Sumerian Addenda
Signs — one page for every sign
Every sign the courses teach has one page here: its permanent home for in-depth study. Each page carries the sign’s keyword — one handle-word, unique across the school, the word the drills will always use for it — then two stories, kept honestly apart: where it comes from, the origin the scholarship actually supports, and how to remember it, a memory hook we invented and say so. Below those: the sign’s lookalikes, and one real corpus line it lives in.
One thing before the table: a memory image you build yourself sticks better than any image handed to you.1 Use our hooks as scaffolding — the moment your own picture forms, throw ours away. The origin stories follow the standard accounts,2 and each says plainly how sure the scholarship is.
| Sign | Name | Key | Means | Taught in |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 𒀀 | A | water | water | 101 · ch. 00 |
| 𒆳 | KUR | mountain | mountain; foreign land | 101 · ch. 00 |
| 𒀭 | AN | heaven | heaven; god (determinative {d}) | 101 · ch. 00 |
| 𒆤 | KID | spirit | air, spirit (lil2) — the LIL of Enlil | 101 · ch. 01 |
| 𒅎 | IM | storm | clay; rain, storm | 101 · ch. 01 |
| 𒊺 | ŠE | barley | barley; grain | 101 · ch. 02 |
| 𒌓 | UD | day | day; sun | 101 · ch. 03 |
| 𒆠 | KI | place | earth; place (determinative {ki}) | 101 · ch. 04 |
| 𒂍 | É | house | house, temple | 101 · ch. 04 |
| 𒀸 | AŠ | one | one; single | 101 · ch. 05 |
| 𒁹 | DIŠ | tally | one (counting); item marker | 101 · ch. 05 |
| 𒌋 | U | ten | ten | 101 · ch. 05 |
| 𒄥 | GUR | bushel | gur — the great capacity measure of grain accounts | 101 · ch. 05 |
| 𒈬 | MU | name | name; year | 101 · ch. 06 |
| 𒈗 | LUGAL | king | king | 101 · ch. 06 |
| 𒃲 | GAL | big | big, great | 101 · ch. 07 |
| 𒇽 | LU2 | man | man, person | 101 · ch. 07 |
| 𒌉 | TUR | child | child, son (dumu); small (tur) | 101 · ch. 07 |
| 𒊕 | SAG | head | head; first | 101 · ch. 08 |
| 𒅗 | KA | mouth | mouth | 101 · ch. 08 |
| 𒅘 | KA×A | drink | to drink | 101 · ch. 08 |
| 𒅥 | KA×GAR | eat | to eat | 101 · ch. 08 |
| 𒁾 | DUB | tablet | (clay) tablet | 101 · ch. 09 |
| 𒂗 | EN | lord | lord; high priest | 101 · ch. 10 |
| 𒈾 | NA | stone | [na]; stone in some words | 101 · ch. 11 |
| 𒉌 | NI | oil | [ni]; oil, butter as i3 | 101 · ch. 11 |
| 𒈨 | ME | rites | rites, divine powers; to be | 102 · ch. 00 |
| 𒌨 | UR | dog | dog; in names, "hound of" a god or king | 102 · ch. 00 |
| 𒋫 | TA | from | [ta] (ablative marker in context) | 102 · ch. 00 |
| 𒂠 | EŠ2 | rope | rope; the terminative -še3 | 102 · ch. 01 |
| 𒂊 | E | levee | [e]; as a word, levee/ditch | 102 · ch. 01 |
| 𒁉 | BI | its | its/that; [bi] (a vessel in origin) | 102 · ch. 01 |
| 𒊏 | RA | toward | [ra] (dative marker in context) | 102 · ch. 02 |
| 𒂵 | GA | milk | milk; [ga] | 102 · ch. 02 |
| 𒀝 | AK | do | to do, to make | 102 · ch. 02 |
| 𒉆 | NAM | fate | fate, destiny; abstract-noun prefix | 102 · ch. 03 |
| 𒁕 | DA | side | side; [da] (comitative in context) | 102 · ch. 03 |
| 𒍪 | ZU | know | to know; the -zu of "your" | 102 · ch. 03 |
| 𒁺 | DU | go | to go; a foot/leg in origin | 102 · ch. 04 |
| 𒋾 | TI | arrow | arrow; by rebus, life — the textbook rebus pair | 102 · ch. 04 |
