Sumerian
eme-ĝir, eme-gi
Spoken in	Sumer and Akkad
Region	Iraq (Mesopotamia)
Extinct	Effectively extinct from about 1800 BC; used as classical language until about 100 AD.
Language family	Language isolate[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-2	[[ISO639-3:sux[2]|sux[2]]]
ISO 639-3	sux
26th century BC Sumerian document
This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Sumerian (𒅴𒂠 EME.ĜIR₁₅ "native tongue") is the language of ancient Sumer, which was spoken in southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) since at least the 4th millennium BC. During the 3rd millennium BC, there developed a very intimate cultural symbiosis between the Sumerians and the Akkadians, which included widespread bilingualism.^[3] The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian (and vice versa) is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a massive scale, to syntactic, morphological, and phonological convergence.^[3] This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the third millennium as a Sprachbund.^[3]

Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as a spoken language somewhere around the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BC (the exact dating being a matter of debate),^[4] but Sumerian continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary and scientific language in Mesopotamia until the 1st century AD. Then, it was forgotten until the 19th century, when Assyriologists began deciphering the cuneiform inscriptions and excavated tablets left by these speakers. Sumerian is a language isolate.^[1]

Varieties[link]

Stages[link]

The history of written Sumerian can be divided into several periods:

• Archaic Sumerian — 31st–26th c. BC,
• Old or Classical Sumerian — 26th–23rd c. BC,
• Neo-Sumerian — 23rd–21st c. BC,
• Late Sumerian — 20th–18th c. BC,
• Post-Sumerian — after 1700 BC.

Archaic Sumerian is the earliest stage of inscriptions with linguistic content, beginning with the Jemdet Nasr (Uruk III) period from about the 31st to 30th centuries BC. It succeeds the proto-literate period, which spans roughly the 35th to 30th centuries.

Some versions of the chronology may omit the Late Sumerian phase and regard all texts written after 2000 BC as Post-Sumerian.^[5] The term "Post-Sumerian" is meant to refer to the time when the language was already extinct and only preserved by Babylonians and Assyrians as a liturgical and classical language (for religious, artistic and scholarly purposes). The extinction has been traditionally dated approximately to the end of the Third Dynasty of Ur, the last predominantly Sumerian state in Mesopotamia, about 2000 BC. However, this date is very approximate, as many scholars have contended that Sumerian was already dead or dying as early as around 2100 BC, by the beginning of the Ur III period,^[4][6] while others believe that Sumerian persisted as a spoken language in a small part of Southern Mesopotamia (Nippur and its surroundings) until as late as 1700 BC.^[4] Whatever the status of spoken Sumerian between 2000 and 1700 BC, it is from this period that a particularly large amount of literary texts and bilingual Sumerian-Akkadian lexical lists survive, especially from the scribal school of Nippur. This, along with the particularly intensive official and literary use of the language in Akkadian-speaking states during the same time, is the basis for the distinction between a Late Sumerian period and all subsequent time.

Dialects[link]

Two varieties (dialects or sociolects) of Sumerian are recorded. The standard variety is called eme-ĝir (ĝ pronounced [ŋ]). The other recorded variety is called eme-sal (𒅴𒊩 EME.SAL, possibly "fine tongue" or high-pitched voice.^[7]), though often translated as "women's language." (The root sal can have several meanings.) Eme-sal is used exclusively by female characters in some literary texts. (This may be compared to the female languages or language varieties that exist or have existed in some cultures, e.g. among the Chukchis and the Caribs) In addition, it is dominant in certain genres of cult songs etc.. The special features of eme-sal are mostly phonological (e.g. m is often used instead of ĝ as in me vs standard ĝe₂₆, "I"), but words different from the standard language are also used (e.g. ga-ša-an vs standard nin, "lady"). Sumerian words adapted into Akkadian were sometimes of the eme-sal variety, so that it may have been the more colloquial variety.^{[citation needed]}

Grammar[link]

Sumerian is an agglutinative language, meaning that words could consist of a chain of more or less clearly distinguishable and separable affixes and/or morphemes.^{[citation needed]}

Sumerian is a split ergative language. It behaves as a nominative–accusative language in the 1st and 2nd person of present-future tense/incompletive aspect (AKA marû-conjugation), but as ergative–absolutive in most other forms of the indicative mood. Similar patterns are found in a large number of unrelated split ergative languages (see more examples at split ergativity). In Sumerian the ergative case is marked by the suffix -e and the absolutive case (as in most ergative languages) by no suffix at all (the so-called "zero suffix"). Example of the ergative pattern: lugal-e e₂ mu-un-du₃ "the king built the house"; lugal ba-ĝen "the king went" (the transitive subject is expressed differently from the intransitive subject, as it takes the suffix -e). Example of the nominative–accusative pattern: i₃-du-un (< *i₃-du-en) "I go (away)"; e₂ ib₂-du₃-un (< *ib₂-du₃-en) "I build the house" (the transitive subject is expressed in the same way as the intransitive subject, as both verbs takes the same 1st person singular suffix -en).

Sumerian distinguishes the grammatical genders human/non-human (personal/impersonal), but it does not have separate male/female gender pronouns. The human gender includes not only humans but also gods and in some cases the word for "statue". Sumerian has also been claimed to have two tenses (past and present-future), but these are currently described as completive and incompletive or perfective and imperfective aspects instead. There are a large number of cases: absolutive (-Ø), ergative (-e), genitive (-(a)k), dative/allative ("to, for") (-r(a) for human nouns, -e for non-human nouns), locative ("in, at") (-a, only with non-human nouns), comitative (-da), equative ("as, like") (-gin), directive/adverbial ("towards") (-š(e)), ablative ("from") (-ta, only with non-human nouns). The naming and number of the cases varies in the scientific literature.

Another characteristic feature of Sumerian is the large number of homophones (words with the same sound structure but different meanings), which are perhaps pseudo-homophones, as there might have been differences in pronunciation such as tone or some phonemic distinctions that are unknown. The different homophones (or, more precisely, the different cuneiform signs that denote them) are marked with different numbers by convention, "₂" and "₃" being often replaced by acute accent and grave accent diacritics respectively. For example: du = "go", du₃ = dù = "build".

The standard modern grammar of Sumerian is that of Dietz-Otto Edzard (2003).

