ETHNICITY IN ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA Papers Read at the 48th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale Leiden, 1-4 July 2002 Eiited by W.H. VAN SOLDT In cooperation with R. KALVELAGEN and D. KATZ, NEDERLANDS INSTITUUT VOOR HET NABLIE OOSTENON THE LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPE OF EARLY MESOPOTAMIA Gonzalo Rubio, Pennsylvania State University Du blighst om Ursprang. Ursprung ist das Ziel Kort Kraus, “Der sterbende Mensch" 1. Fragments of a landscape If Mesopotamia was for the Greeks the land between the two rivers, for us Ancient Meso potamia is also the land of two ianguages: Sumerian and Akkadian. It is true that, even before the first millennium, Mesopotamia knew other languages attested in personal names and isolated lexi- cal items. Amorite is well represented in anthroponyms, and Kassite had even the honor of being assigned a column in a bilingual lexical list.’ Hurrian is much better attested outside Mesopotamia, with its large and generically diverse corpus of texts from Syria, Anatolia, and Egypt? Other less usual suspects are covered by a cloud of mystery. Of the language of the Guti co Gutean, we have only a small number of personal names.? The evidence concerting the Lullubi ‘or Lullubean (southeast of Lake Usmnia) is practically limited to their very name and perhaps a few anthroponyms.* This ethnonym is probably related to Hurro-Urartian ulu/luilu “foreign(er)”, which would have undergone the same semantic shift Hittite Julabpillulahi (a generic term for ‘uncivilized’ inhabitants of the mountains) underwent when borrowed by Greek as Aéneyes, (liad 11:429; 20:96; 21:86; Herodotus 1.171) to refer to the Carians.® Equally nebulous in origin, the 1 See, for instance, M. P. Steck, Das amurriticke Onomastiton der altbabylonischen Zeit, I(AOAT 271. Munster, 2000): K. Balkan, Kassitenstudien, 1: Die Sprache der Kassiten (AOS 37. New Haven, 1958), 2 In geneva see the different contibations in La civilid dei hurriti (La parola del passato, 310-315. Naples, 2000), On the Hurrian language, see now I. Wegner. Einfuhrung in die hurritische Sprache (Wiesbaden, 2000). For a summary of different hypotheses concerning the linguistic affiliation of Hurro-Urarian, se G. van Driem, Languages ofthe Himalayas (Leiden, 2001), pp. 1059-60 a. 6 3 W.W. Hallo, "Gatium’, RIA 3, 708-720, In spite of the meager linguistic information about the Gutean language, Diakonoff and’ Starostin proposed this could have been related to Hurtin, and that Goteans imay have belonged to the Hurtianetholinguistic realms; see IM. Diakonoff and S.A. Starostin, Hurro- Urartian as an Eastern Caucasian language (Berlin, 1986), pp. 5-6 * See MC. Astour, “Semites and Hurtins in Noxthem Syria Studies on the civilization and culture of ‘Nici and the Hurrians 2 (Winona Lake, ind, 1987), pp. 6B (esp. 37-38 n, 259) ® See J. Tischler, Herhitisches enymologisches Glossar, 5/6: L-M (nssbracK. 1990), pp. 70-71; 1M. Diakonoff, The pre-history of the Armenian people (Delmar, 1984), pp. 161-62 n. 102; ML. Khaéikjan, XypPMToKAR x ypaprexuh AavicK (Erevan, 1985), pp. 47, 69; G.A. Melikivili, Die araetdische Sprache (Studia Pohl, 7. Rome, 1971), p. 84; L.A. Giddin, Troja, Thrakien und die Volker Alidleinasiens (Innsbruck, 1999), p. 214, For other etymologies, see Tischer, loc. cit; B. Sehwyzer Griechische Grammatik, U Munich, 1939), p. $9.2 (-Aéyu, hanayeu); H. Frisk, Griechisches enol: sgisches Worterbuch i (Heideloexg, 1972), p. 10%, and E. Laroche, Glossaire de la langue hourrite (Paris, 1980), pp. 160-61 (— Sum. 10141). On the Lullubeans in general, see H. Klengel, “Lullu(bumy", RIA 7, 164-68; J. Eidem, The Shemshara archives 2° The administrative texts(ON THE LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPE OF EARLY MESOPOTAMIA 317 label Subartean (or Subir, Subar) was generically used for peoples living to the east of the Tigris and novth ofthe Lullubi ~ as well as for their languages ~ without indicating necessarily that they ‘were Hurrian Beyond the clear textual evidence and the frequently ambiguous labels, in 1944 Landsberger proposed the existence of a hypothetical pre-Sumerian substratum,’ In one way or another, Landsberger’s proposal was accepied and developed by several scholars, especially Gelb, Oppenheim, A. Salonen, Diakonoff, and more recently J. Bauer. Eventually, this alleged substra- tum was provided with archaeological, physical-anthropological, literary, linguistic, graphematic, chic, and toponymic features. The core of this substratum was constituted by designations for ‘occupations and trades (aS gab “cobbler, leather worker”; aziag “launderer"; b Spar “potter”; ctc.). The criteria for the identification of noa-Sumerian words were mostly phonotactc: they sre polysyllabic, while Sumerian would seem to prefer monosyllabism; they have similar endings and medial consonantal clusters; and, most importantly, they had no Sumerian etymologies. After a lose examination ofthe lexical items singled out by Landsberger and others, one has to conclude that most of these items happen to be Semitic loanwords (bdbar, ugula, ga-ba-ra, Sabra, and perhaps also U- u-in), Hurian (tibira), Arealworter or Wanderworter (apin, nagar), havethe /nu-/ prefix (nu.t!kirig, a0-banda, nubaldim), or exhibit well at- tested Sumerian pattems (si mug, Sidi m). Moreover, one of the alleged features of the struc- ture of substratum words, a medial consonantal cluster, disappears in several cases (i Gir. nagar)s ‘This is not to say that there were no other Ianguages that, perhaps spoken before the first ar- chaic texts were written down, or contemporancously with Sumerian, may have left traces here and there inthe Sumerian and Akkadian lexica. Substrata do happen to exist ~ or, at least, their exis- tence seems extremely likely in a number of cases. But even in those cases, itis always difficult to qualify their nature and quantify the extent oftheir influence. For instance, the so-called pre- Greck (once upon a time mythically labeled “Pelasgic”) substratum transpires in a set of words ending in -nthos and -ss/tts: the towns of Corinth, Knossos, Aminisos, Tylissos, the river Koskynthos, the mountain Arakynthos, vegetation terms (términthos, hudkunthes), objects (asaminthos, plinthos), labirinthos, es? Recently, Lubotsky has studied a group of Indo-iranian (Copenhagen, 1992), pp. 50-54, See P. Michalowsks, “Mental maps and ideology: Reflections on Subartu”, in H. Weiss (ed), The ori- sins of cities in dry-farming Syria and Mesopotamia in the Third Millennium #.c, (Guilford, Conn., 1986), pp. 129-156; #d., “Sumer dreams of Subaru: Politics and the geographical imagination”, in K. van Lerberghe and G. Voet (eds), Languages and cultures in contact, 428 CRRAT, OLA 96 (Leuven, 1999), pp. 305-315; G.B. Gragg, “Less-understood languages of Ancient Western Asia". in J. M. Sasson (ed. Civitizations of the Ancien: Near East, 1V (New York, 1995), pp. 2161-2179 (esp. 2162). * See B. Landsberger, Three essays on the Sumerians (Wansl. M. Del. Ellis. Los Angeles, 1974). * For a detailed discussion of Landsberger's hypothesis, see G. Rubio, "On the alleged pre-Sumerian substratum”, JCS $1 (1999), 1-16. ° ED. Francis, “The impact of non-Indo-European languages on Greek and Mycenaean’, in E. Polomé and W. Winter (eds.), Reconstructing languages and cultures (Berlin, 1992), pp. 469-506, This pre- Greek substratum ~ which right well be Indo-European (Anatolian) ~ should be distinguished from the pre-Indo-European words attested in several European languages of the Indo-European family (Greek, Latin, Germanic, Balto-Slavic, Armenian); see R.S.P, Beekes, “Ancient European loanwords' Historische Sprackforschung (KZ) \08 (1997), 215-236: id, “European substratum words in Greek”. in M. Ofitsch and C. Zinko (eds), [25 Jahre Indogermanistk in Graz (Graz, 2000), pp. 21-31; ME Hild,318. G.RUBIO| words that have no cognates in any of the other Indo-European branches. All these words point to ‘etyma exhibiting phonotactic features that are uncharacteristically Indo-European (the presence of voiceless aspirates, long middle syllables, etc,.!9 One could argue that the demarcation criteria of this (pre-)Indo-tranian substratum resembles Landsberger’s pre-Sumerian substratum. However, in the case of this (pre-)Indo-Iranian substratum there is an obvious linguistic, cultural, and historical ‘context in which such