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The Transcription of Cuneiform Signs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

François Thureau-Dangin
François Thureau-Dangin
Affiliation:
membre de l'Institut de France
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Extract

The transcription of the Cuneiform signs presents a problem much more difficult than that of the transcription of the ordinary Semitic alphabetical scripts. The object of transcriptions of Cuneiform signs is not merely that of obtaining phonetic perfection, but it must also distinguish the signsemployed for the same sounds. In the earlier stages of Assyriology Delitzsch and others adopted the system of accentuating the signs, and before a larger number of homophones were discovered this system sufficed, and has beenadopted for the transcription of both Sumerian and Semitic texts. But at present there is complete anarchy among Assyriologists in transcribing Cuneiform texts. A tablet of the Rassam Collection in the British Museum, which the writer recently copied through the kindness of Sir Ernest Wallis Budge, groups together the homophonic signs. On this tablet there are, for example, eight different signs for the phonetic syllable eš. nine for še, eleven for gir, and eighteen for ge! It is not possible to devise eleven and eighteen different accents for thesevalues. The writer, therefore, proposes to introduce the method of numbering the signs with inferior exponents, eš1 eš2 eš3; ge1, ge2, ge3, etc., following a suggestion made by Dr. A. Walther, ZA. xxix, 147. [The idea was taken from Weissbach.]

Type
Semitic, Sumerian, Hittite, and Egyptian Section
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 56 , supplement S1 , October 1924 , pp. 61 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1924

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References

page 61 note 1 The primitive system adopted by Delitzsch will be found in his Assyrisches Handwörterbuch, Umschriftsweisen, pp. xv–xx, and his more fully developed system which takes more account of Sumerian homophones, in his Sumerisches Glossar, pp. xxv–xxvii. The editors of the Vorderasiatische Bibliothek commissioned Professor Streck to draw up a more complete system of transcriptionsfor the use of that series, Silben- und Ideogram-Liste, Leipzig, 1914Google Scholar. This system differs radically from Delitzsch and is inadequate for the Sumerian homophones. It is not employed outside of that series. M. F. Thureau-Dangin, in his various editions of Sumerian texts, gradually developed a system which really accounts for the large number of Sunierian homophones, and grasps with the difficulties of the early and later Sumerian and Babylonian epigraphy. In fact, a system which does not account for the epigraphical problem cannot attain general acceptance. For example, the sign of the late Assyrian texts represents two distinct Sumerian and Babylonian signs, gir, REG. 224, and ug, REG. 182. Thureau-Dangin, himself, never compiled a list of his own system, butit is fairly well reproduced by Genouillac in his “Table des Accents Diaeritiques”, Inventaire des Tabhttes de Tello, tome ii, plates 79–80, and by Deimel, , “Transcriptionis Modi,” Pantheon Babylonicum, at end, pp. 1–35Google Scholar

page 62 note 1 This expression occurs in astrological texts for ina mûši napâḫu, or the heliacal rising of a constellation ….

page 62 note 2 For this title of the series dBabbar-gim e3-ta, v. RA. xvii, 92,1. 6.