Classification[link]

Sumerian has been the subject of controversial proposals purportedly identifying it as related genetically with a wide variety of agglutinative languages, as well as with some non-agglutinative languages, however it is generally accepted to be a Language Isolate. As the most ancient written language, it has a peculiar prestige, and such proposals sometimes have a nationalistic background and enjoy virtually no support among linguists because of their unverifiability.^[8] Examples of suggested related languages include:

• Hurro-Urartian languages (see Subarian, Alarodian)
• Munda languages (Igor M. Diakonoff)
• Dravidian languages (see Elamo-Dravidian)
• Nostratic languages (Allan Bomhard^[9])
• Dené–Caucasian languages (John Bengtson^[10])
• Uralic languages (Fred Hámori, Simo Parpola)
• Turkic languages (Julius Oppert, Adam Falkenstein)
• Tibeto-Burman languages (Jan Braun^[11])

Writing system[link]

Development[link]

Letter sent by the high-priest Lu'enna to the king of Lagash (maybe Urukagina), informing him of his son's death in combat, c. 2400 BC, found in Telloh (ancient Girsu)

The Sumerian language is the earliest known written language. The "proto-literate" period of Sumerian writing spans ca. 3500 to 3000 BC. In this period, records are purely logographic, with no linguistic or phonological content. The oldest document of the proto-literate period is the Kish tablet. Falkenstein (1936) lists 939 signs used in the proto-literate period (late Uruk, 34th to 31st centuries)

Records with unambiguously linguistic content, identifiably Sumerian, are those found at Jemdet Nasr, dating to the 31st or 30th century BC. From about 2600 BC, the logographic symbols were generalized using a wedge-shaped stylus to impress the shapes into wet clay. This archaic cuneiform ("wedge-shaped") mode of writing co-existed with the pre-cuneiform archaic mode. Deimel (1922) lists 870 signs used in the Early Dynastic IIIa period (26th century). In the same period the large set of logographic signs had been simplified into a logosyllabic script comprising several hundred signs. Rosengarten (1967) lists 468 signs used in Sumerian (pre-Sargonian) Lagash. The pre-Sargonian period of the 26th to 24th centuries BC is the "Classical Sumerian" stage of the language.

The cuneiform script is adapted to Akkadian writing from the mid 3rd millennium. Our knowledge of Sumerian is based on Akkadian glossaries. During the "Sumerian Renaissance" (Ur III) of the 21st century BC, Sumerian is written in already highly abstract cuneiform glyphs directly succeeded by Old Assyrian cuneiform.

Transcription[link]

Transcription, in the context of cuneiform, is the process in which an epigraphist makes a line art drawing to show the signs on a clay tablet or stone inscription in a graphic form suitable for modern publication. Not all epigraphists are equally reliable, and before a scholar publishes an important treatment of a text, the scholar will often arrange to collate the published transcription against the actual tablet, to see if any signs, especially broken or damaged signs, should be represented differently.

Transliteration is the process in which a Sumerologist decides how to represent the cuneiform signs in Roman script. Depending on the context, a cuneiform sign can be read either as one of several possible logograms, each of which corresponds to a word in the Sumerian spoken language, as a phonetic syllable (V, VC, CV, or CVC), or as a determinative (a marker of semantic category, such as occupation or place). (See the article Transliterating cuneiform languages). Some Sumerian logograms were written with multiple cuneiform signs. These logograms are called diri-spellings, after the logogram 'diri' which is written with the signs SI and A. The text transliteration of a tablet will show just the logogram, such as the word 'diri', not the separate component signs.

History of decipherment[link]

Cuneiform[link]

The key to reading logosyllabic cuneiform came from the Behistun inscription, a trilingual cuneiform inscription written in Old Persian, Elamite and Akkadian.

In 1838, building on the 1802 work of Georg Friedrich Grotefend, Henry Rawlinson (1810–1895) was able to decipher the Old Persian section of the Behistun inscriptions, using his knowledge of modern Persian. When he recovered the rest of the text in 1843, he and others were gradually able to translate the Elamite and Akkadian sections of it, starting with the 37 signs he had deciphered for the Old Persian. Meanwhile, many more cuneiform texts were coming to light from archaeological excavations, mostly in the Semitic Akkadian language, which were duly deciphered.

By 1850, however, Edward Hincks (1792–1866) came to suspect a non-Semitic origin for cuneiform. Semitic languages are structured according to consonantal forms, whereas cuneiform, when functioning phonetically, was a syllabary, binding consonants to particular vowels. Furthermore, no Semitic words could be found to explain the syllabic values given to particular signs.^[12]

Sumerian[link]

In 1855 Rawlinson announced the discovery of non-Semitic inscriptions at the southern Babylonian sites of Nippur, Larsa, and Uruk. Julius Oppert suggested that a non-Semitic, "Turanian" language had preceded Akkadian in Mesopotamia, and that speakers of this language had developed the cuneiform script.

In 1856, Hincks argued that the untranslated language was agglutinative in character. The language was called "Scythic" by some, and, confusingly, "Akkadian" by others. In 1869, Oppert proposed the name "Sumerian", based on the known title "King of Sumer and Akkad", reasoning that if Akkad signified the Semitic portion of the kingdom, Sumer might describe the non-Semitic annex.

Credit for being first to scientifically treat a bilingual Sumerian-Akkadian text belongs to Paul Haupt (1858–1926), who published Die sumerischen Familiengesetze (The Sumerian family laws) in 1879.^[13]

Ernest de Sarzec (1832–1901) began excavating the Sumerian site of Tello (ancient Girsu, capital of the state of Lagash) in 1877, and published the first part of Découvertes en Chaldée with transcriptions of Sumerian tablets in 1884. The University of Pennsylvania began excavating Sumerian Nippur in 1888.

A Classified List of Sumerian Ideographs by R. Brünnow appeared in 1889.

The bewildering number and variety of phonetic values that signs could have in Sumerian led to an unfortunate detour in understanding the language – a Paris-based orientalist, Joseph Halévy, argued from 1874 onward that Sumerian was not a natural language, but rather a secret code (a cryptolect), and for over a decade the leading Assyriologists battled over this issue. For a dozen years, starting in 1885, even the great Friedrich Delitzsch accepted Halévy's arguments, not renouncing Halévy until 1897.

François Thureau-Dangin working at the Louvre in Paris also made significant contributions to deciphering Sumerian with publications from 1898 to 1938, such as his 1905 publication of Les inscriptions de Sumer et d’Akkad. Charles Fossey at the Collège de France in Paris was another prolific and reliable scholar. His pioneering Contribution au Dictionnaire sumérien–assyrien, Paris 1905–1907, now available in whole at Google Books, turns out to provide the foundation for P. Anton Deimel's 1934 Sumerisch-Akkadisches Glossar (vol. III of Deimel's 4-volume Sumerisches Lexikon).