| 𒉈 | NE | brazier | brazier/fire; [ne] | 102 · ch. 04 |
| 𒆷 | LA | abundance | [la]; abundance | 102 · ch. 05 |
| 𒎏 | NIN | lady | lady, queen, mistress | 102 · ch. 05 |
| 𒋗 | ŠU | hand | hand | 102 · ch. 06 |
| 𒈠 | MA | workhorse | [ma] — a spelling workhorse | 102 · ch. 06 |
| 𒅆 | IGI | eye | eye; face; before — igi PN, "witnessed by" | 102 · ch. 06 |
| 𒆬 | KU3 | pure | pure, holy; precious metal | 102 · ch. 07 |
| 𒈤 | MAH | exalted | great, exalted | 102 · ch. 07 |
| 𒌧 | KALAM | the Land | the Land — Sumer as its own texts name it | 102 · ch. 07 |
| 𒁀 | BA | allot | to allot; the verbal prefix ba- | 102 · ch. 08 |
| 𒉡 | NU | not | not — the negation | 102 · ch. 08 |
| 𒅔 | IN | in- | [in]; the verbal prefix in- | 102 · ch. 08 |
| 𒊮 | ŠA3 | heart | heart, midst, mood | 102 · ch. 09 |
| 𒃻 | GAR | thing | thing, property (niŋ2); to place (gar) | 102 · ch. 09 |
| 𒄩 | HA | fish | the fish pictogram (word read ku6); the wish-prefix ha- | 102 · ch. 09 |
| 𒍣 | ZI | breath | breath, life; true, righteous (zid) | 102 · ch. 10 |
| 𒀉 | A2 | arm | arm; strength; side — a2 zid-da, the right side | 102 · ch. 10 |
| 𒊑 | RI | distant | [ri]; distant — ud ri-a, "in those days" | 102 · ch. 10 |
| 𒄿 | I | cry | the bare vowel i; the cry of laments (i-lu) | 102 · ch. 11 |
| 𒋧 | SUM | give | to give (a bundle of onions in origin) | 102 · ch. 11 |
| 𒆕 | KAK | build | to build; a peg — the builder's verb of every votive | 102 · ch. 12 |
| 𒊒 | RU | dedicate | to dedicate — a mu-na-ru, the votive's closing verb | 102 · ch. 12 |
| 𒂼 | AMA | mother | mother | 102 · ch. 12 |
| 𒌗 | ITI | month | month — the day-sign with thirty tucked inside | 102 · ch. 13 |
| 𒍝 | ZA | bead | bead, precious stone; [za] — za-e, "you" | 102 · ch. 13 |
| 𒋛 | SI | horn | horn; to fill | 102 · ch. 14 |
| 𒄄 | GI4 | return | to return, restore; to answer | 102 · ch. 14 |
| 𒁲 | DI | verdict | lawsuit, judgment; to speak (di) | 102 · ch. 14 |
| 𒆪 | KU | seize | to seize (dab5); to sit, dwell (tuš) | 102 · ch. 14 |
| 𒄀 | GI | reed | reed — the writing tool itself; gi in Šul-gi | 102 · ch. 15 |
| 𒆗 | KAL | mighty | mighty, strong (kalag); precious | 102 · ch. 15 |
| 𒂄 | DUN | hero | young man in his prime, hero (šul) — Šulgi's own name-word | 102 · ch. 15 |
| 𒌅 | TU | born | to be born (tu-ud) | 102 · ch. 15 |
| 𒊬 | SAR | write | to write; garden plot in origin | 102 · ch. 16 |
| 𒇲 | LAL | weigh | to hang, to weigh out; the spelling la2 | 102 · ch. 17 |
| 𒄘 | GU2 | neck | neck; riverbank; total (in accounts) | 102 · ch. 17 |
| 𒋻 | TAR | cut | to cut; to decree (nam ... tar, to decree fate) | 102 · ch. 17 |
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The generation effect: self-produced material is retained better than supplied material — Slamecka & Graf, “The generation effect: delineation of a phenomenon,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory 4 (1978). ↩
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Sign origins per the standard references: Labat, Manuel d’épigraphie akkadienne; Borger, Mesopotamisches Zeichenlexikon; the accessible synthesis in Finkel & Taylor, Cuneiform (British Museum Press, 2015). Where these hedge, our pages hedge. ↩