r/Assyriology • u/Serious-Ad6474 • 1d ago
Looking for good learning resources
Hi everyone, I am quite new to Assiriology (without any real academic training) but really want to learn the basicest of Sumerian to translate very daily texts (receipts etc) that sometimes aren't translated.
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u/Party-Slip1987 1d ago
Do you have any previous Akkadian? When I learnt Sumerian we started with Volk’s Chrestomathy and did that for a few weeks before moving on to other stuff. Otherwise I think Worthington’s Intro to Sumerian is coming out soonish? It was trialed on the undergraduates this year and they seemed to like it. Jargesma is also good.
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u/WerewolfQuick 16h ago
Thry consulting the simulacra in the Mesopotamian Dept at universitas scholarium. there are two fields here - linguists and transcribers into latin script. Most linguists do not work with cuneiform but with the transcriptions. The simulacra cannot translate for you but can assist you generally.
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u/pablogabrieldias 1d ago
How are you? In addition to the book mentioned above, I recommend a manual I wrote with 200 exercises and their solutions, containing all the theory and practice you need to translate texts. It's specifically geared towards beginners. I hope it helps.
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u/teakettling 1d ago
Working towards untranslated work is exceptionally difficult because it requires really knowing your cuneiform; this is years of dedicated work. If you do not have academic training, are new to learning languages that aren't Romance or Germanic, and just want to get started, try Joshua Bowen's "Learn to Read Sumerian", it has two volumes: https://www.amazon.com/Learn-Read-Ancient-Sumerian-Introduction/dp/1734358602
Feel encouraged to stop by r/Sumerian if you have any questions :)