Free Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World by Nicholas Ostler

spellings should be pronounced to give a meaningful utterance in Dutch, Irish, French or English. *
    The origin of Sumerian is obscure; only some Georgians claim that their language is related, 9 but the claim has not been widely accepted. Whatever their previous history, there was evidently a lively set of communities active in southern Mesopotamia from the fourth millennium BC, absorbing the gains from the then recent institutionalisation of agriculture, and establishing the first cities, which seem first of all to have been collectives each holding all their goods in the name of a presiding deity, with effective managerial power in the hands of the priesthood. The potter’s wheel, the swing-plough and the sail all came into use, and a beginning was made in working gold, silver and bronze. Since pictograms, and their development into cuneiform writing, were invented in this period, this gives us our first direct testimony of the language history of the world. It seems that commercial uses came first: impressions of symbols on clay began as convenient substitutes for sets of clay tokens, used for inventories and contracts. 10
    The unprecedented riches and cultural brilliance of the city-states in third-millennium Sumer had soon attracted unwelcome attention from the north, resulting in a hostile takeover and political consolidation under the king of Akkad. The result of Sargon’s invasion in the twenty-fourth century, and the five generations of Akkadian dominance that followed, must have been much greater contact between the Sumerian and Akkadian languages. Sumerian-Akkadian bilingualism would have become common in the elite, and one can see evidence of this at the highest level, since Sargon’s daughter Enheduanna is supposed to have composed two cycles of Sumerian hymns, and the most famous (to Inanna) has been found in some fifty copies. 11
    This participation by women, especially princesses and priestesses, in Sumerian literature was not uncommon. They wrote funeral hymns, letters and especially love songs.
    Thy city lifts its hand like a cripple, O my lord Shu-Sin,
    It lies at thy feet like a lion-cub, O son of Shulgi.
    O my god, the wine-maid has sweet wine to give,
    Like her date-wine sweet is her vulva, sweet is her wine … 12
    There is also the occasional lullaby.
    usa ŋanu usa ŋanu
    usa ŋanu ki dumuŋaše
    usa kulu ki dumuŋaše
    igi badbadani u kunib
    igi gunani šuzu ŋarbi
    u eme za malilikani
    za mallilil u nagule…
    Come sleep, come sleep,
    Come to my son,
    Hurry sleep to my son,
    Put to sleep his restless eyes,
    Put your hand on his sparkling eyes,
    And as for his babbling tongue
    Let not the babbling hold back his sleep.
    He will fill your lap with wheat.
    I will make sweet for you the little cheeses,
    Those little cheeses that are the healer of man…
    My garden is lettuce well-watered…
    May the wife be your support,
    May the son be your lot,
    May the winnowed barley be your bride,
    May Ashnan the goddess of fruitfulness be your ally,
    May you have an eloquent guardian angel,
    May you achieve a reign of happy days … 13
    These works are usually written in
Emesal
, ‘the fine tongue’, a separate dialect of Sumerian, well documented in scribal dictionaries. In dialogue works this dialect is used for the speech of goddesses. It differs from standard Sumerian,
Emegir
, ‘the princely tongue’, both in vocabulary (including the names of many gods) and also in pronunciation (consonants by and large being articulated farther forward in the mouth); it differs not at all in its grammar. For example, when the goddess Inanna is affecting to repel the advances of an importunate suitor, she cries:
    kuli Mulila šu bamu emeše daŋen
    amaŋu lulaše ta munaben
    amaŋu Gašangale lulaše ta munaben
    Friend of Enlil, let me free! Let me go to my house!
    What lie shall I tell my mother?
    What lie shall I tell my mother Ningal?
    Both Enlil and Ningal are, of course, gods. In Emegir this would have been (with