Manuel d'epigraphie akkadienne: Signes, syllabaire, ideogrammes (Geuthner manuels) (French Edition) [Paperback]

Rene Labat (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: French

Product Details

• Paperback: 346 pages
• Publisher: Librairie orientalisle P. Geuthner (1995)
• Language: French
• ISBN-10: 2705335838
• ISBN-13: 978-2705335830
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,644,963 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a crime that this should be out of print, April 14, 2009

By 

Elizabeth C. Larocca-pitts (Athens, GA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Manuel d'Epigraphie Akkadienne: Signes Syllabaire Ideogrammes (French Edition) (Paperback)

In spite of the fact that my old Akkadian teacher is spinning in his grave over the fact that I should be the only one to write a review of one of the most miraculous books ever produced for Assyriologists, let me say that generations of scholars have depended on this most beautiful text for their knowledge and understanding of cuneiform writing. It is page after page of handdrawn cuneiform signs, showing their development throught he ages and giving definitions of their values and use in various periods. While some of the data is no doubt dated, and some will not find this type of work of great value in the modern age, it has, nonetheless been a priceless asset to many over the years.

5.0 out of 5 stars Fundamental and indispensible for Sumerian, September 23, 2010

By 

Jacques COULARDEAU "A soul doctor, so to say" (OLLIERGUES France) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Manuel d'epigraphie akkadienne: Signes, syllabaire, ideogrammes (Geuthner manuels) (French Edition) (Paperback)

This manual is an essential tool for anyone who wants to understand Sumerian and work in the field. It is French, true, but it has not been yet equaled and you do not need French really. Just work on the Sumerian signs and on their transcriptions in Sumerian. Of course you do not need to know Akkadian though the book is overloaded with Akkadian translations all the time. The frontal index of all the signs is interesting for you to visually identify those you need to find. Then the left page that gives the full graphic history of each sign is also essential if you happen to work on documents slightly older than the most recent period. The right page gives the most updated form pf the sign and great notes on compounds and other lexical connections of each sign. The back index of all signs listed alphabetically this time under their Sumerian names is also extremely useful to cross your research especially since all the "values" of each sign are listed and some sign are homophonous or have multiple transcriptions for up to one dozen values or even more. The third index of Akkadian words and their reference to the Sumerian signs is out of place. But well, it might be useful for an Akkadian student, though the translations are only in French. This Akkadian choice is regrettable and it covers up in some ways some fundamental facts. Some compounds are written from right to left, against the normal rule for Sumerian which is written from left to right, and that in spite of the fact that they are of course read in the other direction. That is not explained and we cannot know which word is going to be written from left to write and which one is going to be written from right to left. Some very common words are in the second category like "lugal" which is in its transcription written like that and spoken or read like that and yet the word is calligraphically written in the other direction and the signs read GAL-LU. It is also absurd to learn page 4 that the book was abandoned and would not be enriched any more starting - or finishing - in 1994 and that the sixth edition was the last and it was to be published till 2002. Since then nothing, no one has taken over and decided to pick up the work. No one or nearly no one, at least no one in France or even Europe. There is only one other enterprise on the subject and this time free on the Internet, an Akkadian Course again, by John Heise. The advantage of this one is that the signs can easily be copied and imported into your own computer so that you can easily write and compose according to your needs. The great advantage of Labat's book is the left historical page and the absence of this history of the signs, or at times of some variants, in John Heise's work is hampering our work. This very afternoon in a Sumerian proverb I had an older Babylonian or Assyrian sign and I could not find its equivalent in John Heise's list. In the same way some merged signs are not always given by John Heise, like for instance "úkur" and you have to go to Labat's list to find the two signs separately and recompose the compound that Labat is giving. Luckily the numbering of the signs in Labat's manual and in Heise's Course are the same. Labat just gives the compounds most of the time along with the basic signs. This is very technical of course but Labat's book being only second hand it is very expensive and there must be some good reason, and there are, to incite a research worker to invest, if necessary, in one copy. But John Heise should improve his own course along the line of Labat's manual.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID