The linguistic position of Sumerian is a difficlt one. It is clearly
not Semitic, although a Sumerian substratum seems to exist beneath
Akkadian. In form Sumerian is clearly an agglutinative language, and
as such has sometimes been placed with Altaic - particularly Turkic.
Despite attempts to demonstrate Turkic-Sumerian connections, these
have not been accepted by most linguists. More recently, Glen on
this
list has included Sumerian (in Bomhardian fashion) within the
Nostratic family as one of the early splits within the Eurasiatic
branch (after Kartvellian and before Elamo-Dravidian).
The question as to where Sumerian began also has a bearing on the
debates about the affiliation of the Sumerian tongue.
There are a number of different theories here
1. Sumerian began in situ: This is disputed by the fact that many of
the arts and crafts, words for agriculture and placenames (toponomy)
have a non Sumerian form. It has been proposed that there is a
non-Sumerian substratum. For example "Some professional names and
agricultural implements in Sumerian show that agriculture and the
economic use of metals existed before the arrival of the Sumerians.
Sumerian words with a pre-Sumerian origin are:
* professional names such as simug 'blacksmith' and tibira 'copper
smith', 'metal-manifacturer' are not in origin Sumerian words.
* agricultural terms, like engar 'farmer', apin 'plow' and absin
'furrow', are neither of Sumerian origin.
* craftsman like nangar 'carpenter', agab 'leather worker'
* religious terms like sanga 'priest'
* some of the most ancient cities, like Kish, have names that are
not
Sumerian in origin.
* the Sumerian names for the Tigris and Euphrates are not Sumerian
words
These words must have been loan words from a substrate language. The
words show how far the division in labor had progressed even before
the Sumerians arrived.
Some craftsmen have Sumerian names.
* Some professions are typically Sumerian: za.dim 'stonecutter',
from
za '(precious) stone' and dim 'to build', 'to cut', 'to make'. The
stonecutter makes cylinder seals which are a typical Sumerian
invention. These activities are characteristic for the growing urban
society.
* Also other terminology is typical Sumerian, like en.si(k) 'city
king' is derived form en 'lord' and si 'region', 'country'; lu.gal
meaning 'military authority', later 'king'; the word is derived from
lu 'man', 'someone' and gal 'great': 'great man'.
(see
http://saturn.sron.ruu.nl/~jheise/akkadian/mesopotamia.html)
This shows just how far the division of labour had progressed when
the
Sumerians arrived. Archaeologically this period seems to best
describe the characteristics of the Late Ubaid. (See site at
http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/ant/105-101old/lecture16/slide5.html)
2. The Sumerians began in the mountains to the East: If the
Sumerians
were not the original inhabitants it has been suggested that they
came
from the East. The Sumerian creatrix, the Mother Goddess Ki (=Earth)
was from an early period called Ninhursag (=Lady Mountain). Sumerian
temples or ziggurats were built on hills, supposedly to remind the
Sumerians of their mountain origin. But the custom of ziggurats
began
after a long tradition in which previous temples were leveled, and
new
temples built upon them. This slowly raised the level of the temple
mound until within historic times they were built on a ziggurat. The
White Temple at Uruk for example shows 16 successive structures, in
which the first, the oldest was of the same level of the rest of the
town. Also the Sumerians claimed they did not come from the
mountains, but from the Sea. Specfically from the Island of Dilmun.
3: The Sumerians began in Bahrein: This was the Sumerians own claim.
They called their origin the Island of Dilmun, and treated it as a
lost Garden of Eden (from the Sumerian "Edin" meaning "garden").
Certainly the City of Eridu, in the extreme south of the country was
claimed by the Sumerians as the "place where kingship descended", and
the site was the oldest settled Hadji Muhammed (the first neolithic
culture) site. Eridu culture is confined to the city, although Eridu
pottery is found also in Dilmun. Secondly, for centuries, upper
class
Sumerians went to significant expense to secure a burial in the
"island of the ancestors" on the Island of Bahrein. Sumerian grave
mounds dot the island to the present day. Sumerians would scarcely
go
to such expense if the isalnd of Bahrein was not linked strongly to
Sumerian origins. Finally, the Sumerians believed the primary
element
of the Universe was water. Their creation myths tell of the watery
chaos preceeding the Universe was a mingling of sweat and salt water.
Eventually the "coupling" of sweat (Abzu) with salt (Taimat) lead to
the Birth of Anu (sky) and Ki (Earth). Sumerian divinities were
their
children "Anunaki" (Anu and Ki). Finally the coupling of the Sky
with
the Earth created the Air (Enlil) which separated the heavens from
the
ground. Various writers have found that the emergence of land from
the waters of chaos at the mouth of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
What they fail to notice however, is that around Bahrein, fresh water
springs appear in the ocean - Bahrein (which takes its Arab name from
this phenomenon) is literally the place where sweat and salt waters
mingle.
