Akkadian Addenda · Signs
wild bull
| Name | AM |
|---|---|
| Reads | [am] |
| Means | wild bull — a bull-sign marked with "mountain" |
| Taught in | 02 · The noun wears its case |
Where it comes from
A compound in the catalogs — a bull-sign with “mountain” pressed inside it (GUD×KUR): the wild bull of the highlands, Akkadian rīmum, the beast kings compared themselves to. The picture is stated by the lists; the sound is beyond doubt — am, seventh most frequent syllable of the Old Babylonian corpus, largely because chapter 02’s accusative ends on it: awīlam, ṣīram, rubâm.
How to remember it
The wild bull is what a sentence acts on at its peril — and -am marks the noun acted on. When a word ends in the bull, it is the object of the story: handle with care.
In the wild
urn:nabu:cdli:p464358:a:28 · license: attribution.
Taught in 103’s chapter 02.