BMCR 2009.02.35, Roger D. Woodard, The Ancient Languages

Roger D. Woodard (ed.), The Ancient Languages of Mesopotamia, Egypt and
Aksum.  Cambridge/New York:  Cambridge University Press, 2008.  Pp.
xix, 251.  ISBN 9780521684972.  $39.99.

Reviewed by Mark Weeden, School of Oriental and African Studies, London
([email protected])
Word count:  1831 words
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Table of Contents (http://lccn.loc.gov/2008274880)

The present volume presents a relatively affordable, paperback
collection of articles from Woodard's massive and extremely useful
Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the World's Ancient Languages (abbreviated
WAL, Cambridge/New York, CUP, 2004), apparently selected according to
geographical criteria. The book contains chapters on ancient languages
from the areas mentioned in the title (Aksum is old Ethiopia), adopted
directly from the original WAL, with prefatory and introductory remarks
by the editor. Other volumes have appeared in a similar format, picking
up the ancient languages covered by WAL belonging to other geographical
areas (Asia and the Americas, Asia Minor, Europe, Syria-Palestine and
Arabia, all detailed on pp. 238-242). The purpose of these publications
is to make the essays they contain more widely available to scholars
and students. The problem is that they are now largely out of date.

The chapters are all organised according to a consistent structure with
sections on (section 1) Historical and Cultural Contexts; (section 2)
Writing Systems; (section 3) Phonology; (section 4) Morphology;
(section 5) Syntax; (section 6) Lexicon; (section 7) Reading List. Not
all chapters have all sections, however.

I found the original WAL extremely useful and have personally used its
relevant chapters to gain a first orientation in Hurrian, Urartian and
Elamite before proceeding to read the texts, albeit in a dedicated
reading group in the company of very experienced scholars. Such a
method may not be appropriate for learning better attested ancient
languages, however, and one expectation of WAL in this regard was that
experts in the particular languages would provide modern summaries of
the state of research. Areas where this expectation was not completely
fulfilled have been adequately criticised in the generally positive
reviews of the original 2004 volume, including the fact that most of
the articles appeared to have been finished by 1997 and were thus not
entirely up-to-date.[[1]] However excusable such a delay in production
may have been for the 2004 work, disregard of academic research since
1997 is less palatable in 2008, by which time several similar
publications covering some of the same languages have appeared, not to
mention some very extensive developments in research.[[2]] Further
review criticisms of the original publication were also not
incorporated into this daughter volume, nor apparently into at least
one other of the series.[[3]]

Whereas I was not entirely sympathetic to the scepticism of other
reviewers regarding the dubious intended target audience of WAL, having
used it so profitably myself, I was slightly surprised by the choice of
content for this book. It is peculiar that Ge'ez, or Old Ethiopic, is
grouped in a volume with these languages rather than with Old South
Arabian in the relevant sister-volume, which also contains Hebrew.[[4]]
The explanation proffered by the editor in Chapter 1, p. 2, which leads
us through Abraham leaving Mesopotamia to a transport of the arc of the
covenant to Ethiopia in the time of Solomon, sounds very quaint and is
clearly addressed to a US American (references to "the Post", "the
Times")  and/or Bible-reading public. I would have preferred a simple,
technical explanation, such as that there wasn't enough room in the
other volume, but it is a matter of taste or emphasis. The placement of
Ge'ez in the volume next to (Egyptian and) Coptic, would certainly suit
someone studying early Christianity in (North-)East Africa, but it is
clear that the articles were designed for a linguist audience. Further,
the inclusion of J. Huehnergard's chapter on Afro-Asiatic Languages in
the sister volume dealing with the Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine
and Arabia is unfortunate from the perspective of the reader of this
volume.

