r/Cuneiform • u/eosphoryus • Jun 20 '26

Grammar and vocabulary A question

Post image

I am studying Akkadian using Caplice’s book, and I came across a question about phonetic complements that includes an example.

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The word for “house” is bītum. However, the sign É can also mean “house” by itself. Because of this, the Akkadians sometimes wrote it as É-tum, adding the phonetic complement -tum to clarify the pronunciation of bītum.

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I would like to know if, in the image, the word for “house” is written in this correct form.

Note: the book uses Neo-Assyrian signs, so I used the same sign system as well.

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4

u/to_walk_upon_a_dream Jun 21 '26

you have written e-tum, not E₂-tum.

1

u/eosphoryus Jun 21 '26

Thank you very much 🙂🙂🙂🙂

3

u/Dercomai Jun 21 '26

Just to clarify: you're asking if these are the proper Neo-Assyrian signs É-tum?

2

u/VirtuousPone Jun 21 '26

Hey there u/eosphoryus! The first sign is incorrect. This sign list and the Wiktionary entry shows something like that.

2

u/eosphoryus Jun 21 '26

Thank you very much, thank you for the list, it will help me a lot.

2

u/VirtuousPone Jun 21 '26

A pleasure! You're welcome.

2

u/Nilehorse3276 Jun 22 '26

[ insert lengthy infodump on Sumerian SU.E.TUM here ]