Akkadian Addenda · Signs
which
| Name | ŠA |
|---|---|
| Reads | [ša] |
| Means | the particle ša — "which, of"; the school's hinge-word |
| Taught in | 00 · A script crosses a border |
Where it comes from
A plain sign whose pictorial origin the lists leave unsettled — what is certain is its sound: ša, carried over from Sumerian use into Akkadian, where it hit the jackpot. Akkadian’s genitive particle and relative pronoun is the word ša, so this one sign writes “which,” “who,” and “of” across the entire corpus — the fifth most frequent syllable in the Old Babylonian documents this school counts.
How to remember it
Which one? The one ša points at. Every time Akkadian glues a noun to a noun (“the lord — which is to say — of heaven”) or hangs a clause on a noun (“the man who…”), this sign does the pointing. Learn one sign, own the language’s hinge.
In the wild
urn:nabu:cdli:p464358:a:6 · license: attribution.
Taught in 103’s orientation — the first sign of the school’s first Akkadian course.