P. Michalowski's chapter on Sumerian (pp. 6-46) is a much needed
statement of position on issues relating to the Sumerian language by
one of its chief exponents. It is also typologically informed with an
overall linguistic as opposed to philological perspective.  Michalowski
mentions on p. 31 that there are as many interpretations of some
Sumerian grammatical phenomena as there are Sumerologists and largely
presents his own views with ample references to other versions. A
little more attention to alternative terminology might have been
useful, however, especially during the discussion of verbal
transitivity (one/two/three-participant verbs).[[5]]
The number of grammatical sketches of the language has increased since
Michalowski's chapter was written, and there is ample opportunity for
the reader to compare concise but differing accounts of the same
phenomena from the hands of masters in the field conveniently.[[6]]

M. Stolper's chapter on Elamite was at the time the only succinct
summary of the language, and provides an excellent starting point for
study, with detailed references for further investigation.[[7]]  The
minor points listed below in no way detract from the piece's value.

J. Huehnergard and C. Woods present an extensive treatment of Akkadian,
which is interesting particularly for its continual reference to the
closely related third millennium dialect of Eblaite. Unfortunately, the
treatment of Old Akkadian, i.e. 3rd millennium, and Old Babylonian,
i.e. ca. 2000-1595 BC,  phonology, particularly with reference to the
sibilants, is now largely out-dated. The reader is referred first and
foremost to R. Hasselbach's recent book,[[8]] but earlier works
treating the effects of the so-called "affricate hypothesis" on our
view of Proto-Semitic and earlier Akkadian sibilants should at least
have been referenced.[[9]] For Ur III Akkadian and its affiliation to
Babylonian, see now M. Hilgert.[[10]] Against the idea that Old
Akkadian is a separate dialect from Assyrian and Babylonian (as per
authors p. 84) see now the very interesting article by R. Hasselbach,
arguing that Old Akkadian is more closely related to Babylonian than
Assyrian (Journal of Semitic Studies 42/1, Spring 2007, 21-43). The
rest of the treatment largely stands solid, although a discussion of
the large topic of weak verbs is avoided. For Neo-Assyrian Akkadian the
reader can now turn to J. Haemeen Antilla,[[11]] among others, and for
historical syntax we now have G. Deutscher.[[12]] An appendix to
chapter 5 provides a selective sign-list of (Neo-Assyrian!) cuneiform
signs and their values.[[13]]

A. Loprieno's chapter on Egyptian and Coptic is an excellent read and
thoroughly linguistically geared. The lay-reader, such as myself, may
feel cheated every now and then of an explanation of how we know the
linguistic phenomena being described, i.e., the philological element is
slightly lacking. On p. 181 the regular Akkadian word for "heart" is
libbum, not lubbum. For more recent publications on Coptic, a reference
to the web-site of the International Association for Coptic Studies
should suffice, in particular their section Recent and Forthcoming
Publications (http://rmcisadu.let.uniroma1.it) . For more recent
publications on the topics of Egyptian raised in this chapter the
reader may be directed to the journals Lingua Aegyptia and
Enchoria.[[14]] There is also an Appendix to Chapter 6, with a
selective sign list of Middle Egyptian Hieroglyphs taken from a recent
(1999) Middle Egyptian grammar book.

Despite the above reservations about the appearance of Ge'ez in the
context of this volume, I can only join previous reviewers in praising
G. Gragg's exposition of Old Ethiopic. Ancient grammatical phenomena
are not presented as a fait accompli, but as part of an ongoing process
of discovery, with appropriate weight given to questions of methodology
in evaluating the evidence used to establish phonology, paradigms and
their historical context. The lack of a section on the lexicon remains
irritating. The very small bibliography, instead of a list of further
reading, can now be complemented by the proceedings of a Berlin
conference on Ethiopic Studies in the 20th century, which includes
ample material for further reading.[[15]]

Ancient languages are usually studied by philological method, and it is
rare that philologists feel motivated to summarise their findings in a
concise and general form.  This book's predecessor (WAL) encouraged
experts in ancient languages to condense their opinions into one
account of a language they study. We have before us a collection of
high quality but slightly dated essays, which will be of great use to
researchers and students wishing to locate the opinions held, sometimes
a decade ago, by eminent names in the field, especially when the
accounts can now be compared with equally concise presentations in
other publications. It is a good reference work, but definitely not the
last word.

