Re: [tied] Sumerian _nangar_ 'carpenter' (was: "Will the 'real' lin

On Tue, 23 Dec 2003 01:30:38 +0000, Richard Wordingham
<richard.wordingham@...> wrote:

>--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "S.Kalyanaraman <kalyan97@...>"
><kalyan97@...> wrote:
>> In a contact area of IVC, across the gulf, there are some hints
>that
>> a substrate language may explain Sumerian words: <Snip>
>nangar 'carpenter'
><Snip>
>What's the syllabification here?

nagar(a) "carpenter".

>The word looks very like Semitic
>*naggar- 'carpenter', e.g. Hebrew _naggar_, Arabic _najjar_. To add
>to the confusion, Babylonian optionally used a nasal to indicate
>gemination.

The word is not known in Akkadian (I mean, I don't know what the Akkadian
is for "carpenter", but I don't think it's nagga:r). The sign NAGAR(A) only
has one phonetic value in Akkadian, /alla/. As a Sumerogram, the
pronunciation is presumably known from Akkadian pronunciation guides, where
it was presumably written na-ga-ra. I don't know if there are any
pronunciation guides where it was spelled nag-ga-ra.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...