Sumerian cuneiform - part of thatthe few heritage left after this ancient civilization. Unfortunately, most of the architectural monuments have been lost. Only clay tablets with unique letters remained, on which Sumerians wrote - cuneiform. For a long time, it remained an unsolved mystery, but through the efforts of scientists, humanity now has information about what constituted the civilization of Interfluve.
Sumerian civilization (literal translation"Blackheads") - one of the very first that appeared on our planet. The very origin of the people in history is one of the most pressing issues: the debates of scientists are still ongoing. This phenomenon is even given the designation "Sumerian question." The search for archaeological data led to little, so the main source of study was the field of linguistics. The Sumerians, whose cuneiform script was best preserved, began to be studied in terms of linguistic kinship.
Approximately 5 thousand years BC in the valley of the riversTigris and Euphrates in the southern part of Mesopotamia there were settlements that later grew into a powerful civilization. The findings of archaeologists indicate how developed the Sumerians were economically developed. Cuneiform on numerous clay tablets tells about it.
Excavations in the ancient city of Sumerians Urukallow us to make an unequivocal conclusion that the Sumerian cities were rather urbanized: there were classes of artisans, merchants, managers. Outside the cities lived shepherds and peasants.
Sumerian - very interestinglinguistic phenomenon. Most likely, he came to Southern Mesopotamia from India. For 1-2 thousand years the population spoke it, but soon it was supplanted by Akkadian.
The Sumerians still continued to use theiroriginal language in religious events, it was carried out administrative work, studied in schools. This continued until the beginning of our era. How did the Sumerians make out their language? The cuneiform was used precisely for this.
К сожалению, фонетический строй шумерского языка it could not be restored, because it refers to the type when the lexical and grammatical meaning of a word lies in the numerous affixes joining the root.
The occurrence of cuneiform Sumerians coincides withthe beginning of economic activity. It is connected with the fact that it was necessary to fix elements of administrative activity or trade. It should be said that the Sumerian cuneiform is considered to be the first letter that appeared, giving the basis to other writing systems of Interfluve.
Initially, digital values were recorded, while they were far from writing. A certain amount was designated with special clay figures - tokens. One token - one item.
С развитием хозяйственности это стало неудобно, therefore, on each figure began to make special symbols. Stored tokens in a special container, which depicted the seal of the owner. Unfortunately, in order to count the names, it was necessary to break the vault, and then seal it again. For convenience, next to the print, they began to depict information about the contents, and after physically the figures disappeared altogether - only reprints remained. So the first clay tablets appeared. What was depicted on them was nothing more than pictograms: the specific designations of specific figures and objects.
Later, pictograms began to reflect abstract symbols. For example, a bird and an egg depicted next to it indicated fertility. Such a letter was already ideographic (signs-symbols).
The next stage is phonetic design.pictograms and ideograms. It should be said that each sign began to correspond to a certain sound design, not related to the depicted object. The style also changes, it is simplified (as - we will describe below). In addition, the symbols for convenience unfold, become horizontally oriented.
The emergence of cuneiform gave impetus to the replenishment of the dictionary of outlines, which is very active.
What was a cuneiform letter? Paradoxically, the Sumerians could not read: the principle of writing was not the same. They saw the written text, because the basis was ideographic writing.
The outline was largely influenced by the material,which wrote - clay. Why she? Let's not forget that Mesopotamia is an area where there are practically no trees suitable for processing (remember the Slavic birch bark letters or the Egyptian papyrus, made from a bamboo stem), and there was no stone there. But there was plenty of clay in the river floods, so it was widely used by the Sumerians.
The blank for the letter was a claya cake, it had the shape of a circle or a rectangle. Signs were applied with a special stick called a kapama. It was made of solid material, such as bone. The tip of the kapama was triangular. The writing process was to immerse the stick in soft clay and leave a certain pattern. When kapama was pulled out of clay, the elongated part of the triangle left a wedge-like mark, so the name was “cuneiform”. To save the written, the plate was burned in the oven.
As stated above, before appearedcuneiform, the Sumerians had a different type of outline - pictography, then ideography. Later, the signs became simplified, for example, instead of a whole bird, only a paw was depicted. And the number of signs used is gradually reduced - they become more universal, they begin to mean not only direct concepts, but also abstract ones - for this it is enough to depict another ideogram next to it. Thus, standing next to "another country" and "woman" denoted the concept of "slave". Thus, the meaning of specific signs became clear from the general context. This method of expression is called logography.
Все же изображать на глине идеограммы было difficult, so over time, each of them was replaced by a certain combination of dashes-wedges. This pushed the writing process further, allowing syllables to be applied to specific sounds. Thus, the syllable letter began to develop, which existed for a long time.
Середина XIX века ознаменовалась попытками delve into the essence of cuneiform writing Sumerians. Grotefend made great strides in this. However, the Behistun inscription found allowed to finally decipher many texts. The texts carved on the rock contained examples of ancient Persian, Elam and Akkadian inscriptions. Decrypt texts could Rawlins.
Возникновение клинописи шумеров повлияло на writing other countries of Mesopotamia. Spreading, civilization carried with itself a verbal-syllabic type of writing that other peoples adopted. The occurrence of the cuneiform writing of the Sumerians in the Elam, Hurritan, Hittite and Urartian letters is especially obvious.