If the Sumerian homeland was the pre-Semitic Bahrein and the Gulf
States area of Arabia, what caused them to move from there to
Southern
Iraq? A number of factors may have been involved.
Firstly, there was the arrival of the first farmers. Travelling down
from the Samara culture to the mouth of the Mesopotamian Rivers and
beyond had creatly widened the horizons of the Bahreini
Proto-Sumerians. The world was a bigger place and in the expansion
of
the maritime traffic of the Persian Gulf, Sumerians from Dilmun
propsered.
Secondly there was the arrival of the "tent dwellers". Early
Sumerian
discussions of the trade routes from Dilmun mention the "tent
dwellers" and their herds of sheep and goats. It is very probable
that this was the arrival of the first Semites, coming from the Hejaz
and the shores of the Red Sea. Although struggles are not mentioned
in Dilmun, pastoral people are not noted for their passivity, and
intergroup violence may have been a factor.
Thirdly was the great drought of the beginning of the sixth
millennium
BC. In fact it was this drought which prompted once sedentary
farmers
to assume a more nomadic lifestyle. It drastically increased
population demographic pressures upon fragile environments. The
"Empty Quarter" of Arabia, the eiptome of shifting sand dunes that
lies behind Oman and the Gulf States today was the result. Once a
land of running rivers, their wadi's dried up to force the people who
lived in the area to emigrate to more favourable locations.
Archaeology shows that there was a close cultural connection in the
earlest phases of Mesopotamian agricultural settlement. Eridu
blossomed into Hadji Muhammed, associated with a full complement to
irrigated fields. This in turn led to a huge population increase in
southern villages and the newly developing towns. The widespread
Ubaid culture was the result. However, during the Ubaid period, the
last phase of glacial water from the Ice Age caused a widespread
inundation of the area of southern Iraq. Ubaid horizons at Ur were
suddenly under water. (see the Sumerian King-list record at
http://www.csun.edu/~hcfll004/sumking.html) Bahrein was fully
abandonned. In fact Dilmun became the homeland of the immortals, in
particular, Utunapishtim, the Sumerian Noah, king from the City of
Sharrupak who is supposed to have saved humanity from the flood. It
was only during the increasing wealth following Jemdet Nasr and Uruk
phases that the Sumerians re-established their link with
Dilmin/Bahrein. Dilmun/Bahrein henceforth was the leading entrepot
and trade city linking the Sumerians with the people of the Indus
Valley and probably with the people of Yemen and the Egyptian Red Sea
Coast as well.
If the Sumerians came from Dilmun, as is suggested, then their
origins
are more obscure than before. Their connection with either the
Hurro-Urartuean languages of the Zagros or the Nostratic Eurasian
family is made even more remote. There is also another intriguing
possibility.
Chris stringer at a recent inernational symposium on the origins of
modern humanity on "New data on modern human origins"
(
http://zetaserver.ivsla.unive.it/Istituto/Convegni/Origini/Stringer.h
tm) suggested that it was not just one ethic group that left Africa,
but in fact two waves. The first, probably crossed from Ethiopia to
Yemen with the opening of a land bridge across the mouth of the Red
Sea, with the sudden cooling of global climates which followed the
Lake Toba volcanic explosion in Sumatra (See
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/1029/NaturalDisasters.html
which states "The greatest volcanic disaster in recent geologic
history, in the region, occurred in the Quaternary period of Ice Age,
approximately 75,000 years ago. This volcanic explosion devastated
the
center of the island of Sumatra. The volume of tephra discharge from
this eruption is estimated at 2,000 cubic km, a tremendous quantity
considering that the Krakatau catastrophic eruption of 1883, only
resulted in 15-20 cubic km of ejected tephra. The collapse crater,
the
caldera, formed by this giant eruption which must have lasted for
several months or even years, is filled presently with the waters of
lake Toba, on that island. The caldera is 100 km long.")
This raises an intriguing possibility. Which of the two really early
"out of Africa" waves did the Sumerians belong to. Did they leave at
the 73,000 BCE wave, or did they leave later, at 40,000 BCE with the
Aurignancian culture (or even later with the 15,000 BCE Nostratic
peoples?) If the former could the Sumerians agglutinative tongue be
related to the agglutinative Proto-Austric languages of India and
South East Asia. I have not got the linguistic skills to answer such
a question but readers may like to check the site at
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Temple/9845/sumer.htm
which explores precisely such a hypothesis.
Regards
John