In 1908, Stephen Langdon summarized the rapid expansion in knowledge of Sumerian and Akkadian vocabulary in the pages of Babyloniaca, a journal edited by Charles Virolleaud, in an article 'Sumerian-Assyrian Vocabularies', which reviewed a valuable new book on rare logograms by Bruno Meissner. Subsequent scholars have found Langdon's work, including his tablet transcriptions, to be not entirely reliable. In 1944, a more careful Sumerologist, Samuel Noah Kramer, provided a detailed and readable summary of the decipherment of Sumerian in his Sumerian Mythology (now accessible on the Internet).

Friedrich Delitzsch published a learned Sumerian dictionary and grammar in the form of his Sumerisches Glossar and Grundzüge der sumerischen Grammatik, both appearing in 1914. Delitzsch's student, Arno Poebel, published a grammar with the same title, Grundzüge der sumerischen Grammatik, in 1923, and for 50 years it would be the standard for students studying Sumerian. Poebel's grammar was finally superseded in 1984 on the publication of The Sumerian Language, An Introduction to its History and Grammatical Structure, by Marie-Louise Thomsen. While much of Thomsen's understanding of Sumerian grammar would now be rejected by most or all Sumerologists, Thomsen's grammar (often with express mention of the critiques put forward by Pascal Attinger in his 1993 Eléments de linguistique sumérienne: La construction de du11/e/di «dire») is the starting point of most recent academic discussions of Sumerian grammar.

More recent monograph-length grammars of Sumerian include Dietz Otto Edzard's 2003 Sumerian Grammar and Bram Jagersma's 2010 A Descriptive Grammar of Sumerian (currently digital, but soon to be printed in revised form by Oxford University Press). Piotr Michalowski's essay (entitled, simply, "Sumerian") in the 2004 The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages has also been recognized as a good modern grammatical sketch. There is relatively little consensus, even among reasonable sumerologists, in comparison to the state of most modern or classical languages. Verbal morphology in particular is hotly disputed. In addition to the general grammars, there are many monographs and articles about particular areas of Sumerian grammar, without which a survey of the field could not be considered complete.

The primary institutional lexical effort in Sumerian is the Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary project, begun in 1974. In 2004, the PSD was released on the Web as the ePSD. The project is currently supervised by Steve Tinney. It has not been updated on-line since 2006, but Tinney and colleagues are working on a new edition of the ePSD, a working draft of which is available on-line.

Phonology and grammar[link]

Typologically, as mentioned above, Sumerian is classified as an agglutinative split ergative language. Ever since its decipherment, the research of Sumerian has been made difficult not only by the lack of any native speakers, but also by the relative sparseness of linguistic data, the apparent lack of a closely related language, and the features of the writing system.

Note: in the following, assumed phonological or morphological forms are presented between slashes //, while plain text is used for the standard Assyriological transcription of Sumerian. Most of the examples are unattested.

Phonemic inventory[link]

Modern knowledge of Sumerian phonology is inevitably extremely flawed and incomplete because of the lack of native speakers, the transmission through the filter of Akkadian phonology and the difficulties posed by the cuneiform script. As I.M. Diakonoff observes, "when we try to find out the morphophonological structure of the Sumerian language, we must constantly bear in mind that we are not dealing with a language directly but are reconstructing it from a very imperfect mnemonic writing system which had not been basically aimed at the rendering of morphophonemics."

Consonants[link]

Sumerian is conjectured to have at least the following consonants:

• a simple distribution of six stop consonants, in three places of articulation distinguished by a feature which may have been voicing (at least at later stages), aspiration or glottalization (at least at early stages):
  1. p (voiceless bilabial plosive),
  2. t (voiceless alveolar plosive),
  3. k (voiceless velar plosive),
  4. b (voiced bilabial plosive),
  5. d (voiced alveolar plosive),
  6. g (voiced velar plosive).

As a rule, /p/, /t/ and /k/ did not occur word-finally.^[14]

• a phoneme usually represented by /r̂/ (sometimes written dr) that was possibly an alveolar tap, though some have argued for an aspirated affricate.
• a simple distribution of three nasal consonants in similar distribution to the stops:
  1. m (bilabial nasal),
  2. n (alveolar nasal),
  3. g̃ (frequently printed ĝ due to typesetting constraints, increasingly transcribed as ŋ) /ŋ/ (likely a velar nasal, as in sing, it has also been argued to be a labiovelar nasal or a nasalized labiovelar^[15]).
• a set of three sibilants:
  1. s (possibly a voiceless alveolar fricative),
  2. z (possibly a voiced alveolar fricative, /z/, as in zip)^[16]
  3. š (generally described as a voiceless postalveolar fricative, /ʃ/, as in ship),

• a velar fricative /ḫ/ (sometimes just written h).
• two liquid consonants:
  1. l (a lateral consonant),
  2. r (a rhotic consonant).

The existence of various other consonants has been hypothesized based on graphic alternations and loans, though none have found wide acceptance. For example, Diakonoff lists evidence for two l-sounds, two r-sounds, two h-sounds, and two g-sounds (excluding the velar nasal), and assumes a phonemic difference between consonants that are dropped word-finally (such as the g in zag > za3) and consonants that aren't (such as the g in lag). Other "hidden" consonant phonemes that have been suggested include semivowels such as /j/ and /w/,^[17] and a glottal fricative /h/ or a glottal stop that could explain the absence of vowel contraction in some words^[18]—though objections have been raised against that as well.^[19]

Very often, a word-final consonant was not expressed in writing – and was possibly omitted in pronunciation – so it surfaced only when followed by a vowel: for example the /k/ of the genitive case ending -ak does not appear in e₂ lugal-la "the king's house", but becomes obvious in e₂ lugal-la-kam "(it) is the king's house" (compare liaison in French).

Vowels[link]

The vowels that are clearly distinguished by the cuneiform script are /a/, /e/, /i/, and /u/. It has also been argued that an /o/ phoneme might have existed, a fact that would have been concealed by the Akkadian transliteration which does not distinguish it from /u/. However, this hypothesis has not found wide support.^[15]

There is some evidence for vowel harmony according to vowel height or ATR in the prefix i₃/e- in inscriptions from pre-Sargonic Lagash (the specifics of the pattern have led a handful of scholars to postulate not only an /o/ phoneme, but even an /ɛ/ and, most recently, an /ɔ/^[20]) Many cases of partial or complete assimilation of the vowel of certain prefixes and suffixes to one in the adjacent syllable are reflected in writing in some of the later periods, and there is a noticeable though not absolute tendency for disyllabic stems to have the same vowel in both syllables.^[21] What appears to be vowel contraction in hiatus (*/aa/, */ia/, */ua/ > a, */ae/ > a, */ue/ > u, etc.) is also very common.

