Analysing Literary Sumerian

Analysing Literary Sumerian PDF Author: Jarle Ebeling
Publisher: Equinox Publishing (UK)
ISBN:
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
This book brings together pioneering studies on the world's oldest literature, composed in the extinct language Sumerian and written on clay in the cuneiform (wedge-shaped) script. All the contributions are based on the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL), a project of the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Oxford University whose focus is on the best documented period of Sumerian literature, compositions recorded some 4,000 years ago in southern Iraq. The ETCSL consists of transliterations and translations of nearly 400 compositions and is accessible via the Internet. It is the only linguistically annotated and translated corpus of an ancient Near Eastern language. Each of the main chapters in the book uses the ETCSL to approach a specific question relating to one or more compositions in the corpus, exploiting the possibilities the corpus offers for quantitative research and statistical analysis. In addition to these case studies, the book includes introductions to Sumerian literary language and corpus-linguistic approaches to research, as well as a catalogue of compositions. The material, methods, and results will appeal to those interested in Sumerian, ancient literature, and the analysis of languages using a corpus.

Analysing Literary Sumerian

Analysing Literary Sumerian PDF Author: Jarle Ebeling
Publisher: Equinox Publishing (UK)
ISBN:
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 440

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book brings together pioneering studies on the world's oldest literature, composed in the extinct language Sumerian and written on clay in the cuneiform (wedge-shaped) script. All the contributions are based on the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL), a project of the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Oxford University whose focus is on the best documented period of Sumerian literature, compositions recorded some 4,000 years ago in southern Iraq. The ETCSL consists of transliterations and translations of nearly 400 compositions and is accessible via the Internet. It is the only linguistically annotated and translated corpus of an ancient Near Eastern language. Each of the main chapters in the book uses the ETCSL to approach a specific question relating to one or more compositions in the corpus, exploiting the possibilities the corpus offers for quantitative research and statistical analysis. In addition to these case studies, the book includes introductions to Sumerian literary language and corpus-linguistic approaches to research, as well as a catalogue of compositions. The material, methods, and results will appeal to those interested in Sumerian, ancient literature, and the analysis of languages using a corpus.

The Literature of Ancient Sumer

The Literature of Ancient Sumer PDF Author: Jeremy Black
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 019155572X
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
This anthology of Sumerian literature constitutes the most comprehensive collection ever published, and includes examples of most of the different types of composition written in the language, from narrative myths and lyrical hymns to proverbs and love poetry. The translations have benefited both from the work of many scholars and from our ever-increasing understanding of Sumerian. In addition to reflecting the advances made by modern scholarship, the translations are written in clear, accessible English. An extensive introduction discusses the literary qualities of the works, the people who created and copied them in ancient Iraq, and how the study of Sumerian literature has evolved over the last 150 years.

Mesopotamian Poetic Language

Mesopotamian Poetic Language PDF Author: Marianna E. Vogelzang
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9789072371843
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
This collection of articles is the result of the second meeting of the Mesopotamian Literature Group (Groningen), held in Groningen from 12 till 14 July 1993. The topics treated by these scholars from six countries range from theoretical issues to specific analyses, from broad structures to linguistic textures, including metaphorical language as well as phonic features; also, various poetical techniques and strategies are studied. The interest is more in the questions that are raised than in the answers given, and the matter of legitimization of our theoretical bases runs throughout most contributions, this being the aim of the Group.

Sumerian Mythology

Sumerian Mythology PDF Author: Samuel Noah Kramer
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1839742941
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
The Sumerians were a non-Semitic, non-Indo-European people who flourished in southern Babylonia from the beginning of the fourth to the end of the third millennium B.C. During this long stretch of time the Sumerians, whose racial and linguistic affiliations are still unclassifiable, represented the dominant cultural group of the entire Near East. This cultural dominance manifested itself in three directions: 1. It was the Sumerians who developed and probably invented the cuneiform system of writing which was adopted by nearly all the peoples of the Near East and without which the cultural progress of western Asia would have been largely impossible. 2. The Sumerians developed religious and spiritual concepts together with a remarkably well integrated pantheon which influenced profoundly all the peoples of the Near East, including the Hebrews and the Greeks. Moreover, by way of Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism, not a few of these spiritual and religious concepts have permeated the modern civilized world. 3. The Sumerians produced a vast and highly developed literature, largely poetic in character, consisting of epics and myths, hymns and lamentations, proverbs and “words of wisdom.” These compositions are inscribed in cuneiform script on clay tablets which date largely from approximately 2000 B.C.

