Language and writing

The Babylonian Assyrian (or as it is now called, Akkadian) script, stated Hincks, was not alphabetical, but both syllabic and ideographic,Read more at location 248  

approaches nearer to the Mongol and Manchu type than to any other branch of the Turanian family,Read more at location 298  

One of the most original contributions of the Sumerians to the arts was the cylinder seal,Read more at location 1327  

the cylinder seal, a small cylinder of stone engraved with a design that became clear and meaningful when rolled over a clay tabletRead more at location 1327  

These were followed by collections containing literally thousands of words and phrases arranged according to meaning. Thus in the field of the "natural sciences," there were lists of the parts of the animal and human body, of wild and domestic animals, of birds and fishes, of trees and plants, of stones and stars. The lists of artifacts included wooden objects more than fifteen hundred items ranging from pieces of raw wood to boats and chariots; objects made of reed, skin, leather, and metal; assorted types of pottery, garments, foods, and beverages. A special group of these lists dealt with place names lands, cities, and hamlets as well as rivers, canals, and fields. A collection of the most common expressions used in administrative and legal documents was also included as well as a list of some eight hundred words denoting professions, kinship relations, deformities of the human body, etc. Read more at location 2981  

while most of the documents were excavated more than half a century ago, the piecing together and translation of the compositions inscribed on them made relatively little progress over the ensuing decades.Read more at location 2166  

Only the edubba graduate could read and write, and it is hardly likely that even the "men of letters" made a practice of collecting private libraries for their own personal entertainment and instruction.Read more at location 2216  

From the point of view of the history of civilization, Sumer's supreme achievements were the development of the cuneiform system of writing and the formal system of education which was its direct outgrowth.Read more at location 2910  

the number of scribes who practiced their craft throughout those years ran into the thousands; there were junior scribes and "high" scribes, royal and temple scribes, scribes who were highly specialized for particular categories of administrative activities, and scribes who became leading officials in state and government.Read more at location 2921  

2000 B.c., some five hundred individuals list themselves as scribes, and for further identification many of them add the names of their fathers and their occupations. Schneider compiled a list of these data and found that the fathers of the scribes, that is, of the school graduates, were governors, "city fathers," ambassadors, temple administrators, military officers, sea captains, high tax officials,Read more at location 2942  

The cuneiform system of writing was probably originated by the Sumerians. The oldest inscriptions unearthed to date more than one thousand tablets and fragments from about 3000 B.c. are in all likelihood written in the Sumerian language.Read more at location 3818  

The cuneiform script began as pictographic writing. Each sign was a picture of one or more concrete objects and represented a word whose meaning was identical with, or closely related to, the object pictured. The defects of a system of this type are twofold: the complicated forms of the signs and the great number of signs required render it too unwieldy for practical use. The Sumerian scribes overcame the first difficulty by gradually simplifying and conventionalizing the forms of the signs until their pictographic originals were no longer apparent. As for the second difficulty, they reduced the number of signs and kept them within limits by resorting to various helpful devices. The most significant device was substituting phonetic for ideographic values.Read more at location 3821