Syllables could have any of the following structures: V, CV, VC, CVC. More complex syllables, if Sumerian had them, are not expressed as such by the cuneiform script.

Grammar[link]

Nominal morphology[link]

The Sumerian noun is typically a one or two syllable root (igi "eye", e₂ "house, household", nin "lady"), although there are also some roots with three syllables like šakanka "market". There are two grammatical genders, usually called human and non-human (the first includes gods and the word for "statue" in some instances, but not plants or animals, the latter also includes collective plural nouns), whose assignment is semantically predictable. The adjectives and other modifiers follow the noun (lugal maḫ "great king"). The noun itself is not inflected; rather, grammatical markers attach to the noun phrase as a whole, in a certain order. Typically, that order would be noun – adjective – numeral – genitive phrase – relative clause – possessive marker – plural marker – case marker, for example /diĝir gal-gal-ĝu-ne-ra/ ("god great (reduplicated)-my-plural-dative" = "for all my great gods").^[22] The possessive, plural and case markers are traditionally referred to as "suffixes", but have recently also been described as enclitics^[23] or postpositions.^[24]

The plural markers are /-(e)ne/ (optional) for nouns of the human gender. Non-human nouns are not marked by a plural suffix. However, plurality can also be expressed with the adjective ḫi-a "various", with the plural of the copula /-meš/, by reduplication of the noun (kur-kur "all foreign lands") or of the following adjective (a gal-gal "all the great waters") – the reduplication is believed to signify totality – or by the plurality of the verb form only. Plural reference in the verb form is only possible for human nouns. The case markers are /-Ø/ (absolutive), /-e/ (ergative), /-e/ (allative = "to"), /-ak/ (genitive), /-gin/ (equative = "as, like"), /-r(a)/ (dative = "to, for" = indirect object), /-(e)š(e)/ (traditionally called terminative case, but means "towards"), /-da/ (comitative = "together with"), /-a/ (locative = "in, at"), /-ta/ (ablative = "from, by"). Additional spatial or temporal meanings can be expressed by genitive phrases like "at the head of" = "above", "at the face of" = "in front of", "at the outer side of" = "because of" etc.: bar udu ḫad₂-ak-a = "outer.side sheep white-genitive-locative" = "in the outer side of a white sheep" = "because of a white sheep".

The attested independent personal pronouns are written ĝe₂₆-e (1st p. sing.), ze₂-e (2nd p. sing.), a-ne or e-ne (3rd p. sing. human), and a/e-ne-ne (3rd p. pl. human). The possessive pronominal morphemes are written -ĝu₁₀ (1st p. sing.), -zu (2nd p. sing.), -(a)-n(i) (3rd p. sing. human), -b(i) (3rd p. sing./pl. non-human, also demonstrative and collective), -me (1st pers. pl.), -zu-ne-ne (2nd p. pl.), and -(a)-ne-ne (3rd pers.pl. animate). For most of the suffixes, vowels are subject to loss if they are attached to vowel-final words.

The Chinese box structure of the noun phrase can be illustrated with the phrase sipad udu siki-k-ak-ene ("the shepherds of wool sheep"), where the first genitive morpheme subordinates siki "wool" to udu "sheep", and the second – udu siki "wool sheep" to sipad "shepherd".

Verbal morphology[link]

General[link]

The Sumerian finite verb distinguishes a number of moods and agrees (more or less consistently) with the subject and the object in person, number and gender. The verb chain may also incorporate pronominal references to the verb's other modifiers, which has also traditionally been described as "agreement", although, in fact, such a reference and the presence of an actual modifier in the clause need not co-occur: not only e₂-še₃ ib₂-ši-du-un "I'm going to the house", but also e₂-še₃ i₃-du-un "I'm going to the house" and simply ib₂-ši-du-un "I'm going to it" are possible.^[24]

The Sumerian verb also makes a binary distinction according to a category that some regard as tense (past vs present-future), others as aspect (perfective vs imperfective), and that will be designated as TA (tense/aspect) in the following. The two members of the opposition entail different conjugation patterns and, at least for many verbs, different stems; they are theory-neutrally referred to with the Akkadian grammatical terms for the two respective forms – ḫamṭu (quick) and marû (slow, fat). Finally, opinions differ on whether the verb has a passive or a middle voice and how it is expressed.

The verbal root is almost always a monosyllable and, together with various affixes, forms a so-called verbal chain which is described as a sequence of about 15 slots, though the precise models differ.^[25] The finite verb has both prefixes and suffixes, while the non-finite verb may only have suffixes. Broadly, the prefixes have been divided in three groups that occur in the following order: modal prefixes, "conjugation prefixes", and pronominal and dimensional prefixes.^[26] The suffixes are a future or imperfective marker /-ed-/, pronominal suffixes, and an /-a/ ending that nominalizes the whole verb chain.

Modal prefixes[link]

The modal prefixes are /Ø-/ (indicative), /nu-/ and /la-/, /li-/ (negative; /la/ and /li/ are used before the conjugation prefixes ba- and bi₂-) /ga-/ (cohortative, "let me/us"), /ḫa-/ or /ḫe-/ with further assimilation of the vowel in later periods (precative or affirmative), /u-/ (prospective "after/when/if", also used as a mild imperative), /na-/ (negative or affirmative), /bara-/ (negative or vetitive), /nuš-/ (unrealizable wish?) and /ša-/ with further assimilation of the vowel in later periods (affirmative?). Their meaning can depend on the TA.

"Conjugation prefixes"[link]

The meaning, structure, identity and even the number of "conjugation prefixes" have always been a subject of disagreements. The term "conjugation prefix" simply alludes to the fact that a finite verb in the indicative mood must always contain one of them. Some of their most frequent expressions in writing are mu-, i₃- (ED Lagash variant: e-), ba-, bi₂- (ED Lagash: bi- or be₂), im-, im-ma- (ED Lagash e-ma-), im-mi- (ED Lagash i₃-mi or e-me-), mi-(always followed by pronominal-dimensional -ni-) and al-, and to a lesser extent a-, am₃-, am₃-ma-, and am₃-mi-; virtually all analyses attempt to describe many of the above as combinations or allomorphs of each other. The starting point of most analyses are the obvious facts that the 1st person dative always requires mu-, and that the verb in a "passive" clause without an overt agent tends to have ba-. Proposed explanations usually revolve around the subtleties of spatial grammar, information structure (focus^[27]), verb valency, and, most recently, voice.^[28] Mu-, im- and am₃- have been described as ventive morphemes, while ba- and bi₂- are sometimes analyzed as actually belonging to the pronominal-dimensional group (inanimate pronominal /-b-/ + dative /-a-/ or directive /-i-/).^[29] Im-ma-, im-mi-, am₃-ma- and am₃-mi- are then considered by some as a combination of the ventive and /ba-/, /bi-/^[29] or otherwise a variety of the ventive^[30] i₃- has been argued to be a mere prothetic vowel, al- a stative prefix, ba- a middle voice prefix, etcetera.