a lexicon can be placed. These words lack Indo-European etymologies and violate all rules concerning root structure in this tanguage family — whose phonotactic structure, incidentally, we understand infinitely better than that of Sumerian. Moreover, we can track down with a fair level of certainty the arrival of Indo-Aryan and Iranian speakers to their respective areas, as reflected in substantial changes in the archaeological record as well as in the earlier composi- tional layers of later compilations such as the Reveda — in the latter case, the interaction between (mostly early) pre-Indo-Aryan and (usually later) Indic strata pertains to both cultural features (sacrifice, pantheon, etc.) and linguistic ones (the difficult question of retroflexion in the Revedic text).!! This accumulation of linguistic, historical, and cultural criteria is absent in the case of carly Mesopotamia, The number of fragmentarily represented languages (Triimmersprachen, Restsprachen, and Relikispracken) in Mesopotamia, as well as in the broader Ancient Near East, “The linguistic typology of the Old European substrate in North Central Europe”, Journal of Indo- European Studies 18 (1990), 389-423 "© See A. Lubotsky, “The Indo-Iranian substratum”, in C. Carpelan et al (eds), Early contacts benween Uralic and Indo-European: Linguistic and archaeological considerations Mémoires de la Societé Finno-Ougrienne, 242, (Helsinki, 2001), pp. 301-317. See also M. Witzel, “Substrate languages in Old Indo-Aryan (Revedic, Middle and Late Vedic)", Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies 5 (1999), 1-67 1” See M.M. Deshpande and P-E. Hook (eds, Aryan and non-Aryan in India (Ann Arbor, Mich, 1979); Deshpande, Sociolinguistic attiudes in India (Ann Arbor, Mich,, 1979); id, Sanskrit and Prakri: Sociolinguistic issues (Delhi, 1993), pp. 129-196; id., “Vedic’ Aryans, ron-Vedic Aryans, and non-Aryans: Judging the linguistic evidence of the Veda", in G. Erdosy (ed), The Indo-Aryans of an- cient South Asia (Berlin 1995), pp. 67-86; F.B.J. Kuiper, Aryans in the Rigveda (Leiden, 1991); A. Parpola, “The pre-Vedic Indian background of the Srauta rituals in F. Staal (ed.) Agni: The Vedic ritual of the fire eltar (Betkeley, 1983), vol. I, pp. 41-75, pl. 1-8; id, “The coming of the Aryans to Iran and India and the cultural and ethnic identity’of the Diasas", Studia Orientalia 64 (1986), 195:302; id, “The Dasas and the coming of the Aryans", in M. Witzel (ed), Inside the texs. beyond the texts: New ap- roaches 10 the study of the Vedas (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 193-202; id., “Pre-proto-lranians of ‘Afghanistan as initiators of Sakta Tantrism: On the Scythian/Saka affiliation of the Dasas, Nuristanis, and Magadhans”, ranica Antiqua 37 (2002), 231-322; M. Witzel, “Aryan and non-Aryan Names in Vedic Inia: Data for the linguistic situation, c. 1900-500 8.c.", in J. Bronkhorst and M.M. Deshpande (es.), Aryans and non-Aryans in South Asia (Cambridge, Mass., 1999), pp. 337-404; id., “Autochtho- nous Aryans? The evidence from Old Indian and Iranian texts", Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies 7 (2001), 1-93; G. van Driem, Languages of the Himalayas (Leiden, 2001), val 1, pp. 1011-1051 On the problem of retroflexion, Deshpanade argued in favor of phonological borrowing, However, ‘other explanations are also possible; see Th. Vennemann, “Sanskrit Ruki and the concept of a natural class", Linguistics 130 (1974), 91-7. C. Masica, The Indo-Aryan languages (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 33, 157-60; HLH. Hock, “Pre-Ravedic convergence between Indo-Aryan (Sanskrit) and Dravidian?” in 1 EM Houben (ed), Ideology and stats of Sanskrit (Leiden, 1996), pp. 17-59; E. Hamp, "On the Indo- European origins ofthe reoflexes in Sanskrit”, JAOS 111 (1996), 719-723. Whereas Hock comes quite *It Is, *In> I, hy n> fe mh te(ON THE LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPE OF EARLY MESOPOTAMIA 319 ‘may have been much higher than we can imagine." However, we know almost nothing about most of these possible Triimmerspracken, to the point of only being able to identify a few of them by name. 2. Was Sumerian a creole? In an attempt to provide a linguistic setting for a possible substratum in early Mesopotamia, Hoyrup argued that Sumerian was the immediate descendant of a creole." Hyrup assumed that a large body of immigrants came to constitute the majority of the working population in Southern Mesopotamia, while the ruling group would have been autochthonous, and their interaction would have produced a creole whose immediate descendant would have been Sumerian, In actuality, his- torical creoles are the result of a specific setting of language contact, in which one language (the lexifier) provides most of the vocabulary, whereas the grammar is the result of an inter-lingual ne- Zotiation, a spontaneous but typologically shaped compromise between the languages involved. In some instances, creoles are the result of the nativization process of a pidgin — i.e, 2 pidgin (nobody's mother tongue) becoming a generation's native language. However, creolization does not necessarily imply a prior stage of pidginization.!® In an overly simplistic but graphically diachronic approach, the substrate language would be that of the less powerful group, and the superstrate one that of the more powerful group ~ the latter would be the lexifier. Thus, according to Hoyrup’s proposal, framed within this traditional and coarse dichotomy, the so-called substra- tum would actually be the language of the newcomers. All this would have happened during the ‘transition from the Early Uruk period (mid-fourth millennium) to the Late Uruk period (late fourth millennium), when Nissen detects different features of discontinuity, pertaining especially to set- tlement patterns ~ the latter having been first observed by Adams in his survey of the area.'6 However, this shift in settlement patterns and sizes was not uniform, and differences can be observed between certain areas in Southern Mesopotamia; there are three distinguishable regions: Uruk, Nippur-Adab, and Ur-Eridu.!” Moreover, such a shift can obey different variables, and it On the terms Trammerspracken, Restsprachen, and Reliktspracken, originally coined to refer to languages such as the pre-Roman ones in the Iberian peninsula and the Italie dialects other than Latin itself, see J. Untermann, Trimmersprachen zwischen Grammatik und Geschichte (Rheinisch West- falische Akademie der Wissenschaft, Geisteswissenschaften, Vortrige G245. Opladen, Leverkusen, 1980); W. Euler, "Knteien zur Sprachverwandtschaft von Trummer- und Reiktspachen", in 125 Jahre Indogermanistit in Graz (Graz, 2000), pp. 111-123. These languages are attested mostly in anthro- pponyms, toponyms, and some rather shor inscriptions. ‘SJ, Hoyrup, “Sumerian: The descendant of a prot-historial Creole? An alternative approach to the Sumerian problem", AION: Annali del Seminario di studi del mundo classic, Setione linguistica 14 (1992) 21°72; also published as a contribution to The Thirteenth Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics (University of Roskilde, January 9-1, 1992), as well as vol. 51 of the series ROLIG papir, Roskilde Universitetscenter, 1993. “See S.G. Thomason, Language contact: An introduction (Washington, D.C., 2001), pp. 157-195. ‘See S.G. Thomason and T. Kaufman, Language comact, creolization, and genetic linguistics (Berkeley, 1988), pp. 147-166, 3 R McC. Adams and HJ Nissen, The Uruk countryside (Chicago, 1972); Nissen. The early history of the Ancient Near East, 9000 - 2000 .c. (Chicago, 1988), 66-69; i, “Cultural and political networks in the Aneient Near East during the fourth and third mileenia 8.c.", in MS. Rothman (ed), Uruk Meso- polamia and its neighbors (Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2001), pp. 149-179 (ep. 170-74). "See, for instance, S. Pollack, Ancient Mesopoxamia (Cambridge, 1999), p. 53-77; ead. “The Uruk period in southern Mesopotamia", in Uruk Mesopotamia and its neighbors, pp. 181-231; R. Bernbeck,320 G.RUBIO ‘was certainly compatible with the continuity of some aspects of material culture in the area from the Ubaid period to the Late Uruk period.!