Sumerian Addenda · Signs

𒋫

from

Where it comes from

Pictorial origin not transparent — a grammar workhorse from the start. Hung on the end of a noun, -ta is the ablative: “from, out of, since.” Wherever a text says where something came from or when something started counting, this sign closes the phrase.

How to remember it

From points away: the sign’s long wedge pushes off its cluster like a departure. Read -ta and ask from where? since when? — the answer is the word it rides on.

In the wild

Ur III administrative tablet, ca. 2100–2000 BCE. CDLI P100317 via Nabu, urn:nabu:cdli:p100317:reverse:3 · license: attribution.

Piece by piece:

  • iti — month
  • a2-ki-ti — of the Akiti festival
  • -ta — from: the bookkeeper counting time forward from a festival

An accountant’s “since”: rations owed from Akiti onward. The line is read in 102’s chapter 13.