Signs and Syllables during Sumerians

Signs and Syllables during Sumerians
By about 2500 BC, however, the original picture signs were reduce d to such stylized symbolisms that the original objects could hardly be recognized

Scribes also started to use characters to represent t ideas , actions, feelings and soon , rather than concrete objects alone.

Ambiguities sometimes resulted, however.


The picture of image a foot, for example, might mean to come or go or stand and so on.

Thousand of different characters would have to be invented to encompass the full range of words in use.

The eventual solution was to use signs phonetically – that is, to indicate sounds rather than actual objects.

By this method, in English, abstract concepts such as ‘treason’ might be represented by placing the image of ‘tree’ alongside that of, say, the ‘sun’.

Using a fairly limited repertoire of of syllables it was possible to build up any word.

The Sumerian system included some 600 signs which had to be memorized.

The scribes failed to condense the system further by breaking syllables down into the two dozen or so letters that make up the modern alphabet.

Nevertheless, their own method proved remarkably flexible, permitting a rich literature to flourish alongside workaday texts such as legal contracts and bill of sale.

The Sumerian system of arithmetic was based on the unit of 10 – and has survived through the centuries in our hour of 60 minutes and circle of 360 degrees.
Signs and Syllables during Sumerians