® Besides the obvious problems of matching archaeological phenomena and material culture to ‘ethnicity — and the added complication of matching ethnicity to language ~ the main difficulty with Hayrup's theory is his linguistic approach." He singies out some features which he consié- 1s to be typical of creoles and are, according to him, attested in Sumesian. The problem is that the features which Hayrup assumes as diagnostics of ereolization are not such, and bis theory mis- intexprets both the linguistic nature of creoles and the grammar of Sumerian. For instance, when dealing with the writing interface, the compound SAG+NINDA “HEAD” + “BOWL”) = GU, used for the apportioning of tations and thus forthe verb “to eat”, is regarded as equivalent to “the way the superstrate speaker will hear a pidgin” ora creole speaker 2° However, this procedure of cxeat- ing new logograms bas an interesting paralle in a language that few would ever consider a creole: Chinese. The semantically motivated combination of two characters to create a new logogram wes common already in oracle-bone inscriptions dating tothe late periog of the Shing dynasty (i.e. ca. 1200-1045 B.C.E.), as well as in browze inscriptions from the Western Zhou dynasty (ca 1045-771 B.C.E.)2! Thus, the character rén “person” next to mi “tree” was read xiii “to res"? Moreover, this phenomenon in Sumerian and Chinese pertains exclusively to the writing interface, whereas in the case of creoles pidgins this is a matter of Wortbildung. Regarding phonology. Hayrup stresses the rather small inventory of Sumerian segments and their phonotactic con- straints, The number of Sumerian phonemes is not particularly high, although several additional ones, as well as the existence of initial and final consonantal clusters, were quite certainly masked by the constraints of the cuneiform writing interface (/g/ or / i /, $8 ar fil, ™b/ or /mb/, ete.).25 In this respect, creoles are frequently described as having reduced phonological systems, which ‘would make Sumerian phonology very similar to that of oreoles. However, this assumption is made after studying creoles based on European languages. For instance, Sango, a creole spoken “Landfluche nd Ednizitat im alten Mesopotamien”, in Hl. Kulmer et af. (eds), Flucktpunks Uruk: Fs. FJ Nissen (Raden, 1999), pp. 296-310. See J. Oates, “Ur and Eridu, the prehistory”, rag 22 ($960), 32-50; P. Charvit, Mesopotamia before ‘story (London, 2002), pp. 118-19, 131-150; Rubio, JCS $1 (1998), 1-2. ® On the problem of ethnicity and erchaeology, see, for instance, G. Emberling and N. Yoffee, “Thinking about ethnicity in Mesopotamian archaeology and history”, in Fluchtpurki Uruk: Fs. HJ. Nissen, pp. 272-281, ® Vipycup, “Sumerian: The descendant of a proto-historical Creole?” pp. 31-32. 2 DN. Keighiley, Sources of Shang history: The oracle-bone inscriptions of Bronze Age China (Berkeley, 1978), p. 68; EL, Shaughnessy, Sources of Western Zhou history: Inscribed bronze vessels Berkeley, 1991). p. 68, 2 4, Norman, Chinese (Cambridge, 1988), p. 64; W.G. Bolte, The origin and early development of the Chinese writing system (AOS 78, New Haven, Conn., 1984), pp. 147-49, 153-54. On the possibility of semantic compounds or semantically determined, hdiy? joined meanings"), signs alteady in Neolithic Pottery marks (especially at Dawenkou sites in the Shandong province). ste C. Kwone-yue, “Recent archeological evidence celating tothe origin of Chinese characte‘s”, in D.N. Keightley (ed), The origins of Chinese civilization (Berkeley, 1983), pp. 323-391 (esp. 3661; Boltz,op.cit, pp. 44-45, E. Wilkinson, Chinese history: A manual (2% ed. Cambridge, Mass, 2000), pp. 373-388 ® For references, see M.-L. Thomsen, The Sumerian language (Copenhagen, 1984), pp. 44-46; P. tinge Elements de ngusiquesumérienne (Fribourg, 192), pp. 143-4, Rubio, JCS 31 1988), 7 m. 15, 2 AS. Kaye, “On the importance of pidgins and creoles for historical linguistics”, Diachronica 2(ON THE LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPE OF EARLY MESOPOTAMIA, 321 in the Central African Republic and based on several Niger-Congo languages, exhibits a highly complex phonological system, with co-articulated or bifocal consonants (/mb/, /ng/, Indl, bp), ‘Ingbl, inzl ete.) Moreover, the fact that many languages have reduced phonological inventories (Australian languages, Basque, etc) does not make them creoles ‘When dealing with the lexicon, Hoyrup finds certain Sumerian nominal compounds quite siin- ilar to pidgin circumlocutions: di -kud “judge” — CLAIM-DECIDE: nig-ba “gift” < THING- GIVE, First of all, these compounds should be understood in the context of the Sumerian capabil- ity to establish morphemeless grammatical relationships. Similar compounds are so widespread in so many languages, from Basque to Sansksit, both creoles and non-creoles, tbat this is a mean- ingless point” One could continue the litany of features piled up by Hyrup in arguing that Sumerian looks like a creole - compound verbs; grammaticalized case endings (such as the comi- tative /-da/); the Tense-Aspect- Modality (TAM) system in Sumerian (opposing perfective versus imperfective, allegedly with no marking of tense); etc. Neither are these merely typological fea- tures ~ which Hityrup assumes as diagnostics of cteolization — specific of creoles, nor are all of them — in fact, most of them ~ actually attested in Sumerian, In fact, the very complex morpho- logical and morphosyntactic structure of Sumerian is clearly at odds with the general typology of creoles2S Furthermore, to talk about creotization — especially in the overly simplifying terms of substrate vs, supersirate languages ~ when nothing is known about the languages allegedly in- volved in it, constitutes an exercise in pointless speculation 2 Although no Sumerologist has openly endorsed Hstyrup’s theory, Englund refers to it as con- sonant with his view, according to which Sumerian and its speakers would have not entered. southern Mesopotamia until shortly before the Early Dynastic I (around 2,900 B.C.E.).%° Englund argues that the first textual evidence of the Sumerian language appears in the archaic texts from Ur, but that such evidence is absent in the archaic texts from Uruk (phases Uruk IV and Uruk 11)" In fact, Englund believes that the language of the archaic texts from the Late Unik period was probably not Sumerian. The archaeological assumptions involved in Englund’s approach would deserve a careful critique, Englune’s idea that Sumerians would have introduced the plano- convex brick entails an oversimplified analysis. As the late van Driel pointed out, plano-convex (1985), 201-230 (esp. 210), % 1.8, Walker and WJ. Samarin, “Sango phonology”, in A.S, Kaye (ed.), Phonologies of Asia and Africa (Winona Lake, Ind). pp. 861-880. % J, Krechet, “Morohemless syntax in Sumerien as seen on the background of word-coinposition in Chukehee", as¥ 9 (1987), 67-88 37 On the Basque case, see RL. Trask. A history of Basque (London, 1997), pp. 250-252. Concerning tatpuruga compounds in Sanskrit, see A. Thum and R. Hauschild, Handbuch des Sanskrit, 1: Formentekre (Ath ed. Heildeberg, 1959), pp. 400-410. 2 For instance, cteoles seem to dislike bound morphology; see J.A. Holm, Pidgins and creoles, Il (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 95-100; A.S. Kaye, “Observations on pidgnistics and creolistcs”, Semiotica 78 (1990), 285-348 (esp. 314) %. Thomason and Kaufman, Language contact, creoliztion, and genetic linguistics, p. 111. Long. before Heyrup, V. Christian put forward two radically different (albeit both equally exotic and enter- taining) proposals cegarding a creole-like ongin of Sumerian; see Rubio, JCS 51 (1999), 2 n. 1 °° RK. Englund, “Texts from the late Uruk period’, in Mescpotamien, 1: Spaturuk-Zeit und Frichdy. nastische Zeit (OBO L60/1, Freiburg, 1998), pp. 13-283 (esp. 81 n. 173) 3 See also P. Michalowski, "Language, literature, and writing at Ela", in L. Cagni (ed.), Ebla 1975. 1985 (Naples, 1987), pp, 164-175 (esp. 173).322 @.RUBIO bricks cannot be regarded as specifically Sumerin, since there are plano-convex constrictions also in the Diyala? Moreover, as van Drie! did, one has to agree with Tunca and Sauvage and con- sider plano-convex bricks the result of a functional evolution rather than % sudden innovation 33 ‘The grounds for Englund’s theory lie in his understanding of the archaic texts, Although some instances of phonetic writing in Late Uruk texts have been pointed out, Englund insists that the context and continuity of the use of these signs are insufficiently documented. Nevertheless, even Englund has to admit an instance of homophonous relationship between Sl, = ST-gund) and Zi (in ATU 5, p. 74, pl. 35, W 9123, al).”5 Furthermore, according to Englund, in archaic lexical lists adjectives seem to precede nouns. which is the opposite of the Sumerian word order.?® Incidentally, this does not seem to happen in proto-Elamite texts, This word order RECTUM + (MODIFIER+MODIFIED, REDPMS+REDREM) would be attested also int some identifiable sequences REGENS in adminisative texts, suchas EN,TUGa,.” However, as in the case of Early Dynastic texts, the order of signs within a case is not always clear and Englund’s understanding of word order does not seem to hold. He argues that the so- called “Pig List" constitutes the best example of this word order, ADJECTIVEFNOUN.™ One may question whether the similarity between ZATU-508 (SAH = SUBUR-gun) and ZATU-539 (SUBUR) really implies that the latter refers (o swine too, and whether this is really 2 lst of pigs ‘or a List of dogs, but this is irrelevant to our discussion: Englund quotes sequences from the “Pig List” throughout his study of the Late Urak texts and always gives them in this order: Gly SUBUR, U,SUBUR, etc.” However, when one looks at the text - independently of the orientation, with or without the 90-degree shift — the order NOUN+ADJECTIVE / NOUN+MODIFIER / RES@0M+ ee (egene 3G. van Driel, “Closer to Mesopotamia's protochistory", BiOr 67 (2000), 493-509 (esp. 494-95). % 6, Tonga, Liarchitecture religieuse protodynastique en Mésopotamie (Akkadica Suppl. 2. Leuven, 1984), vol. 1, pp. 119-132: M. Sauvage, La brigue et a mise en auvre en Mésopotanie: Des origines & époque achéménide (Pais, 1998) pp. 15K. % ThJH. Krispija, “The early Mesopotamian lexical lists and the dawn of linguistics." JEOL 32 (1991-92), 12-22; M. Krebernik, Review of M. W. Green and H. 5, Nissen, Zeichenliste der archaischen Teste aus Uruk (ATU 2. Berlin, 1987), OLZ 89 ((994), 380-85 (sp. 383-84); P. Steinkeller, Review of ATU 2, BiOr 52 (1995), 689-113 (esp. 694-95) 2 Englund, “Texts fom the late Uruk period”, p. 7 n. 198 ° ‘Englund, “Texts from the late Uruk period”, p. 81 n, 170, Whittaker (in Lingua Aegyptia, SM 3, p. 14) adds here a non-orthographic list from Eble (MBE 3 62), because it has the same “invested” order (ADI.4NOUN) in @ few lines, #8 opposed to the other witnesses of the same list from Ebla, Fara, and Ati ‘Salabib. On MEE 3 62, see J. Krecher, “Eine unorthographische sumerische Worliste aus Eble", OA 22 {8982), 179-189; TRH. Krispin, “Die Identifikation zweier lexikelischen Texte aus Bbla: MEE Il Nr 62 und 63°, SEOL 27 (1981-82), 47-59; A. Archi, “Transmission of the Mesopotamian lexical and liter ay texts from Ebla®, in P. Fronzaroli (ed), Literature and Literary Language at Ebla (QdS 18, Florence, 1992), pp. 1-39 (esp. 5); M. Civit and G. Rubio, “An Bbla incantation against insomnia and the ‘Semiticization of Sumerian: Notes on ARET 5 8b and 9", Orientalia1.s, 68 (1999), 254-266 (esp. 265), 7 Englund, “Texts from the late Uruk period” p. 182 n. 349 8 Englund, “Texts from the late Uruk period”, pp. 81 n. 170, 153 2, 350. The “Pig list” is attested in ‘0 textual witnesses: onc complete tablet (W 12139 = VAT 17729 = ATU 3 pl. 36) ané o small fragment (20497 = IM 134394 = ATU3 pl. 36). % See ZATU p. 290 (ZATU-S30); P. Steinkeller, Review of ATU 3, AfO 42/43 (1995/96), pp. 211-4 (esp. 212-13), But see also Englund, “Late Uruk pigs and other herded animals", in U. Finkbeiner eral (cals), Beitrdge zur Kullurgeschichte Vorderasiens: Fs. R.M. Boehmer (Maine, 1995), pp. 121-133 (esp. 125 w. 8, 130-31), “Englund, “Texts from the late Uruk period”, pp. 153 n. 350, 170"fern fect: Ege, (ON THE LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPE OF EARLY MESOPOTAMIA, 323 REBELS scems equally common, as itis dominant on the reverse: SUBUR AB, SU[BUR ) 9NE,?, SuBU[R x], SUBUR BU,#DUg, SUBUR LAGAB,, SUBUR Gly, "SUBUR? Us, et! In the light of examples like this one (a clear instance of NOUN+ADIECTIVE sequences), one can hardly agree with Englund’s claim that the (un-Sumerian) order ADJECTIVE4+NOUN is the regular one in the archaic texts. Furthermore, two variables should be added to the picture: one graphematic and the other purely linguistic. Conceming the possible instances of ADJECTIVE+NOUN, MODIFIER+NOUN, and REPENS+REQHUM (EN, TUG,,), one encounters fluctuations in word order similar to those widely attested in Early Dynastic texts, in which frequently the order of the signs within a case is diffi- cult to establish. Furthermore, the linguistic status of adjectives in Sumerian poses some serious problems. Only recently have some substantial studies and classifications of adjectives in Sumerian been attempted? Sumerian does not have a wealth of words that can be categorized exclusively as adjectives. The lack of the inherent morphological markers proper to inflectional Tanguages leaves such a grammatical distinction to the realm of syntax: an adjective can be defined as such only if it can fulfill the syntactic function of nominal modifier. This problem of grammat- ical distinctive categorization is not exclusive to Sumerian. Within his typology of languages regarding parts-of-speech systems, Rijkhoff has classified Sumerian as a type-3 language, which exhibits three different categories of lexemes (verbs, nouns, and adjectives) ~ instead of two (like Quechua, with only verbs and nominal-adjectival lexemes) or only one (like Samoan, with only ‘one kind of lexeme that combines all the functions of verbs, nouns, and adjectives).*? Nevertheless, the lexematic ambiguities might perhaps point to a type-2 system in early ‘Sumerian, in which nominal-adjectival lexemes were conjoined in composita rather than in attributive constructions, Regardless of the particular circumstances of Sumerian, the adjectival category poses a wide variety of morphological and syntactical problems in many languages and ‘its demarcation is frequently plagued with difficulties.“ 3. Non-Anatolian Indo-European in the Ancient Near East? Noch einmal? ‘The fuzzy hypothesis of the pre-Sumerian substratum and Englund’s theories on the language of the archaic texts merge together in the proposal put forward by G. Whittaker. Whittaker at- fempts to identify the pre-Sumerian substratum (Landsberger’s “proto-Euphratic”) with an as yet “1 his score ofthe “Pig list” in ATU 3 (pp. 103-4), Englund inverts the order on the reverse, so the ‘ntie text exhibits the same word order. However he does not attempt to egularize the sign order in his ‘edition of the list in “Texts from the late Uruk period”, p. 173 @ M, Schretter, “Uberlegungen zu den Wortarten des Sumerischen”, WZKM 86 (1996), 399-411; J. Diack, “Sone Suumctian adjectives", in Diachronic and synchronic variation in Sumerian: Fs Yoshikawa (= AS 22 (2000), in press. See also Th E. Balke, “Die sumerische Dimensionaladjective Bim und sig”. in 0. Lorem et al(eds.), Ex Mesopotamia et Syria lux: Fs. M. Dietrich (AOAT 281, Minster, 2002), pp. 31-3, “1. Rijkhoff, “When can a language have adjectives? An implicational universal”, in PIM. Vogel and B, Comrie (eds), Approaches 10 the typology of word classes (Berlin, 2000), pp. 217-257 (esp. p. 221) “+ See RIM, Dixon, Where have al the adjectives gone? (Berlin, 1982), and D.N.S. Bhat, The adject val category (Amsterdam, 1994), Within the languages of the Ancient Near East, compare an equally intricate situation in Coptic; see A. Shisha-Helevy, Coptic grammatical categories (AnOr 53, Rome, 1986), pp. 129-139,324 G.RUBIO unknown Indo-European tanguage, Which would be the eatliest attested language of this family.