Reading Sumerian Poetry

Reading Sumerian Poetry PDF Author: Jeremy A. Black
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801435980
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
An authority on ancient Mesopotamian culture, Jeremy Black here provides an introduction to the world's oldest poetry. Sumer, in southern Iraq, was the first literate civilization, with writing dating back as far as 3100 B.C. Its extensive poetic literature was lost for nearly two millennia; rediscovery and decipherment of the ancient writings began in the nineteenth century. Black is fully aware of the difficulties of applying modern literary methods to the study of ancient literature, emphasizing theoretical problems that arise from contemporary expectations of a unitary text. Looking closely at the imagery in the Lugalbanda poems, Black perceives in them a rich and sophisticated poetic imagination and technique, which, far from being in any sense "primitive," are so complex as to resist modern literary analysis.

Sumerian Mythology

Sumerian Mythology PDF Author: Samuel Noah Kramer
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 9780812210477
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
An authoritative sketch of the great myths of the Sumerians, their myths of origins, of creation, the nether world, and the deluge.

The World's Oldest Literature

The World's Oldest Literature PDF Author: William W. Hallo
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047427270
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 800

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Book Description
Literature begins at Sumer, we may say. Given that this ancient crossroads of tin and copper produced not only bronze and the entire Bronze Age, but also by neccesity, the first system of record-keeping and the technique of writing. Scribal schools served to propogate the new technique and their curriculum grew to create, preserve and transmit all manner of creative poetry. In a lifetime of research, the author has studied multiple aspects of this most ancient literary oeuvre, including such questions as chronology and bilingualism, as well as contributing fundamental insights into specific genres such as proverbs, letter-prayers and lamentations. In addition, he has drawn conclusions for the comparative or contextual approach to biblical literature. His studies, widely scattered in diverse publications for nearly fifty years, are here assembled in convenient one-volume format, made more user-friendly by extensive cross-references and indices. "Well-informed and sober, these essays offer rewarding reading for every area of biblical scholarship." A.R. Millard

Religion, Literature, and Scholarship: The Sumerian Composition Nanše and the Birds

Religion, Literature, and Scholarship: The Sumerian Composition Nanše and the Birds PDF Author: Niek Veldhuis
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047405773
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 420

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Book Description
This book uses insights from religious studies, literary theory, and the history of science for understanding the Sumerian composition Nanše and the Birds in the context of the Old Babylonian scribal school. It contains editions of all the relevant Sumerian texts.

The Reception of Sumerian Literature in the Western Periphery

The Reception of Sumerian Literature in the Western Periphery PDF Author: Maurizio Viano
Publisher:
ISBN: 9788875434175
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description


The Class Reunion—An Annotated Translation and Commentary on the Sumerian Dialogue Two Scribes

The Class Reunion—An Annotated Translation and Commentary on the Sumerian Dialogue Two Scribes PDF Author: J. Cale Johnson
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004302107
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
In The Class Reunion—An Annotated Translation and Commentary on the Sumerian Dialogue Two Scribes, J. Cale Johnson and Markham J. Geller present a critical edition, translation and commentary on the Sumerian scholastic dialogue otherwise known as Two Scribes, Streit zweier Schulabsolventen or Dialogue 1. The two protagonists, the Professor and the Bureaucrat, each ridicule their opponent in alternating speeches, while at the same time scoring points based on their detailed knowledge of Sumerian lexical and literary traditions. But they also represent the two social roles into which nearly all graduates of the Old Babylonian Tablet House typically gained entrance. So the dialogue also reflects on larger themes such as professional identity and the nature of scholastic activity in Mesopotamia in the Old Babylonian period (ca. 1800–1600 BCE).