Edubba A school of writing systems

Cuneiform 103 · Chapter 05

Warm-up · 6 quick retrievals from earlier chapters
  1. 𒈗 [šarrum] — what does it mean?

    king · LUGAL · veteran — LUGAL gains [šarrum]: the king-sign as a sumerogram ↩

  2. prince — draw it, then check

    𒉣 [nun] · NUN · prince, noble ↩

  3. 𒂖 — read it

    [el] — bright · EL · bright, pure (ellum) ↩

  4. 𒀜 [ad/at] — what does it mean?

    father · AD · father ↩

  5. dust — draw it, then check

    𒅖 [iš] · IŠ · dust, soil ↩

  6. 𒄀 — read it

    [gi] — reed · GI · reed — the writing tool itself; gi in Šul-gi ↩

The verb arrives

Every law on the stele is a tiny story: someone did something, and now something shall happen. Akkadian carries that whole machinery in the shape of its verbs — no pronoun needed, no helper words: iddi is already “he charged,” inaddin is already “he shall pay.” This chapter gives you the two shapes that matter and the three signs the laws spell them with.

Batch six — and a veteran

SignNameKeyReadsMeansNotes
𒌑U2grass[u] plant, grass the vowel opening many of the laws' verbs — u-ub-bi-ir-ma
𒌒UBnook[ub] a corner-nook the same verb's second sign
𒊌UGlion[ug/uk] a day-marked lion the uk- of uk-ti-in, "he convicted"
𒀉A2arm[id/it/ed/et] — veteran — 102's arm-sign as pure sound: the dentals

Two shapes of time

Old Babylonian runs its laws on two verb shapes:1

ShapeSaysOn the stone
preteritea done deed, told pastiddi "he charged" · ubbir "he accused"
durativewhat shall now happeninaddin "he shall pay" · iddâk "he shall be killed"

Two small words ride along everywhere. -ma, glued to a verb’s tail, means “and (then)” — it chains a law’s events in order. lā is the negation of record: lā uktīn, “he did not convict.” Now read the laws’ verbs off the stone, one at a time:

𒌑𒌒𒁉𒅕𒈠u-ub-bi-ir-maubbirma, "he accused, and —" the doubled vowel-spelling u-ub you learned to expect in chapter 01, then bi-ir, then the chaining -ma
𒀉𒁲𒈠id-di-maiddima, "he laid (the charge), and —" the veteran arm-sign as id, 102's verdict-sign as pure di
𒆷 𒊌𒋾𒅔𒋗la uk-ti-in-šulā uktīnšu, "he did not convict him" — the negation, the lion-sign's uk, and the -šu of chapter 01 back as "him"
𒄿𒈾𒀜𒁲𒅔i-na-ad-di-ininaddin, "he shall pay" — the durative: the tariff-lines of the stele end on this word dozens of times, and now it reads itself
Codex Hammurapi (composite text), law 1 and the hire-tariffs. urn:nabu:cdli:p464358:a:305, :a:307, :a:308, :a:3043' · license: attribution.
𒄿𒈾𒀜𒁲𒅔
i-na-ad-di-in — "he shall pay." Five signs, four of them veterans. The commonest closing word of Babylonian law is almost entirely review.

A note of honesty for the grammar-curious: Akkadian verbs also come in derived stems — ubbir and uktīn are “thickened” forms with their own nuances of meaning. A later chapter names that system properly; for now, read each verb as the story-piece it is, and let the shapes accumulate.

Drill before you go on

  1. Write 𒌑, 𒌒, 𒊌 from memory; say u, ub, uk.
  2. Preterite or durative: iddi? inaddin? What does each one say about time?
  3. Spell la uk-ti-in-šu in signs. Which sign carries the “him”?
  4. What does -ma do to a law’s narrative? One sentence.

Next: šumma — “if a man…” — and the first law of the stele, whole but for a single box.

  1. The preterite/durative opposition as in Huehnergard §§12, 18; derived stems (D, Š, N) arrive with later chapters’ texts. ↩