Akkadian Addenda · Signs

𒆠KI · [ki/qi] · qibīma's opener — the old ki serves as ever

place

Where it comes from

101’s place-sign — earth and ground, the sign under every city name. In Akkadian text it works twice over: as a plain syllable (ki-nu-ni, “of the brazier-festival”), and — in the contracts’ Sumerian formulary — as its old self, opening “from (the hands of) so-and-so.”

How to remember it

Place twice over: the ground a festival stands on when it is a syllable, and the place a loan comes FROM when the notary’s old Sumerian does the talking. And pressed to its emphaticpronounced with extra tension further back in the throat than its plain twin — q versus k, ḥ versus h twin, qi, the place-sign opens qibīma, “speak!” — every letter in Babylon begins on it (chapter 12).

In the wild

Akkadian reading taught in 103’s chapter 12.