Pronominal and dimensional prefixes[link]

The dimensional prefixes of the verb chain basically correspond to, and often repeat, the case markers of the noun phrase. Like the latter, they are attached to a "head" – a pronominal prefix. The other place where a pronominal prefix can be placed is immediately before the stem, where it can have a different allomorph and expresses the absolutive or the ergative participant (the transitive subject, the intransitive subject or the direct object), depending on the TA and other factors, as explained below. However, this neat system is obscured by the tendency to drop or merge many of the prefixes in writing and possibly in pronunciation as well. -da-, -ta-, -ši- (early -še₃-), occurring in this order, are the comitative, ablative and terminative verbal prefixes; the dative (occurring before the others) is probably /-a-/, and a directive /-i-/ (occurring after the others) is widely recognized as well. The pronominal prefixes are /-n-/ and /-b-/ for the 3rd person singular animate and inanimate respectively; the 2nd person singular appears as -e- in most contexts, but as /-r-/ before the dative (-ra-), leading some^[31] to assume a phonetic /-ir-/ or /-jr-/. The 1st person may appear as -e-, too, but is more commonly not expressed at all (the same may frequently apply to 3rd and 2nd persons); it is, however, cued by the choice of mu- as conjugation prefix^[30] (/mu-/ + /-a-/ >> ma-). The 1st, 2nd and 3rd plural infixes are -me-,-re?- and -ne- in the dative^[30] and perhaps in other contexts as well,^[31] though not in the pre-stem position (see below). An additional exception from the system is the prefix -ni- which corresponds to a noun phrase in the locative – in which case it doesn't seem to be preceded by a pronominal prefix – and, according to Gábor Zólyomi and others, to an animate one in the directive – in the latter case it is analyzed as pronominal /-n-/ + directive /-i-/. Zólyomi and others also believe that special meanings can be expressed by combinations of non-identical noun case and verb prefix.^[32] Also according to some researchers^[33] /-ni-/ and /bi-/ acquire the forms /-n-/ and /-b-/ (coinciding with the absolutive–ergative pronominal prefixes) before the stem if there isn't already an absolutive–ergative pronominal prefix in pre-stem position: mu-un-kur₉ = /mu-ni-kur/ "he went in there" (as opposed to mu-ni-kur₉ = mu-ni-in-kur₉ = /mu-ni-n-kur/ "he brought in – caused [something or someone] to go in – there".

Pronominal suffixes and conjugation[link]

The pronominal suffixes are /-en/ for the 1st and 2nd person singular, /-e/ for the 3rd singular in marû TA and /-Ø/ in ḫamṭu TA, /-enden/ for the 1st plural, /-enzen/ for the 2nd plural, /-ene/ for the third plural in marû and /-eš/ in ḫamṭu (the initial vowel in all of the above suffixes can be assimilated to the root). The general principle for pronominal agreement in conjugation is that in ḫamṭu TA, the transitive subject is expressed by the prefix, and the direct object by the suffix, and in the marû TA it's the other way round; as for the intransitive subject, it is expressed, in both TAs, by the suffixes and is thus treated like the object in ḫamṭu and like the subject in marû (except for the fact that its 3rd person is expressed, not only in ḫamṭu but also in marû, by the suffixes used for the object in the ḫamṭu TA). A major exception from this generalization are the plural forms – in them, not only the prefix (as in the singular), but also the suffix expresses the transitive subject. Additionally, the prefixes of the plural are identical to the ones of the singular – /-?-/ or /-e-/, /-e-/, /-n-/, /-b-/ – as opposed to the -me-, -re-?, -ne- that are presumed for non-pre-stem position – and some scholars believe that the prefixes of the 1st and 2nd person are /-en-/ rather than /-e-/ when they stand for the object.^[34] Before the pronominal suffixes, a suffix /-e(d)-/ with a future or related modal meaning can be inserted, accounting for occurrences of -e in the third person singular marû of intransitive forms; because of its meaning, it can also be said to signal marû in these forms.^[31]

Examples for TA and pronominal agreement: (ḫamṭu is rendered with past tense, marû with present): /i-gub-en/ ("I stood" or "I stand"), /i-n-gub-en/ ("he placed me" or "I place him"); /i-sug-enden/ ("we stood/stand"); /i-n-dim-enden/ ("he created us" or "we create him"); /mu-e?-dim-enden/ ("we created [someone or something]"); i₃-gub-be₂ = /i-gub-ed/ ("he will/must stand"); ib₂-gub-be₂ = /i-b-gub-e/ ("he places it"); /i-b-dim-ene/ ("they create it"), /i-n-dim-eš/ ("they created [someone or something]" or "he created them"), /i-sug-eš/ ("they stood" or "they stand").

Confusingly, the subject and object prefixes (/-n-/, /-b-/, /-e-/) are not commonly spelled out in early texts, although the "full" spellings do become more usual during the Third Dynasty of Ur (in the Neo-Sumerian period) and especially during the Late Sumerian period. Thus, in earlier texts, we find mu-ak and i₃-ak (e-ak in early dynastic Lagash) instead of mu-un-ak and in-ak for /mu-n-ak/ and /i-n-ak/ "he/she made", and also mu-ak instead of mu-e-ak "you made". Similarly, pre-Ur III texts also spell the 1st and 2nd person suffix /-en/ as -e, making it coincide with the third person in the marû form.

Stem[link]

The verbal stem itself can also express grammatical distinctions. The plurality of the absolutive participant^[30] can be expressed by complete reduplication of the stem or by a suppletive stem. Reduplication can also express "plurality of the action itself",^[30] intensity or iterativity.^[17] With respect to TA marking, verbs are divided in 4 types; ḫamṭu is always the unmarked TA. The stems of the 1st type, regular verbs, do not express TA at all according to most scholars, or, according to M. Yoshikawa and others, express marû TA by adding an (assimilating) /-e-/ as in gub-be₂ or gub-bu vs gub (which is, however, nowhere distinguishable from the first vowel of the pronominal suffixes except for intransitive marû 3rd person singular). The 2nd type express marû by partial reduplication of the stem as kur₉ vs ku₄-ku₄; the 3rd type express marû by adding a consonant (te vs teĝ₃); and the 4th type use a suppletive stem (dug₄ vs e). Thus, as many as four different suppletive stems can exist, as in the admittedly extreme case of the verb "to go": ĝen ("to go", ḫamṭu sing.), du (marû sing.), (e-)re₇ (ḫamṭu plur.), sub₂ (marû plur.)

