Chinese and Sumerian

INITIAL AND FINAL SOUNDS, ETC. II

Like D, L, R, and Z, this final S is represented by Chinese t, as we have already seen (pp. 5, 6, 10 swgr.). In other instances it interchanges with R, as in GIL, IL, to lift, from GUR, also read GA (from GAR), to lift; £ also GAL, to lift.

R is the commonest final in Sumerian as we have it, involving over 150 instances. It may have arisen from final S (of which about 50 examples remain); or the contrary may have happened; but the former seems more probable. However that may be, we find the same character JEY read DUR and TUSH, in the sense to dwell; >} is read BAR and MASH in a great variety of meanings; ~-EEY TUR is to set, of the sun, and so is «< SHUSH (C. 7. xii. 1); TT, the dog-symbol, had the sound GISH as wellas UR (= GUR = GUSH = GISH) and DISH, SUR, TASH and TAN, LIG, and LI; J} <}>, to weep, is both IR or ER and ESH; EV is both GIR (KIR) and BISH (PESH). As already stated, final R is properly represented by a Chinese t, though k has often taken its place: eg. BAR, PAR, bright, white, written with the sun-symbol, has become in Chinese —{ po, pak, bak, written with the sun-symbol slightly modified. (Yet cf po, p‘a, ba, ba-t, white, G. 9370; P. 840.) Similarly, BAR, brother, is represented by po, ba, pak, father’s elder brother, eldest brother, G. 9340; and UR-BAR, leopard, panther, or the like (written dog + BAR), survives in pao, pau, boa, pio, bau, panther, leopard, formerly bak (P. 41), written with R. 153, probably once identical with the dog-character, and P. 41.

The Mongol has no z, but has preserved final 1 and r, as in k‘ul, foot, Chinese kio, kok, kiok, G. 1362 = Sumerian GIR (but Mongol gar, hand, is Sumerian GAD); kara, black, Jap. kuroi, Turkish kara = Chinese kek, Sumerian GIG; Mongol ger, house=Sum. (GASH), ESH, or GA(L): ger-t‘e, in the house=Sum. GA.TA; Mongol ger-el, light = Jap. akari, Sum. GAR (cf Jap. siro, shiroi, white=Sum. SIR, SHIR, light, bright); Mongol mori, horse = Sum, GUR, MUR. ‘ From kak, black’, says Edkins, ‘came k’ara in Mongol and kuroi in Japanese, the final k being lost in both cases. Ther... is merely a phonetic addition.” It is rather difficult to believe this, in face of the Sumerian evidence, which is far more ancient than either Chinese or Mongol. All that can be said is that forms with final R ard G appear to have existed side by side: SAR and SAG, to write; GAR and GAG, to make (cf, AG, to make, C. T. xii, 10); SHIR and SHAG, SIR and SIG, bright; &{ read DUG, flow, and SHAR, abound; =[]]} read SIG (or DIG) and DIR, sorrow; cf ZIR, sorrow, Br. 2366; ;F J] SIG and SAR, green, C. T. xii. 49; JE] read DUR and T(D)UG. This established equivalence or permutation of the final sounds R and G seems to account for the not uncommon instances in which Chinese final k (¢) appears, where we should have expected the normal t, in correspondence with a Sumerian r.

Initial r is quite modern in Chinese (see Wells Williams's Dict. s.v. yung, p. 1146). In Japanese it regularly takes the place of a Chinese 1. It is doubtful whether it originally existed in Sumerian, although the remains of the language, which

belong to different periods of time, present about a score or so of instances. C2