A Manual of Sumerian Grammar and Texts (AIDS And Research Tools in Ancient Near Eastern Studies, No 5) 2nd Edition

by John L. Hayes (Author)

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Undena Pubns; 2nd Edition (January 1, 2000)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 311 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0890031975
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0890031971
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.5 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.75 x 0.75 x 11 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #4,188,678 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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A Splendid Introduction to Sumerian

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 16, 2012

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(This review is for the first edition.)

In the Manual of Sumerian, Hayes starts you off with a good introduction to what you're getting yourself into, in terms of signs, in terms of grammar and in terms of studying a language that is not fully understood even by its finest scholars. Once you hop into the lessons, though, the language comes fast. Other reviewers have noted how often you find yourself reading the same sentence, but given that the texts are drawn mostly from inscriptions this is hardly a surprise. It's not as though building cornerstones are generally used for avant-garde literature. However, there's something reassuring in this. It's genuinely neat to be four or five chapters in, flip ahead a little and discover you have some sense of what the text is about, even though you can also tell that you'd really better do the chapters in the middle to fill in the gaps.

The one warning to give about this text is that with relatively limited content, you won't be learning the whole of the language. You'll be learning, as I indicated, to read standard inscriptions. If you're wandering about a Sumerian site and find an as yet unnoticed brick, you'll have a good shot at understanding whether it came from a a temple, a bridge or a palace, who ordered its construction and which god it was dedicated to. If you find a tablet with a missing part of an old Gilgamesh story, you're going to need some help. That said, this is a wonderful introduction, all the more wonderful because you get both a lot of insight into the language and the experience of looking at ancient inscriptions and knowing, almost at a glance, what they're about.

For anyone who wants to find out what Sumerian is all about, I would highly recommend this as the place to start.

10 people found this helpful

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Edwin Mendez

What all other reviewers have said are on point.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 4, 2019

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Can't add much to what has already been said by previous reviewers except that, because the language is an isolate, and thus foreign to any language here, the author gives cultural, historical, and linguistic commentaries of each inscription and word in the inscription. It is an excellent guide and pretty solid introduction, especially since there isn't much out there for Sumerian grammars. This is good enough that I flipped through half of it twice and am interested in ordering an electric copy if Logos software owned by faithlife digitizes it. If not, i'll be satisfied with a second paperback copy since my first is getting worn. Even at the price it's at, it's that good, that is, good enough to compel one to buy a second copy for reference, though there are other Sumerian grammars made for that purpose.

Another thing to add is, the author of the grammar is open about the reality that much of Sumerian is debated by the finest specialist. This transparency, along with his reference to other scholars in the field gives a lot of credibility to this guide.

3 people found this helpful

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Jonathan

controversial, heavy at times, but v good

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 18, 2013

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The book is controversial. In part, this is because not many complete texts exist. In part, it is because Assyriology is studied by only a few people (all of whom know each other on first-surname terms). Sumerian is a tiny, tiny, nearly infinitesimal fraction of that. Divide a few by a lot and it's easy to see why there's a problem.

This means that all books on Sumerology will make assumptions that you should be wary of. Some more than others, as some aspects are better studied. You do not need to know the nuances of Sumerian to translate the poems and stories of Inanna, or the epic of Gilgamish, but obviously the more you know the richer the translations can be without silly mistakes.

As a guide to one of the paths Sumerologists have explored, this book is great. It has a lot of detail, key information on writing styles, the grammar, etc. It goes into all this in intense depth, so make a backup copy of your brain first.

It is not "the definitive guide" because there isn't one. It is one interpretation of the extant data, there are other books that are equally valid interpretations of the same data which differ on many points. No matter what you get, keep an open mind. If you get this with an eye to becoming an archaeologist in that region, be prepared to write the next edition.

14 people found this helpful

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Alain MARIE

this grammar meets completely my expectations

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 5, 2021

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This grammar meets completely my expectations in terms of grammar explanations, text examples, translations and vocabulary. It is a relatively large book, maybe daunting initially so I would recommend to start with a more approachable book such as "Learn to read ancient Sumerian" and then follow with this grammar. With its large format, it allows for sufficiently large fonts to read the cuneiform versions and corresponding transliterations. Very happy with my purchase so far.

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M. Sharkansky

Too pity the language is dead...

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 24, 2005

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I bought this book under inspiration of Sitchin writings, to get an additional dimension to his ideas.

The manual is a very interesting one, with good, quite formal and precise grammar descriptions (not amauterish and simplified), with texts, translations etc.

However, since the Sumerian language is a dead one, there are several caveats:

- there is no phonetics,

- all the cunieform texts are ancient clay tables with very narrow range of contents,

- a cuneiform character may have a variety of forms in different texts, which makes the recognition sometimes a difficult task, and there is no systematic theory/description of charactes structure,

- there are too few cuneiform texts to get a good practice at reading and translation and the texts are very short,

- there is no vocabulary with cuneform characters sorted by some criteria, so each character you forget must be seeked through the entire book,

- there are about 600 characters (not too much), but the manual contains only a couple of hundreds of them,

- there are no excerieses, as a language manual is expected to have, it's more of a reference book.

Nevertheless, the book was a very interesting lingustic and historical reading, though I must admit that after diligently going through 3/4 of the lessons, I still had a feeling of being as novice as I was during the lesson #1.

19 people found this helpful

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