*5 His hypothetical language would be a sort of “pre-Anatolian” Indo-European. Whittaker’s language would stil retain the feminine suffix *-d (< *-eh,), which Anatolian lost as opposed to almost all the other TE languages. Moreover, this language would have preserved all three taryngeal conso- nants, of which only some survived in the Anatolian branch but vanished with few traces in the other Indo-European languages (*, and probably *hs in Anlaut, white *h, disappeared) ® Among his proposed two hundred Indo-European loanwords, only a few belong to the traditional pre-Sumerian substratum, On the contrary, most words he lists exhibit a perfectly Sumerian phonotactic structure, such as bad, dig, gal, nam, tag, dim, ete. The vast majority of Sumerian words in his list are bisyllabic, and many of them have Semitic etyrologies (such as ba-zi(-in), uru or iri,ezen, etc.) Furthermose, Whittaker bases all his comparisons on a very complex reconstruction of “proto-Sumerian”, which would have thirty eight consonants and six (or nine) vowels. But this reconstructed “proto-Sumerian”, key to his theory, is also the key t0 ‘a methodological loop. This “proto-Sumerian’ is based mostly on the phonological shape of the alleged Indo-European loanwords. On the other hand, the borrowings themselves are established on the basis of this hypothetical reconstruction of “prote-Sumerian” phonology. In sum, his theory suffers from am acute case of circular reasoning.” ‘Three years after his first shot at this, Whittaker published a second article on the topic, which focuses primarily on the archaic texts and attempts to solve some tantalizing riddles.‘ As Englund noticed, certain signs have values that are quite puzzling in the light of their shape:*? KAS (meaning “bee:”) can be read bi ; Ry (which depicts an animal head) is read giri (“foot”); ‘AB can be read 88 (“sanctuary”); and KAL read guru (“able-bodied worker”). Whittaker pro- poses Indo-European roots that would explain how these readings came to be associated with these signs. The explanation of the reading bi for KAS would lie in Indo-European *pihy, which, ac cording to Whittaker, is the aorist stem of the root *peiy. What he must be referring to, is the zero-grade of the very problematic root *petiy- (> *pdi), *phyi52 + G. Whittaker, “Traces of an eatly Indo-European language in Southern Mesopotamia", Géttinger Beitrdge zur Sprachwissenschaft | (1998), 111-187. + On laryngeals, ste especially RSP. Beckes, The development of the proto-Indo-European laryn- seals in Greek (The Hague, 1969); and P. Scher, The reflexes of the proto-Indo-European laryngeals in Lavin (Anasterdam, 1991), The vast majonty of scholars agree that these laryngeals ~ which Saussore called “coefficients sonantiques” — were consonantal segments, regardless of their actual phonological nature. The Iabel “laryngeal” is taken to be rather conventional, although the dominant hypothesis is that they were fricative consonants. However, it has been proposed that they could have been voealies see R. Reynolds. P. West, and J. Coleman, “Proto-inda-European ‘laryngeals’ were vocalic”, Diachronica 17 (2000), 351-387 47 Fora eitique of Whittaker's theory es put forward in his 1998 article, see G. Rubio, JCS St (1999), 6-8 G. Whittaker, “The dawn of writing and phoneticism’, in Hieroglyphen, Alphabere, Schrifireformen (Lingua Aegyptia, StMon. 3. Gattingen, 3001), pp. 11-50. Englund, “Texts from the late Uruk period”, pp. 80-81 J, Pokorny, indogermanisches etymplogisches Worlerbuch (Bern, 1959), pp. 839-840; 5. Tischer, Hetthinsches etymolagisches Glarsar, 11/12: P (lnasbrack, 2001), pp. 514-516; H, Fesk, Griechisches ‘etymologisches Worterbuch, II (Heidelberg, 1972), pp. 540-42: P. Chantraine, Diciionnaire ét)- motogigue de ta langue grecque (2% ed. Pans, 1999), pp. 94-5, 1425; A. Walde and J.8. Hoffmann, Lateinisches etymologisches Worterbuch, I (Heidelberg, 1965), pp. 105-L04; H Rix, Lexikon der(ON THE LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPE OF EARLY MESOPOTAMIA 325 *peh,i-— Skri. vausative pay-dyati “he gives to drink” — the Balto-Slavie forms *péfél*pijo (Ole Prusian poieiti “he drinks”; OCS pojiti; etc.) exhibit an iterative/ causative suffix 5 *phyi- (> tpihy- ”") > Greek ive {pind}; Skrt. pitd- “drunk”; Albanian pi “I drink” ~but length in Albanian may be secondary.*? *phyi-~» Latin bibs (< *pibo); Faliscan pipdfo “I will drink’ Old Irish ibid (< *pibeti). “pehy- — Skat. pati “he drinks”; Latin potas “dewok”; Greek 68 (impy.). “phy- > Hitt. pas- Ipas-1 “to swallow” < *phy-5-, but perhaps /pas-t as in Skrt, pasta < ‘pehy-s- mid. aor., or /pass-/ with assimilation. ‘The first problem with Whittaker’s root is that the zero-grade of this Indo-European root with the final /-i- is almost exclusively attested in secondary suffixed forms (participles and nominal forms, thematic aorists, like Greek mov, etc.). Thus, his etymology implics that this Indo- European term was analyzed, parsed, and correctly segmented by the speakers who borrowed it. ‘This is actually a gencral problem with all the Indo-European etyma proposed by Whittaker. All of them would have been borrowed as naked roots, with no traces of ease endings, verbal suffixes, personal endings, etc. Infact, in many instances, the borrowers of these lexical items — however fone may want to call them: Sumerians, proto-Euphratics, friends of the plano-convex brick, ete. ~ would have been skillful linguists, familiar not only with the lending language, but also with our last two centuries of historical linguistics. All this seems extremely uolikely. Still, in this case, ‘Whittaker mentions a Sumerian word, piu “beer-jar", which would bear witness to this Indo- European etymon: + Diri V 231 + pi-bu : KAS.USAKA.KAK = pica + Diri V 232 -+ pi-bu : DUGNUNUZ.ABRKAS = pi-fu + Aa VU 147 (MSL 14, p. $12) > pi-bu : NUN[UZ,ABxBI] = [pi-hu] ~ also recon- structed in Ea VIII 241 (MSL 14, p. 483) However, this Sumerian term is most likely an Akkadian loanword, and not the other way around. As von Soden (AHw 853, 862b) and the new Concise dictionary of Akkadian (pp. 274 a, 272a) rightly point out, pibu/pi’x is related to the verb ped (DAKk paha"um, NBab pabi) “to close up. to seal, (with clay, bitumen, etc).” It is important to notice that, when dealing with indogermanischen Verben (Wiesbaden, 1998), pp. 417-18. St M. Monier-Williams ef al, Sanskrit-English dicrionary (Oxford, 1899), 612 2 See S. Demitaj, “Albanian”, in A. Giacalone Ramat and P. Ramat (eds.), The Indo-European lan- guages (London, 1998), pp. 480-501 (esp. 485). 3 TLV. Gamktelidze and V.V. Ivanov, Indo-European and Indo-Europeans (Betlin, 1995), p. 180; $8. Kimball, Hintte historical phonology (Innsbruck, 1999), pp. 150, 403; H.C. Melchert, Anatolian his- torical phonology (Amsterdam, 1994), p. 77 % The Akkadian root may be related to the Semitic ayin-ayin root *phik: Arabic / /fabb (pl. 2h Hibabl, fowh Iubib/) “trap, snare”; BibHed ph /pati ( “pakh) “trapping net": Sync ph” /pabha/ ‘(EsstSyi), /pahil (WestSyt) “trap, snare”; see H. Wehr, Arabic-English dictionary 3 ed. Ithaca, NY, 1976), p. 699a; L. Koehler, W. Baumgarinr etal, Hebrew and Aramaic lexicon (Leiden, 1994-2000), p 92% R. Payne Smith, Thesaurus syriacus (Oxford, 1879-1901), 3080. For the connection with Egyptian ph3/p and Coptic pai, see W. Vycichl, Dictionnaire éiymologique de la langue copie (Leuven, 1983), p. 166b; G. Takécs, Exymologicai dicnonary of Egyptian, I! (Leiden, 2001), pp. 498-09 On CiC:C; stems in Semitic, see esp. Z. Fraizyngier, “Notes on the RRs stems in Semitic”, JCS 24 (1977), 1-12. Usually, the correspondence is between ayin-ayin verbs and second-weak or hollow verbsMSe 14 326 G. RUBIO biconsonantal lexemes and under the reasonable assumption of dominant trilitealismn, Akkadian ebir,) + Aa W/1 172 (MSL 14, p. 412) e-pir : KAS = kannu Ja KAS (> €pir) + Nalonitu XI (= XXM) 21 (MSL. 16, p. 191) ~ Ble-piric: KAS = kann Sa "KAS (> épir) ‘The Sumerian refers to a kind of kannu used by brewers, probably a rack or metal potstand t0 support containers with pointed bottoms (CAD K, 154-S6). The semantic association between KAS and épir/e bir, would have been instrumental in the generation of the reading bi 55 Concerning the sign gi ri, itis true that it looks like the head of a bull or some similar ani- ‘mal, However, long after the sign ceased to resemble any animal head, it was still used alone or in combinations to write names of animals: + Proto-Ea 568 (MSL 14, p. 54) = a-li-im = GIRxIGE + Proto- Ea 566 (MSL P& p. 54) + an-Su : GIR (Semiticized form of anc) ese readings are early enough, s0 they do not have anything to do with the merger of PIRIG ‘and GIR in the Neo-Assyrian syllabary (even so, ‘a and Syllabary B still kept separate sections for both of them). GIR may have been the sign for an animal whose name was something like Fiz/ or /itif or the like (as in the reading ir attested in Proto-Ea 563 already). Then, it was used phonetically for giri “foot”, but also for an animal whose shape was somehow represented by this sign, as the two mentions in Proto-Ea illustrate. One has t0 Keep in mind that hundreds of lexical substitutions take place in a language. For instance, Sumerian exhibits traces of having used a word for city other than URU/iti in the past, which was substituted by this Semitic loan- ‘word. This triggered another lexical replacement in Akkadian, which used the word for “people” or buman group (*ahlu > alu) for the seitlement of a group, a city.