Other issues[link]

The nominalizing suffix /-a/ converts non-finite and finite verbs into participles and relative clauses: sum-ma "given", mu-na-an-sum-ma "which he gave to him", "who gave (something) to him", etc.. Adding /-a/ after the future/modal suffix /-ed/ produces a form with a meaning similar to the Latin gerundive: sum-mu-da = "which will/should be given". On the other hand, adding a (locative-terminative?) /-e/ after the /-ed/ yields a form with a meaning similar to the Latin ad + gerund (acc.) construction: sum-mu-de₃ = "(in order) to give".

The copula verb /me/ "to be" is mostly used as an enclitic: -men, -men, -am, -menden, -menzen, -(a)meš.

The imperative mood construction is produced with a singular ḫamṭu stem, but using the marû agreement pattern, by turning all prefixes into suffixes: mu-na-an-sum "he gave (something) to him", mu-na-e-sum-mu-un-ze₂-en "you (plur.) gave (something) to him" – sum-mu-na-ab "give it to him!", sum-mu-na-ab-ze₂-en "give (plur.) it to him!" Compare the French tu le lui donnes, vous le lui donnez (present tense) – donne-le-lui!, donnez-le-lui!^[30]

Syntax[link]

The basic word order is subject–object–verb; verb finality is only violated in rare instances, in poetry. The moving of constituent towards the beginning of the phrase may be a way to highlight it,^[35] as may the addition of the copula to it. The so-called anticipatory genitive (e₂-a lugal-bi "the owner of the house/temple", lit. "of the house, its owner") is common and may signal the possessor's topicality.^[35] There are various ways to express subordination, some of which have already been hinted at; they include the nominalization of a verb, which can then be followed by case morphemes and possessive pronouns (kur9-ra-ni "when he entered") and included in "prepositional" constructions (eĝer a-ma-ru ba-ur₃-ra-ta "back – flood – conjugation prefix – sweep over – nominalizing suffix – [genitive suffix?] – ablative suffix" = "from the back of the Flood's sweeping-over" = "after the Flood had swept over"). Subordinating conjunctions such as ud-da "when, if", tukum-bi "if" are also used, though the coordinating conjunction u₃ "and", a Semitic adoption, is rarely used. A specific problem of Sumerian syntax is posed by the numerous so-called compound verbs, which usually involve a noun immediately before the verb, forming a lexical or idiomatic unit^[36] (e.g. šu...ti, lit. "hand-approach" = "receive"; igi...du₈, lit. "eye-open" = "see"). Some of them are claimed to have a special agreement pattern that they share with causative constructions: their logical object, like the causee, receives, in the verb, the directive infix, but in the noun, the dative suffix if animate and the directive if inanimate.^[32]

Sample text[link]

FAOS 05/1, Ent 28, A [7] (the beginning of an inscription by Entemena of Lagash, appr. 2400 BC).
Transliteration:
I.1-7: ^den-lil₂ lugal kur-kur-ra ab-ba dingir-dingir-re₂-ne-ke₄ inim gi-na-ni-ta ^dnin-ĝir₂-su ^dšara₂-bi ki e-ne-sur
8-12: me-silim lugal kiš^ki-ke₄ inim ^dištaran-na-ta eš₂ GAN₂ be₂-ra ki-ba na bi₂-ru₂
13-17: uš ensi₂ umma^ki-ke₄ nam inim-ma diri-diri-še₃ e-ak
18-19: na-ru₂-a-bi i₃-pad
20-21: eden lagaš^ki-še₃ i₃-ĝen
22-27: ^dnin-ĝir₂-su ur-sag ^den-lil₂-la₂-ke₄ inim si-sa₂-ni-ta umma^ki-da dam-ḫa-ra e-da-ak
28-29: inim ^den-lil₂-la₂-ta sa šu₄ gal bi₂-šu₄
30-31: SAḪAR.DU₆.TAKA₄-bi eden-na ki ba-ni-us₂-us₂
32-42: e₂-an-na-tum₂ ensi₂ lagaš^ki pa-bil₃-ga en-mete-na ensi₂ lagaš^ki-ka-ke₄ en-a₂-kal-le ensi₂ umma^ki-da ki e-da-sur
II.1-3a: e-bi id₂ nun-ta gu₂-eden-na-še₃ ib₂-ta-ni-ed₂
3b: GAN₂ ^dnin-ĝir₂-su-ka 180 30 1/2 eš₂ niĝ₂-ra₂ a₂ umma^ki-še₃ mu-tak₄
3c: GAN₂ lugal nu-tuku i₃-ku_x(DU)
4-5: e-ba na-ru₂-a e-me-sar-sar
6-8: na-ru₂-a me-silim-ma ki-bi bi₂-gi₄
9-10: eden umma^ki-še₃ nu-dab₅
11-18: im-dub-ba ^dnin-ĝir₂-su-ka nam-nun-da-ki-gar-ra bara₂ ^den-lil₂-la₂ bara₂ ^dnin-ḫur-sag-ka bara₂ ^dnin-ĝir₂-su-ka bara₂ ^dutu bi₂-du₃

Translation^[37]
I.1-7: Enlil, king of all the lands, father of all the gods, by his firm command, fixed the border between Ningirsu and Shara.
8-12: Mesilim, king of Kish, at the command of Ishtaran, measured the field and set up a (boundary-) stone there.
13-17: Ush, ruler of Umma, acted haughtily.
18-19: He ripped out that (boundary-) stone
20-21: and marched toward the plain of Lagash.
22-27: Ningirsu, warrior of Enlil, at his just command, made war with Umma.
28-29: At Enlil's command, he threw his great battle net over it
30-31: and heaped up burial mounds for it on the plain.
32-42: Eannatum, ruler of Lagash, uncle of Entemena, ruler of Lagash, fixed the border with Enakale, ruler of Umma;
II.1-3a: made the (boundary-)channel extend from the Nun canal to the Gu'edena;
3b: left a 1,290 meter length of Ningirsu's field, toward the side of Umma
3c: and established(?) it as an ownerless field.
4-5: At that (boundary-)channel he inscribed (new boundary-)stones,
6-8: and restored the (boundary-)stone of Mesilim.
9-10: He did not cross into the plain of Umma.
11-18: On the (boundary-)levee of Ningirsu – the Namnundakigara – he built a shrine of Enlil, a shrine of Ninhursag, a shrine of Ningirsu, and a shrine of Utu.

