Sumerian Addenda · Signs

𒅘KA×A · [naŋ] · to drink

drink

Where it comes from

KA the mouth with A the water written inside it — the sign lists notate the containment literally as KA×A. What is water doing in a mouth? Being drunk: the compound reads naŋ, “to drink.” A rare sign in the counted corpora, taught because nothing shows the containment move more clearly.

How to remember it

Drink: a mouth with water already in it. The script does not describe the act — it stages it, one sign swallowed by another. Once you have seen the little streams inside the jaw, you cannot unsee the gulp.

In the wild

Piece by piece:

• ga — milk
• naŋ-naŋ — drink, drink — the mouth with water in it, twice

A child’s name from one of the oldest name lists — milk and drinking, doubled like a lullaby. Its twin, ga-gu₇-gu₇, eats instead; both are read in 102’s chapter 02.

Easily confused