%® ‘The Indo-European side of Whittaker's proposal here is not without problems either 57 He pre- sents an Indo-European root for “deer” and “ox” as *Ker(hs)-wo-, derived from *ker-, the root meaning “head” and “horn.” This isa difficult root, which occurs with a wide variety of suffixes and root grades.5* Two of the possible extensions of the root *Ker- are the laryngeal suffix -hy (which cannot be part of the root, as Whittaker implies) and the -wo- suffix (a velar glide followed ee 0ce) For another expianaton of she reading i of KAS (oased on the reading bi2). see J. Cooper, “Sumer et Sumésigns” in J Briend et al eds), Suplément au Dictionnaire dela Bible, fase. 72 (Pats, 1995), pp. 78:95 (esp. 90), * P. Michalowski, “On the early toponymy of Sumer: A contribution to the study of early Mesopotamian writing”, in A. F. Rainey (ed), Knarttu $a dards Raphael Kutscher memorial volume (Tel Avi, 1993), pp 119-135 (esp. 123}; Rubio, JCS 31 (1009), 71. 13. "Whittaker, “The dawn of writing and phoneticism”, p. 16. See A.J. Nussbaum, Head and horn in Indo-European (Betlin, 1986); and D.Q. Adams, ““Head’ and “hom in Tocharian and Albanian in L.Isebaer (ed), Studia epmologica indoeuropea memoriae A. van Windekens dicata (Louvain, 1991), pp. 3-11(ON THE LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPE OF EARLY MESOPOTAMIA 327 by a thematic vowel, generating adjectives). The problem is that these two suffixes are mutually exclusive here, as Nussbaum and Adams have pointed out. It would be difficult to imagine a clear way to produce a final front vowel in the Indo-European toot, as a connection with giri ‘would require. Furthermore, the Sumétian word has an initial voiced velar nasal, /B/ ot /fi, but the Indo-European root has a voiceless palatal, which would call for some rather unusual phonetic aw 0 Likewise, the other proposals concerning the signs AB and KAL can be criticized on similar grounds ~ in the case of the reading guru¥ of KAL these is a semantic association berween Kal adg) “mighty, strong” and guru “able-bodied man.” Whittaker's use of his alleged Indo- European substratum to explain sign readings is always marred with serious methodological prob- Jems, For instance, the cuneiform sign derived from an archaic sign with the shape of a fish (ZATU-216 = ZATU-302-gunti = HA-guni) is used to write pe8 ("to be wide”, Ak. rapaiu; CAD R, 153-58). This is explained by Whittaker in the ight of hypothetical Indo-European "Ypeisk- “fish” (this root does not have a palatal, soit should be *pisk-/*petsk-).*! The problem is that this concrete word for fish is dialectal in Indo-European, for it is attested oniy in Ttalic, Celtic, Germanic, and perhaps also in Slavic (that is, properly speaking, in no eastern language): Latin piscis, Old Irish fase (< *peiskos); Gothic fisks; Old Norse fiskr; and perhaps also Russian meckape/Mmucxaps “gudgeon” and Polish piskorz.® In fact, among all the Indo-European roots, used by Whittaker in his 1998 and 2001 erticles, a significant percentage are exclusively dialectal, attested only in closely related western branches of Indo-European (such as Celtic and Italic, Balto-Slavic, etc.) This is obviously another serious problem for his proposal. According to Whittaker, Sumerian nirab would mean simply “snake, addes” — which inci- dentally may well be a secondary meaning derived from the name of a minor chthonic deity — ama ‘would come from an Indo-European word for snake *nehy-tr-ehp Steinkeller argued that ¢MUS should be read *irhan already in the 3°! millennium, and, therefore, the alternation between irhan and nira may be motivated by some linguistic taboo or euphemism. However, Wiggermann regards nirab and irhan as ws different terms, the latter referring to an ophid- jan waterway (the western branch of the Euphrates, Arabru in Akkadian) probably from the Semitic root Vr (Akkadian araiu “to hurry, hasten”; Hebrew ara “to be on the road, to watt der; etc.) 55 The eme-sal form is Serah, which exhibits a well-attested alternation: main dialect {/ versus eme-sal (9.% Whether nirab is secondary to irban (as Steinkeller argues) or both are two different words eventually confused due to phonetic and semantic similarities, the main ® See Nussbaum, Head and hor in Indo-European, p.9; Adams, Head’ and “horn in Tochatian and Albanian”, p. 9 © J. Kreches, “Das sumerische Phonem /f/, in B. HraSka end G. Komorécay (eds), Festschri) Labor Matous Budapest, 1978) vol Tl, pp. 7-73 (eS. 46); M. Schreter, Emesal-Studien (lansbruck, 1990). p. 212. 8 Whittaker, “The dawn of writing and phoneticism”, p. 18 © But see M. Vasmer, Stamonorwseccu cavaps pycrKoro Aaxxa (rans) O.N. Trubacheva, Moskow. 1964ft.), vol. 3, p. 257 © Whittaker, “The dawn of writing and phoneticism”, pp. 19-20. % P. Steinkeller, Sale documents of the Ur-Ii-period (Stuttgart, 1989), p. 244 FAM, Wiggermann, “Nirab, Irban’, RUA 9 (2001), 570-74. For the Semitic root, see D. Cohen, Dictionnaire des racines sémitiques, 1 (The Hague, 1970), pp, 32-33. © M, Senretter, Fmesal-Studien, pp. 68-68, 255; Wiggermann, RIA 9, 570328 * G.RUBIO problem with Whittaker’s proposal lies in the Indo-European evidence. His Indo-European word for snake, *neh,-treh, is attested exclusively in Italic, Celtic, and Germanic: Latin natrix “water snake", Gothic nadré, Old Norse nadr, Old High German natara (German Natter) “adder”; Old English naeddre, English adder (< an adder < *nadder).* As in the case of the Indo-European term for “fish”, this is a dialectal word attested only in western Indo-European languages, which heavily undermines Whittaker's proposal. One could go on pointing out serious problems both in the Sumerian and in the Indo- European data used by Whittaker. Although in his 1998 paper he tried to offer some seemingly regular phonetic correspondences, in his most recent contribution he has opted for a less strict approach. Frequently, his alleged etyma may not even be Indo-European, as in the case of European hysiconyms with fal In sum, besides janumerous matters of detail that would take ‘many pages to enumerate, Whittaker’ proposal presents three serious pitfalls: (1) a large number of his TE etyma are attested only in one branch of Indo-European, gener- ally a Western branch, which makes them dialectal and perhaps not even part of the ‘common Indo-European lexicon; (2) all his Indo-European loanwords would have been borrowed as pure roots, which im- plies that Whittaker’s Sumerians had to be quite familiar with Indo-European tin- uistics;7? (3) finally, although Whittaker does not claim a real genetic relationship between Sumerian © Unsurprisingly, matric refers to “penis” in Lucius, Sar. 2, 72: si manus natricem impress eras- sam et copliatam (iC be has imprinted his fat and big-headed ‘Snake’ upon the buttocks") & See Pokorny, Indogermanisches etymologisches Warterbuch,p. 767 © Whitaker, “The dawn of weiiog and phoneticism”, pp. 16-17. For instance, he links Sumerian ambar (LAGABxA) “reed marsh” (Ak. apparu; CAD A/2, 179-181) to a reconstructed Celtic hy- ronym "Ambra (Pokorny, Indogermanisches etymolagisches Warterbuch, p. 316). In fact, recon siructed IE /a is normally limited to expressive roots (ike “Iaughing", Skt kathad, ete), perhaps some verbal endings, anlaut, and loanwords, This would seem supported by the fact that so many old hiyéronyms in Europe have /a, but not so many outside tha area. These hydronyms were interpreted by HL Krahe (@4., Unsere aliesten Flupnamen, Wiesbaden, 1964) as par of an Olé European scbsa1um (Atteuropa, not to be confused with Gimbulas’ “Old Europe”) of Indo-European lexicon. Moreover, Th Vennemann (Europa Vasconica - Europa Semitica, Bern, 2003) has taken Krabe's theory literally 10 another dimension. Vennemann argues that this alfeuropaisch substratum is Basque (or “Vasnonic", ie, 9 proto-Basque of sorts) and coexisted with a Semitic or Afto-Asiatic subseatum throughout Enrope; but see, for instance, R.L. Trask, The history of Basque (London, 1997), pp. 364-68: D. Boutkan and MG. Kossmann, “Some Berber paralels of European substratum words, Journal of Indo-European Studies 71 (999), 87-100; G, Rubio, Language 75 (1999), 847, W.P. Schmid, “Was Gewisseramen in Europa besagen”, Akacemie-Journal 2 (2001), 42-45. Regardless of Krahe's and Veanemann’s theories, most TE /al’s would seem the result of *h,¢ sequences. Concerning the debate on this vowel, see A. Lubotsky, “Agsinst a Proto-Indo-Europesn ghoneme a", in Th, Vennemann (ed), The new sound of Indo-European (Berlin, 1989), pp. 3-66, 0. Snemerényi, “The new sound of Indo-European”, Diachronica 6 (1989), 237-269, F. Villa, “The Indo-European vowels /a/ and fo! revisited”, in B. [Brogyanyi and R. Lipp (eds), Comparative-historical linguistics: Indo-European and Finno-Usric (Papers in honor of O. Szemerényi. 