See also[link]

	Language portal
	Ancient Near East portal

• List of extinct languages of Asia
• List of languages by first written accounts
• Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

Further reading[link]

External links[link]

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Zecharia Sitchin
Born	July 11, 1920 Baku, Azerbaijan SSR
Died	October 9, 2010( 2010-10-09) (aged 90) New York, New York
Citizenship	United States
Alma mater	London School of Economics, University of London
Known for	Ancient astronauts
Website
http://www.sitchin.com/

Zecharia Sitchin (July 11, 1920 – October 9, 2010^[1]) was an Azerbaijani-born American author of books proposing an explanation for human origins involving ancient astronauts. Sitchin attributes the creation of the ancient Sumerian culture to the Anunnaki, which he states was a race of extra-terrestrials from a planet beyond Neptune called Nibiru. He believed this hypothetical planet of Nibiru to be in an elongated, elliptical orbit in the Earth's own Solar System, asserting that Sumerian mythology reflects this view. Sitchin's books have sold millions of copies worldwide and have been translated into more than 25 languages.

Sitchin's ideas were rejected by scientists and academics, who dismiss his work as pseudoscience and pseudohistory. Sitchin's work has been criticized for flawed methodology and mistranslations of ancient texts as well as for incorrect astronomical and scientific claims.^[2]

Early life[link]

Sitchin was born in the then Azerbaijan SSR of the Soviet Union, but was raised in Palestine. He received a degree in economics from the University of London, and was an editor and journalist in Israel, before moving to New York in 1952. While working as an executive for a shipping company, he taught himself Sumerian cuneiform and visited several archaeological sites.^[3][4]

Ideas and works[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2010)

Similarly to earlier authors such as Immanuel Velikovsky and Erich von Däniken, Sitchin advocated hypotheses in which extraterrestrial events supposedly played a significant role in ancient human history.

According to Sitchin's interpretation of Mesopotamian iconography and symbology, outlined in his 1976 book The 12th Planet and its sequels, there is an undiscovered planet beyond Neptune that follows a long, elliptical orbit, reaching the inner solar system roughly every 3,600 years. This planet is called Nibiru (although Jupiter was the planet associated with the god Marduk in Babylonian cosmology).^[5] According to Sitchin, Nibiru (whose name was replaced with MARDUK in original legends by the Babylonian ruler of the same name in an attempt to co-opt the creation for himself, leading to some confusion among readers) collided catastrophically with Tiamat (a goddess in the Babylonian creation myth the Enûma Eliš), which he considers to be another planet once located between Mars and Jupiter. This collision supposedly formed the planet Earth, the asteroid belt, and the comets. Sitchin states that when struck by one of planet Nibiru's moons, Tiamat split in two, and then on a second pass Nibiru itself struck the broken fragments and one half of Tiamat became the asteroid belt. The second half, struck again by one of Nibiru's moons, was pushed into a new orbit and became today's planet Earth.

According to Sitchin, Nibiru (called "the twelfth planet" because, Sitchin claimed, the Sumerians' gods-given conception of the Solar System counted all eight planets, plus Pluto, the Sun and the Moon) was the home of a technologically advanced human-like extraterrestrial race called the Anunnaki in Sumerian myth, who Sitchin states are called the Nephilim in Genesis. He wrote that they evolved after Nibiru entered the solar system and first arrived on Earth probably 450,000 years ago, looking for minerals, especially gold, which they found and mined in Africa. Sitchin states that these "gods" were the rank-and-file workers of the colonial expedition to Earth from planet Nibiru.

Sitchin wrote that Enki suggested that to relieve the Anunnaki, who had mutinied over their dissatisfaction with their working conditions, that primitive workers (Homo sapiens) be created by genetic engineering as slaves to replace them in the gold mines by crossing extraterrestrial genes with those of Homo erectus.^[6][7] According to Sitchin, ancient inscriptions report that the human civilization in Sumer, Mesopotamia, was set up under the guidance of these "gods", and human kingship was inaugurated to provide intermediaries between mankind and the Anunnaki (creating the "divine right of kings" doctrine). Sitchin believes that fallout from nuclear weapons, used during a war between factions of the extraterrestrials, is the "evil wind" described in the Lament for Ur that destroyed Ur around 2000 BC. Sitchin states the exact year is 2024 BC.^[8] Sitchin says that his research coincides with many biblical texts, and that biblical texts come originally from Sumerian writings.

Popularity[link]

Since the release of his first book The 12th Planet in 1976, now in its 45th printing, Zecharia Sitchin has written seven other books as part of his Earth Chronicles series, as well as six other companion books, all of which are still in print as of 2010^[update]. Sitchin's books have sold millions of copies worldwide and been published in more than 25 languages, as well as in braille.^[9] New York Times reporter Corey Kilgannon noted that despite academic dismissal of his work, Sitchin has "a devoted following of readers".^[3]

Critic Michael Heiser called Sitchin "arguably the most important proponent of the ancient astronaut hypothesis over the last several decades".^[10] Sitchin was a frequent guest on the Coast to Coast AM radio show, which in 2010 presented Sitchin with a life-time achievement award.^[11] Gods of the New Millennium author Alan F. Alford admits he initially became "infatuated" with Sitchin's hypotheses but later became a critic of Sitchin's interpretations of myth.^[12]

According to some writers, Sitchin's ideas along with those of Erich von Däniken may have influenced the beliefs of the religious sect of Raëlism,^[13][14] and writer Mark Pilkington sees the mythology of Japan's Pana Wave religious group as rooted in Sitchins The 12th Planet and its sequels.^[15]

The 1994 movie Stargate, directed by Roland Emmerich, and the 2009 video game The Conduit drew some conceptual inspiration from Sitchin's ideas,^[16][17] while screenwriter Roberto Orci says the villains of the film Cowboys and Aliens were inspired by Sitchin's conceptualization of the Anunnaki as gold-mining aliens.^[18]

Criticisms[link]

Criticism of Sitchin's work falls primarily into three categories: translations and interpretations of ancient texts; astronomical and scientific observations; and literalism of myth.

