34. -ta from , ablative

33. sor dog (thus in several Mu:r;u alanguages, not in Santal and Mul .gari34. -ta , -ta to, into, by means of (Sa.,Mu.) -ate -ete from (Mu.)

I realize that I may not have proved my theses to everybody s satisfaction, butperhaps I have given my colleagues a matter to think about. Surely, after all, everyman and woman come from the same stock; the question is only the distance in therelationship. For more than a hundred years we have had no answer to the question:Where did the Sumerians come from? I do not presume to have found the final solution, but, at least, we have made a start looking for the needed answer.

Address:Suvorovsky 30/9 ap. 8193130 St.Petersburg, RussiaTel.: +7 812 271 3457E-mail: [email protected]

St.Petersburg, Russia, July 8, 1997.

Traditionally read ur Ur-dNammu Ur-dBa-it etc. Lately proved by Sollberger to have beenread surx·

diakonoff - external connections of the sumerian language

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