3. Amsterdarn, 1993), pp, 139-162. °® The process of nativization of the morphology of a borrowed foreign lexeme can involve both pho- netics and morphology. Inthe latter case, itis impossible to analyze the borrowed terms according to tte morphology of he lending language, since the borrowing speakers are competent only in the mor phology of the borrowing language. Moreover, these speakers would have to kriow historical lingus tics to correctly analyze reconstructed proto-Indo-European roots. On lexical borrowing, see HH. Hock, Principles of historical linguistics @Q™ ed. Berlin, 1981), pp. 390-404.(ON THE LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPE OF EARLY MESOPOTAMIA 329 and Indo-European, he gives Indo-European etymologies for every single Sumerian ‘word he mentions in his two papers an the subject. Infact, his proposal is not sig- nificantly different from Hayrup's ereotization hypothesis: the Sumerian lexicon ‘would ultimately be all Indo-European, whereas the grammar would be “Sumerian”” (whatever the latter may mean to hit). ‘Thus, in essence Whittaker is traveling the same road many others have traveled before and will keep traveling in the future, only that Whittaker has an easier time since he is not claiming a common ancestry for Sumerian and Indo-European, which does not impose on him the require- ‘ment of finding common morphology. Others before him faced a tougher task in trying to find shared morphological elements." However, Whittaker chooses the much easier route of identify- ing a ghostly substratum of Indo-European lexicon, which would have been borrowed by ‘Sumerian speakers after they cazefully — and conveniently for Whittaker ~ analyzed every lexeme and removed any morphological markers (suffixes, case endings, etc.). Again, methodologically speaking, Whittaker's approach does not substantially differ from any previous attempt at linking Sumerian to anything one could imagine (Hungarian, Turkish, Banwa, Tibetan, Basque, Kartvelian, etc.): the proponent of such a theory shows the same lack of scholarly familiariny with the two sets of comparanda, in this case, Sumerian and Indo-European.” Eventually, as in most of these comparisons, the bottom line is numerical. With a couple of large dictionaries and a rather liberal understanding of methodology, anyone can find fifty or a hundred look-alikes ex- hibiting very close meanings in two different languages.”> Indeed, there has been a long debate about the probabilistic aspect of comparing CVC roots between two languages or language families.” The discussion has been polarized by the works of Ringe, on the one hand, and those of Baxter and Manaster Ramer, on the other. In actuality, both. sides are measuring different probabilities. Baxter only tests the configuration of similarities that, is actually found rather than (as Ringe does) for all configurations that are equally probable to it and therefore equally acceptable. The number of consonantal and vacalic segments a human can utter is limited, and the naturalness of their combinations in close sequences is also restricted by anatomic constraints. Thus, the possibilities of finding a set of look-alikes With similar meanings, in two different languages is quite high, especially when morphology is completely and artifi- * C. Autran, Sumérien et Indo-européen: L'aspect morphologique de la question (Paris, 1925); NM. Holmer, “A Proto-European consonant system and the pronunciation of Sumerian”, Studia Linguistica 3 (1949), 1-17, but see E. Sollberger, in Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure 8 (3949), 75-78, ® ‘The profile of the practitioner of this specific sub-genre of fictional linguistics (i.e. the amateur Sumerologist) closely resembles that of the amateur mathematician; see the delightful description in Pi. Davis and R, Hersh, The mathematical experience (Boston, 1981), pp. 55-56. ® Recently, Trask provided an interesting reducio ad absurdum of all the hypotheses linking Basque to other languages. Trask (The history of Basque, pp. 4\2-15) found a language that had never been ‘compared to Basque (Hungarian), and he generated a list of sixty-five apparent cognates (look-alikes), with similar shapes and meanings. In fac, his mock exercise is much better than al previous attempts. % D.A. Ringe, On calculating the factor of chance in language comparison (Philadelphia, 1992), id. “How hard is it to match CVC-100%s?” Transactions of the Philolosical Society 97 (1999), 213-244, W.H. Baxter and A, Manasiet Ramer, Review of Ringe, On calculating ... in Diachronica 13 (1996), 371-84; Baxter, “Response to Oswalt and Ringe”, in J.C. Salmons and B.D. Joseph (eds.), NosiMric Sifting'the evidence (Amsterdam, 1998), pp. 217-236; Baxter and Manaster Ramer. “Beyond lumping. ‘and splitting: Probabilistic issues in historical linguistics", in C. Renfrew et al (2ds.), Time depth in istorical linguistics (Cambridge, 2000), vol. 1, pp. 167-188330 G.RUBIO cially disregarded. Similarities snd isomorphisms in different languages and cultures constitute a tantalizing phenomena, but, as seen above, the devil isin the details. ‘A detailed discussion of the archeological aspects pertaining to Whittaker’s proposal should be lefi for another occasion, There is a plethora of hypotheses concerning the original Indo-European homeland: the south of the Caucasus, eastern Anatolia, and northern Mesopotamia:”® the Balkans; the Pontic steppe of southern Russia, from the Dniepr to the Volga (the famous ‘urgan theory):"” ete, However, there is no evidence ~ and no coherent and articulated theory — of ‘an carly Indo-European presence in southern Mesopotamia. As far as the evidence goes and besides soe Wanderworter (such 45 the word for “wine”), most contacts between Indo-European and non-Indo-European languages (Semitic, Sumerian, etc.) in the Ancient Near East took place in his- torical times.” Even within the realm of historically grounded evidence, most claims concerning Indo-European and (especislly) Indo-Aryan proposed loanWords ir. Ancient Near Eastern languages ‘are not without serious problems? 4, Theories and metaphors: A landscape without fringes. Im the linguistic fandscape of Early Mesopotainia, there are two languages, Sumerian and Akkadian, that have left abundant written records. In spite of Englund’s cautious contentions, there is no conclusive reason to think that the archaic texts from the Late Uruk period are in a lan- ‘guage other than Sumerian (especially when such a hypothetical language is otherwise completely unknown). Of course, in this landscape there was space for other langages, some of them known only by name and a few lexical items (Triimmerspracken, Restsprachen, and Reliktsprachen), and some now vanished without a trace. The linguistic picture of early Mesopotamia should be that of 4 fluid and variegated canvas of words traveling together with the objects and techniques they des- ignate (Wanderworter, Kulturworter), of diverse languages and their dialects (some vanished, some preserved in written records), all of them sharing the same space and frequently the same speakers.® Even within a well-defined language family, such as Semitic, the early mechanisms of % Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, Indo-European and Indo-Europeans (Bectin, 1995). For a proposal that attempts to harmonize the Anatolian hypothesis with Gimbutas’s "Old Europe". see C., Renfrew, “Time epth, convergence theory, and innovation in proto-Indo-Buropean", Journal of Inda-Eurapean Studies 27 (1999), 257-293. % LM, Diakonoff, “On the original home of the speakers of Indo-European”, Soviet Anthropology and Archeology 23 (1984), 5-87; G. Steiner, “The immigration of the first Indo-Europeans into Anatolia reconsidered”, Joumal of Indo-European Studies 18 (1990), 185-216. 