Minor Quibbles:

Sumerian:

The broad if not complete support given on p. 16 (also p. 20) to a
general loss of final consonants is surely misplaced, this being a
reflex of 3rd millennium writing conventions rather than an indication
of linguistic reality, of which the author is clearly aware on p. 20.
The "culture-word" tibira, "metal-worker" has been argued by G. Wilhelm
to be a Hurrian active-participle, thus possibly not "of unknown
origin" (p. 41).[[16]]

Elamite:

I balked slightly at some of the terminology: the term "plene-writing"
(p. 55) applies to cases where the vowel of an ambiguous cuneiform CV
(consonant-vowel) sign is disambiguated by addition of a plene vowel:
ke/i+e = ke-e. Another term needs to be found to describe writings of
the types CVC-VC (tan-an beside tan- and da-an-) CVC-CV (gal-li, gal-lu
beside gal-) where the disambiguating function is not so clear-cut as
well as being partial. I recommend that the CV or VC signs in these
cases would better be called "phonetic indicators".[[17]] On p. 58
(3.1.2 line 10) one should read "graphic convention used otherwise for
CVC sequences", rather than "...for CVC signs". On p. 59 (3.2.1) the
writing of grammatical [pat-r ir u-r] as graphic pa-at-ru-ur is
described as "vowel contraction" when it appears to be syncope.

The account of the verbal system does not mention the hypothesis of a
Conjugation IV based on the personal class-marker -r-, to complement
conjugations II and III which are based on the other two personal
class-markers, -k- and -n- respectively.[[18]] This is not widely
accepted but can usefully be used to explain certain Middle and
Achaemenid Elamite phenomena, e.g. AchE S1 hutta-r(a), cf. EW 1: 713,
727. Inconsistencies in translation are slightly irritating but
insubstantial: [hutta-k hali-k], "done and finished", is translated
differently on pp. 68, 70, 75. On p. 63 (4.3.4) the reader perhaps
needs to know that the word for "troops" is treated as an inanimate
noun and is for this reason resumed by the inanimate relative pronoun,
appa. The inanimate relative pronoun is occasionally translated as
referring to an animate antecedent: p. 71 (5.1), "the women who (appa)
in GN were grinding (?)" is inexplicable unless one insert a rule in
4.3.4 that the inanimate relative represents the animate plural.

Akkadian and Eblaite:

The use of the term "bound form" (4.1.2) for both the form of the noun
before the genitive and that before a pronoun, is unfortunate.
Traditional grammar calls the former the construct form, while the
latter is the bound form. They are clearly different. DUMU.MUNUS on p.
148 is not spelled with a shin as printed. The mention of a fully
declined relative pronoun (5.12.1) in Old Akkadian surely requires some
detail of its most striking trait: its case is determined by that of
the antecedent, not by its place in the relative clause.[[19]]


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Notes:


1.   To the reviews of the original WAL, conveniently listed by Zsolt
Simon in BMCR 2008.11.31, add: M. Beckwith in Classical World 99.4
(2006) 474-475; P.T. Daniels RBL 04/2005: 1-9 at; J.R. Russell in IJCT
15.1 (2008) 136-140.

2.   Akkadian and Sumerian are treated in J.N. Postgate (ed.) The
Languages of Iraq, BSAI, London, 2007; For German readers: Akkadian,
Sumerian and Elamite are treated in M.P. Streck,  Die Sprachen des
alten Orients, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2.-e Auflage,
Darmstadt, 2006.

3.   See Zsolt Simon in BMCR 2008.11.31.

4.   The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia, Cambridge/New
York, CUP, 2008.

5.   e.g. M-L Thomsen"The Sumerian Language: An Introduction to its
History and Grammatical Structure", Mesopotamia 10, 1984, 141.

