Re: Origin of the Sumerian language

--- In Nostratica@yahoogroups.com, "Gerry" <waluk@...> wrote:

> --- In Nostratica@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham"
> <richard.wordingham@...> wrote:
> > --- In Nostratica@yahoogroups.com, "Gerry" <waluk@...> wrote:
> > > --- In Nostratica@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham"
> > > <richard.wordingham@...> wrote:
> > > > --- In Nostratica@yahoogroups.com,
> > > > "Gerry" <waluk@...> wrote:
> > > > > 3) Did Sumerian ever exist?
> > > > Why do you think it might not have
> > > > existed? We have writing that
> > > > modern people label as Sumerian.
> > > > .
> > > > Richard.
> > >
> > > Yes, I know. Apparently my question arose when certain facts
> > about
> > > Sumerian came to light. And the poster clearly indicates "no"
> (in
> > > answer to my query).
> >
> > The continuation of the 'no' removed the clarity. To me it
> > immediately flagged the reply as a witticism.
>
> No, IMO there is no indication of irony.....please specify how you
> can consider the "no" to be a witticism?
>
> > > Further, Sumerian could have been a "made up"
> > > category to keep others from assuming that Assyrian and its
> > relatives
> > > were the oldest of languages.
> >
> > Aha! You suspect it was an Akkadian con-lang? Inspired by

Elamite

> > or even Meluhhan? >:) I believe we actually have Sumerian

grammars

> > written in Akkadian, or at least fragmentary grammars. (Patrick
> > Ryan's given them an unfavourable review! - He thinks they

wrongly

> > force Sumerian into a Semitic mould.) I'm pretty sure we've got
> > Akkadian-Sumerian word lists.
>
> Akkadian con-lang? Please explain. Also, I must have mistyped

when

> I wrote Assyrian.....should have been Akkadian. By "inspire", you
> must mean "derived, yes?

Not necessarily any more than Tolkien's Sindarin is from Welsh, or
Quenya from Finnish, or the 'Black Tongue' (as used in the
inscription on the ruling ring) is on Turkish. (Tolkien seems to
have reworked his etymologies to remove a fair number of Celtic
roots. He and C.S. Lewis both demonised Turks, though the latter
more so.) If anyone wants more details, try websites devoted to
Tolkien's languages. I was offering an explanation as to why
Sumerian might have similarities with Elamite and Dravidian if it
were a con-lang, i.e. a fake language. However, I don't believe it
was any more a con-lang than other dead but still used languages,
such as Latin. (Is there a proper term for this sort of language?)

> If Patrick Ryan thinks the Sumerian
> grammars force the language into a Semitic mould ..... what is he
> basing this conclusion on?

I was slightly wrong; Patrick Ryan quotes Black (1991:34) with
agreement: "All in all, the Sumerian of the causative sections of the
paradigms is complicated and awkward. We can only say that the
Babylonian grammarians seem to have tried to force Sumerian into a
straitjacket by devising un-idiomatic forms which would correspond to
those of the complex and productive causative system possessed by
their own language. Sumerian has no specific 'causative' morphemes,
but expresses instrumental agency where necessary by means of
instrumental or locative infixes. Often it does not incorporate into
the verb all the persons present in an action (emphasis added)." The
quote is given at
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/SumerianGrammar-2.htm ; I
couldn't find the relevant list of references, so I don't know where
Black's opinion was published.

Richard.