7 M.A. Gimbutas, The prehistory of eastern Europe, 1: Mesolithic, neolithic and copper age cultures in Russia and the Baltic area (Cambridge, Mass., 1956); ead., The kurgan culture and the Indo-Europeanization of Europe (Washington, D.C., 1997), % See Rubio, JCS 51 (1999), 8-11. Concerning some alleged carly loanwords, see also R. Anttila, Greek and Indo-European etymology in action: Proto-Indo-European “ag (Ainserdarn, 2000), pp. 91- 92, 134-35, 140; Rubio, Language 74 (1998), 656-57 ® See, for instance. M. O'Connor, “Semitic ¢mgn and its supposed Sansitt origin”, JAOS 109 (1989), 25-32. The two most coherent presentations of the diverse arguments conceming an alleged Indo-Aryan Presence in the Ancient Near East were published by M. Mayrhofer (Die Indo-Arier im alten Vorderasien, Wiesbaden, 1966) and by A. Karmehuber (Die Arier im Vorderen Orient, Heidetbers, 1968); but see the devastating and well-founded critique put forward by LM. Diskonoff, “Die Arier im Vorderen Orient: Ende eines Mythos", OrNS i (1972) 91-120. ® Wanderwort is the label used for a word that travels beyond the boundaries of any concrete Jan- ‘guage contact setting and spreads throughout 2 number of languages, many of them being substantially(ON THE LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPE OF EARLY MESOPOTAMIA, 331 language relationship and the continuous phenomena of language contact within the same branch and family render a profoundly complex tapestry of interconnections, which can hardly be reduced to the Procrustean bed of the Stammbaum-Mfodelle 8 On the grounds of this landscape, there was no idemifiable single substratum (proto-Buphratic, Indo-European, or otherwise) that would have left, in a sort of primeval age, its vestiges in the ‘Sumerian lexicon. Furthermore, the speculative concern about origins, to the point of Ur-mania (Urheimat, Ursprache, substratum, etc.), does not pertain to the realm of historical events but rather to a specific frame of intellectual anxieties. To ask where the Sumerians came from, to ask ‘who was there before them, may well be self-deceiving, [f one were to ask where Americans (i.e., US citizens) came from, the answer would be simple: from nowhere; they became Americans because they came to America® Within the inexhaustible debate on the Indo-European Urheimat, it has been insinuated that the Grail of primordial Indo-European-ness was achieved through a process of synthesis resulting from cultural contact. If one follows this to its ultimate conse quences, it will have to be concluded that Indo-Europeans did not come from any unfathomable Urheimat, but were the result of a complex set of variables (from cultural interaction to physical migration). In the case of Sumerians, the problem is compounded by the fact that “Sumerian” is, not exactly a straightforward ethnonym, and all discussions of the so-called “Sumerian question” ‘all always venture into the treacherous waters of inking language (and anthroponyms) to ethnic- ity, however the latter concept is construed. In this respect, itis important to notice the presence. of Semitic names among the scribes mentioned in colophons of texts from the Para-period.*5 separated by geography and time. Kulturwort refers to a word attested in more than one language but ‘without a clear and specific etymology or language soxce: on the latter, see P.V, Mankowski, Akkadian loanwords in Biblical Hebrew (HSS 47. Winona Lake, Ind., 2000), pp.7-8. Both concepts are common. currency among historical linguists, and not only among philologists and lexicographers; see, for instance, H.H. Hock and B.D. Joseph, Language history, language change, and language relationship (Berin, 1996), pp. 254-55, 514; Witzel, Electric Journal of Vedic Studies 7 (2001), pp. 0-51 "See Rubio, “Falling trees and forking tongues: The place of Akkadian and Eblaite within Semitic”, ia L. Kogan (ed), Studia Semitica: Fs, A. Militarev (Moscow, 2003), pp. 152-189. "On the autochthonous approach to “the Sumerian problem”, see also G. Komoréesy, “Das Rutsel der sumerischen Sprache als Problem der Fruageschiette Vorderasiens”, in B. Hrutka and G. Komoréezy (eds,), Festschrisft Lubor Matous, I-11 (Budapest, 1978), vol. 1, pp. 225-252. © Gimbutas, “Remarks on the ettnogenesis ofthe Indo-Europeans in Europe", in W. Bemhard and A. Kandler-Parsion (eds), Ethnogenese europaischen Viilker (Siuitgart, 1986), pp. $-20 (ceprinted in The leurgan culture and the Indo-Europeanization of Earope, Washington, D.C., 1997); B. Sergent, Les Indo-Européens: Histoire, langues, mythes (Pati, 1995), pp. 398-426; id, “Les Indo-Européens et ‘arehéologie”, SEL 16 (1999), 85-95, © See, for instance, FR. Kraus, Sumerer und Akkader: Ein Probiem der alimesopotamischen Geschichte (Mededelingen der Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschapyen, Afé. Letterkunde, NR 33/8. Amsterdam, 1970); J. Gelb, “Sumerians and Akkadians in their ethno-lingwstic selationship, Genava 8 (1960), 258-271; J.8, Cooper, “Sumerian and Akkadian in Sumer and Akad”, OrNS 42 (1973), 239-246, id., “Sumer et Sumériens”, in J. Briend et al. eds.), Supplémement au Dictionaire de ta Bible, fasc. 72 (Paris, 1999), 78-93; id., “Sumerian and Semitic writing in ancient ‘Sj1o-Mesopotamia”, in X. van Lesberghe and G. Voet (eds), Languages and cultures in contact (42° CRRAI, OLA 96. Leuven, 1999), pp. 61-7; W. Heimpel, “Sumerische und akkadische Personennamen in Sumer und Akkad”, AfO 35 (1974-77), ViN-174. See RID. Biggs. “Semitic Names in the Fara Period”. OrNS 36 (1967), 55-66: P. Mander, “I colofoni di Fara, Abu-Salabikh ed Ebia: Approccio prosopografico", in L. Cagni (ed.), I bilinguismo a Ebla (Naples, 1984), pp. 337-365. Conceming Early Dynastic anthroponyms in general, see R.D. Biggs, “The Semitic personal names from Abu Salabikh and the personal names from Ebi", in Eblaite personal332 G.RUBIO Nonetheless, neither did the bearing of a Semitic name necessarily mean that the bearer spoke Semitic, nor did the presence of a Sumerian name point to anything other than social and reli- sious context. In the light of the difficulties of drawing any ethno-linguistic picture of early Mesopotamia, the old Sumerian/Akkadian dichotomy has sometimes been substituted with another allegedly more subtle: North (ic, Semitic) versus South (Je., Sumerian).®” Regardless of the background issue of land tenure systems, this geographic dichotomy is largely a recycled ver- sion of what Heimpel called Zivei-Votker-Geschichte, as opposed to the Ein-Volk-Geschichte ad~ vocated by Kraus, Cooper, and others. Jin spite of the unsatisfactory nature of our fragmentary knowledge of the linguistic and ethnic mosaic of early Mesopotamia, it is not with far-reaching fringe theories that one should try to an~ swer our questions. Instead, one should embrace the sobering metaphor of a multilayered and var- iegated landscape formed by innumerable linguistic, ethnic, and cultural elements, many of which are lost to us for ever. As the Portuguese poet Femando Pessoa once wrote, “a state of the sou! is a landscape; there would be in this phrase the advantage of not containing the lie of a theory, but solely the truth of a metaphor” (umm estado da alma é uma paisagem; haveria na frase a vantagem de ndo conter a mentira de uma teoria, mas ido-somente a verdade dle uma metdfora).# names and Semitic name giving (ARES 1. Rome, 1988), pp. 89-98; A. Westenholz, “Personal names in Ebla and in Pre-Sargonic Babylonia”, in Eblaite personal names ..., pp. 99-117; F. Pomponio, “I nomi ppersonali dei testi administrativi di Abu Salabit”, SEL & (1991), 141-47, % ‘See Kraus, Sumerer und Akkader, pp. 17-19; M, Krebernik, “Zur Strukrur und Geschichte des alteren sumerischen Onomastikons", in M.P. Streck and S. Weninger (eds.), Altorientalische und semitische Onomastik (AVAL 236, Minster, 2002), pp. 1-74 (esp. 50-51), "See Gelb, Genava & (1960), 258-271; P. Steinkeller, “Early political development in Mesopotamia and the origins of the Sargonic empire”, in M. Liverani (ed.), Akkad: The First World Empire (Padua, 1993), pp. 107-129; Cl, Wilcke, “Politik im Spiegel der Literatur, Literatur als Mittel der Politik im ‘dteren Babylonien”, in K. Raaflaub (ed), Anfinge politischen Denkens in der Antike (Munich, 1993), pp. 29-75, E, Pessoa, 0 livro do desassossego composto por Bernardo Soares, $72.