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An Akkadian Handbook: Paradigms, Helps, Logograms and Sign Lists

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AN AKKADIAN HANDBOOK : Paradigms, Helps, Glossary, Logograms, & Sign List. By Douglas B. Miller and R. Mark Shipp. 163 pp. Winona Lake, Indiana : Eisenbrauns, 1996. ISBN 0-931464-86-2 (pbk.)

This is one of those extremely useful books like Edwin G. Pulleyblank's 'Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar' (1995) - in other words, _NOT_ a textbook for lesson-by-lesson study of a language, but a handy compendium and reference work which packs a lot of information into a convenient and easy-to-consult package, and which can help solve problems that can crop up when engaged in the study of a formal textbook.

The basic resources included in the present reference work are paradigms of nouns and verbs, a glossary of common proper names, an index of single and composite logograms, an index of Akkadian words commonly written in logograms, a reverse index of composite logograms by constituent sign number, and a complete sign list accompanied by a comprehensive index of all sign values. In short, the book summarizes all of the basic resource materials needed for the study of Akkadian.

The book is a full-sized 8vo (9 by 6 inches), beautifully printed on good paper, and is bound in a reasonably sturdy glossy wrapper, though unfortunately it has a glued spine and won't open flat. The idea that books should be openable seems, like much else, to have fallen victim to progress.

But hey! You can't have everything, and perhaps we should be happy with what we have been given - a well-organized and well-printed manual that all students of Akkadian will find indispensable. It makes a perfect companion to the excellent Marcus self-teaching manual for beginners :

A MANUAL OF AKKADIAN by David Marcus. 182 pp. New York : University Press of America, 1978. ISBN 0-8191-0608-9 (pbk.)

Equipped with these two, serious application should soon see anyone reading passages in cuneiform from 'The Code of Hammurapi,' 'The Descent of Ishtar,' and 'The Annals of Sennacherib' with real enjoyment.

First off, this book will NOT teach you Akkadian. (For that, use Huehnergard's "Grammar of Akkadian", and be sure to get the companion "Key to a Grammar of Akkadian"). But if you have already started learning Akkadian, whether with Huehnergard, Riemschneider, Caplice, or Marcus, this book will help you immensely. Part I is a summary of paradigms, concentrating obviously on verbal forms. Part II is "Helps"; alphabetical order, alternate terminology for verbs, numbers, common abbreviations, etc. Part III is a 30-page or so compilation of proper names you'll come across. The heart of Part IV is a listing of the most common cuneiform signs (Neo-Assyrian variant). It is based on the sign lists of Labat and Borger. There are several indices to look up a sign, given its syllabic or logographic value. Again, this book won't teach you Akkadian, but as a companion volume to whatever text you're using, it's well organized, easy to use, and darn near indispensible.

I like the way the book is formatted.As a primer it gives what we need to disentangle the maze of abstract logos, keilschrifts and determinatives.However, reader ready to expect more should proceed with John Huebner or buy Daniel Snell's Workbook of Cuneiform Signs.

It is short book for the beginners and including all you want from the dictionaries, grammer, glossar. It was help me very much!