6.   The article contains references to a publication that eventually
appeared in the year 2005, but omits significant other material from
between 1999 and 2005, in particular D.O. Edzard's Sumerian Grammar,
HbOS 1/71, Leiden/Brill, 2003. For concise summaries see J.A. Black
(posthumously), in Postgate loc. cit.; G. Zo/lyomi in Streck loc. cit.,
11-43. For a detailed study: Th.E. Balke Das sumerische Dimensionale
Kasussystem, Ugarit-Verlag, Muenster, 2006.

7.   Now also M. Krebernik in Streck loc. cit. 159-182.

8.   Sargonic Akkadian: A Historical and Comparative Study of the
Syllabic Texts, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2005. For Old Babylonian
sibilants see Streck in G. Deutscher and N. Kouwenberg, The Akkadian
Language in its Semitic Context: Studies in the Akkadian of the third
and second millennium BC, Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije
Oosten, 2006, 215-298.

9.   A. Faber, in JCS 37 (1985), 101-107 (mentioned in WAL in
Huehnergard's bibliography on Afro-Asiatic languages);W.R. Mayer in GAG
3rd ed. (1995), 35-36; J. Tropper in UF 28 (1996), 647-649.

10.   id. Akkadisch in der Ur-III-Zeit, Muenster: Rhema, 2002.

11.   id. A Sketch of Neo-Assyrian Grammar, State Archives of Assyria
Studies vol. 13, Helsinki 2000; M. Luukko Grammatical Variation in
Neo-Assyrian, SAAS 16, Helsinki 2004.

12.   id. Syntactic Change in Akkadian: the evolution of sentential
complementation, Oxford, OUP, 2000.

13.   Succinct accounts of Akkadian are A.R. George in Postgate loc.
cit., ; M.P. Streck in Streck loc. cit., 44-79. Anyone learning
Akkadian must of course turn to J. Huehnergard himself A Grammar of
Akkadian, Second Edition, HSS 45, Cambridge Mass., 2005.

14.   I am grateful to E. Frood and M. Wildish for these references.
See also G. Taka/cs (ed.)  Egyptian and Semito-Hamitic (Afro-Asiatic):
Studies in Memoriam Werner Vicychl, Semitic Languages and Linguistics
39, Brill, Leiden, 2003, 1-138. For Sahidic Coptic there is now B.
Layton A Coptic Grammar, With Chrestomathy and Glossary-Sahidic
Dialect, PLO 20, Harrassowitz, 2004.

15.   R. Voigt, ed. Die Aethiopischen Studien im 20.-en Jahrhundert /
Ethiopian Studies in the 20th Century: Akten der internationalen
aethiopischen Tagung Berlin 22. bis 24. Juli 2000, Semitica et
Semitohamitica Beroliniensia 2). Shaker Verlag, Aachen, 2003. Further
extensive bibliography on Ge'ez-related topics included in B. Burtea
Zwei Aethiopische Zauberrollen, (Semitica et Semitohamitica
Berolinensia 1) Shaker Verlag, Aachen, 2001.

16.   in V. Haas, "Hurriter und Hurritisch", Xenia 21, 1988, 43-63.

17.   This follows a suggestion of J.D. Hawkins (pers. comm.) to
describe semi-phonetic elements in Hieroglyphic Luwian logograms, such
as TERRA+LA+LA for Luwian walili-, or PURUS.FONS-MI for "Suppiluliuma"
as "phonetic indicators".

18.   F. Grillot-Susini, E/le/ments de grammaire E/lamite, Paris, 1987,
p. 35. An r-conjugation is also ignored or not implicitly rejected by
M.Khacikjan, The Elamite Language, Rome 1998, and by M. Krebernik in
Streck loc. cit.

19.   For discussion of this see G. Deutscher, in Studies in Language
25/3 (2001): 405-422; id. in  Zeitschrift fuer Assyriologie und
vorderasiatische Archaeologie 92 (2002), 86-105; id. Nouvelles
Assyriologiques Breves et Utilitaires 2005, no. 30.