Akkadian Addenda · Signs

𒀾

curse

Name2
Reads[as]
Meansa curse in the lists
Taught in08 · More than one: the plural

Where it comes from

The sign lists associate this sign with the Sumerian word for a curse — an identification we grade cautiously, since the shape itself argues nothing. Akkadian uses it as the bare syllable as, indifferent to the menace.

How to remember it

A curse, mid-sentence and defused: on the stele the bitter sign sits inside nasqā, “are choice” — the king praising his own words. Say as and note the irony; irony is memorable.

In the wild

Codex Hammurapi (composite text), epilogue. urn:nabu:cdli:p464358:a:3336' · license: attribution.

Akkadian reading taught in 103’s chapter 08.