Sumerian Addenda · Signs
milk
| Name | GA |
|---|---|
| Reads | [ga] |
| Means | milk; [ga] |
| Taught in | 02 · The case that hides |
Where it comes from
Classic origin: the sign lists connect it with the milk jug and dairy work. As a word it is ga, “milk”; as a syllable it spells its sound wherever needed — including at the front of some of the oldest personal names we can read.
How to remember it
A milk jug in its crate: the sign’s wedges rack up like jars in a dairy. Milk is the first food and ga is early everywhere — in the earliest names, it is what children are called after.
In the wild
urn:nabu:cdli:p010652 ·
license: attribution. Name translations are approximate by
nature.
Piece by piece:
- ga — milk
- naŋ-naŋ — drink, drink
A nursery name from Šuruppak, forty-six centuries old, and it still sounds like a lullaby. The name is read in 102’s chapter 02.