Was Cuneiform Originally Sumerian? Linguistic doubts about the world's oldest writing

Comments · 163

• ML

  @mland2012 · 1 day ago

  En-lil-ti was clearly a reference to famous Sumerian child hip hop star Lil' Tea.

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• MA

  @Matt_The_Hugenot · 1 day ago

  The problem with a Euphratic hypothesis is that we have no pre Sumerian text nor any contemporary language to early forms of written Sumerian with which to compare it. Without that it's speculation. Non Sumerian words can just as easily be explained as borrowing fro non written languages or as a pre Sumerian substrate.

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• NA

  @NativLang · 1 day ago

  After going from tiptoing around the field of Assyriology to through it, somehow I feel even less sure of my cuneiform understanding than a few months back 🙃

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• TH

  @TheEnderknight · 1 day ago

  There is the possibility that Sumerian is itself part of a language family in which earlier texts were developed in a different part of the Dialectal group, some languages develop word order differences in different dialects, but that is wild speculation.

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• HO

  @hokton8555 · 1 day ago

  Linguists in the 19th century: a semitic language with a logo-syllabic script? This can&apos;t be right, we should look for this &quot;Sumer&quot; they talk about.<br>Linguists today: Na, this still doesn&apos;t work.

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• DA

  @danielbriggs991 · 1 day ago

  I must mention Gordon Whittaker&apos;s 2008 &quot;The Case for Euphratic,&quot; in which he proposes that PIE was actually the source of several pronunciations, especially of animal symbols. Both IE words for fish, ἰχθύς as <b>ku</b> and pes/piscus as <b>peš</b> ; bird, h₂ówis as <b>hu</b> ; wolf, wĺ̥kʷos as <b>lik</b> ; fox, h₂wl̥p-i-s as <b>lib/lub</b> ; pig, suH- as <b>sah/šah</b> ; mongoose; eagle; snake; (fallow) deer; ox; oxherd; and sacrifice of a hundred oxen; seem to transparently show up as pronunciations of the symbols that look like them (and in most, but not all, cases mean them too). But even if this pans out, it seems to account for less than half of the non-Sumerian signs, so there would have been another language at play as well.

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• LO

  @lotsofspots · 1 day ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRJOvFZcJhs&amp;t=920">15:20</a> I have never heard heron pronounced that way!

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• TA

  @tamikovacs3887 · 1 day ago

  Shhh, my show is on!

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• EM

  @embersassembling939 · 1 day ago

  Thanks to nativlang for being the drama-free part of linguistics youtube. Just great content.

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• RO

  @rooksoup · 1 day ago

  This is a great video, but I&apos;ve never heard the heron (&quot;herron&quot;) pronounced like here-on!

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• SE

  @SeanNH94 · 10 hours ago

  For me personally, this channel is truly Peak Youtube; it&apos;s informative, entertaining, and certainly quite relaxing.<br>I appreciate all thay you do, man! 😊

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• AT

  @atlasaltera · 1 day ago (edited)

  A new mysterious ancient language that I didn&apos;t know about! Great to see you continue down the Mesopotamian rabbit hole!

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