Translations and interpretations[link]

When Sitchin wrote his books, only specialists could read the Sumerian language. However, sources such as the 2006 book Sumerian Lexicon^[19] have made the language more accessible to non-experts. Ancient language scholar Michael S. Heiser^[20] states he has found many inaccuracies in Sitchin's translations and challenges interested parties to use this book to check their validity.^[15][21] Prof. Ronald H. Fritze,^[22] author of the book Invented Knowledge: False History, Fake Science and Pseudo-religions,^[22] mentions the example of Sitchin's claim that the Sumerian sign Din-Gir means "pure ones of the blazing rockets", adding that "Sitchin's assignment of meanings to ancient words is tendentious and frequently strained."^[23] Fritze also commented on Sitchin's methodology, writing that "When critics have checked Sitchin's references, they have found that he frequently quotes out of context or truncates his quotes in a way that distorts evidence in order to prove his contentions. Evidence is presented selectively and contradictory evidence is ignored."^[23]

Sitchin bases his arguments on his personal interpretations of pre-Nubian and Sumerian texts, and the seal VA 243. Sitchin wrote that these ancient civilizations knew of a twelfth planet, when in fact they only knew five.^[24] Hundreds of Sumerian astronomical seals and calendars have been decoded and recorded, and the total count of planets on each seal has been five. Seal VA 243 has 12 dots that Sitchin identifies as planets. When translated, seal VA 243 reads "You're his Servant" which is now thought to be a message from a nobleman to a servant. According to semitologist Michael S. Heiser, the so-called sun on Seal VA 243 is not the Sumerian symbol for the sun but is a star, and the dots are also stars.^[24][25] The symbol on seal VA 243 has no resemblance to the hundreds of documented Sumerian sun symbols.

In a 1979 review of The Twelfth Planet, Roger W. Wescott,^[26] Prof. of Anthropology and Linguistics at Drew University, Madison, New Jersey, noted Sitchin's amateurishness with respect to the primacy of the Sumerian language:

Sitchin's linguistics seems at least as amateurish as his anthropology, biology, and astronomy. On p. 370, for example, he maintains that "all the ancient languages . . . including early Chinese . . . stemmed from one primeval source -- Sumerian". Sumerian, of course, is the virtual archetype of what linguistic taxonomists call a language-isolate, meaning a language that does not fall into any of the well-known language-families or exhibit clear cognation with any known language. Even if Sitchin is referring to written rather than to spoken language, it is unlikely that his contention can be persuasively defended, since Sumerian ideograms were preceded by the Azilian and Tartarian signaries of Europe as well as by a variety of script-like notational systems between the Nile and Indus rivers.^[27]

Astronomical and scientific observations[link]

Sitchin's "planetary collision" view does superficially resemble a theory by modern astronomers—the giant impact theory of the Moon's formation about 4.5 billion years ago by a body impacting with the newly-formed Earth. However, Sitchin's proposed series of rogue planetary collisions differ in both details and timing. As with Immanuel Velikovsky's earlier Worlds in Collision thesis, Sitchin states that he has found evidence of ancient human knowledge of rogue celestial motions in a variety of mythological accounts. In Velikovsky's case, these interplanetary collisions were supposed to have taken place within the span of human existence, whereas for Sitchin these occurred during the early stages of planetary formation, but entered the mythological account passed down via the alien race which purportedly evolved on Nibiru after these encounters.

While Sitchin's scenario for the creation of the Solar System is hard to reconcile with the Earth's current small orbital eccentricity of only 0.0167, Sitchin's supporters maintain that it would explain much of Earth's peculiar early geography due to cleaving from the celestial collision, i.e., solid continents on one side and a giant ocean on the other.^{[citation needed]}

According to former Immanuel Velikovsky assistant turned prolific critic,^[28] C. Leroy Ellenberger,^[28] "[Sitchin states that] from an equal start, the Nefilim evolved on Nibiru 45 million years ahead of comparable development on Earth with its decidedly more favorable environment. Such an outcome is unlikely, to say the least, since Nibiru would spend over 99% of its time beyond Pluto. Sitchin's explanation that heat from radioactive decay and a thick atmosphere keep Nibiru warm is absurd and does not address the problem of darkness in deep space. Also unexplained is how the Nefilim, who evolved long after Nibiru arrived, knew what happened when Nibiru first entered the solar system."^[29]

The scenario outlined by Sitchin, with Nibiru returning to the inner solar system regularly every 3,600 years,

. . . implies an orbit with a semi-major axis of 235 astronomical units, extending from the asteroid belt to twelve times farther beyond the sun than Pluto. Elementary perturbation theory indicates that, under the most favorable circumstances of avoiding close encounters with other planets, no body with such an eccentric orbit would keep the same period for two consecutive passages. Within twelve orbits the object would be either ejected or converted to a short period object. Thus, the failed search for a trans-Plutonian planet by T.C. Van Flandern, of the U.S. Naval Observatory, which Sitchin uses to bolster his thesis, is no support at all.^[29]

Sitchin in “the case of Adam’s alien genes”^[30] states that 223 unique genes found by the Human Genome Sequencing Consortium are without the required predecessors on the genomic evolutionary tree. Later researchers have argued that the conclusion from the Human Genome Sequencing Consortium cannot be drawn due to a lack of a comprehensive gene database for comparison. An analysis by Salzberg identified 40 potential genes laterally transferred into the genome from prokaryotic organisms. Salzberg also argues that gene loss combined with sample size effects and evolutionary rate variation provide an alternative, more biologically plausible explanation.^[31]

Literalism of myth[link]

Peter James, co-author of the controversial book Centuries of Darkness,^[32] has criticized Sitchin both for ignoring the world outside of Mesopotamia and more specifically for misunderstanding Babylonian literature:

He uses the Epic of Creation Enuma Elish as the foundation for his cosmogony, identifying the young god Marduk, who overthrows the older regime of gods and creates the Earth, as the unknown "Twelfth Planet". In order to do as he interprets the Babylonian theogony as a factual account of the birth of the other "eleven" planets. The Babylonian names for the planets are established beyond a shadow of a doubt—Ishtar was the deity of Venus, Nergal of Mars, and Marduk of Jupiter—and confirmed by hundreds of astronomical/astrological tables and treatises on clay tablets and papyri from the Hellenistic period. Sitchin merrily ignores all this and assigns unwarranted planetary identities to the gods mentioned in the theogony. For example, Apsu, attested as god of the primeval waters, becomes, of all things, the Sun! Ea, as it suits Sitchin, is sometimes planet Neptune and sometimes a spaceman. And the identity of Ishtar as the planet Venus, a central feature of Mesopotamian religion, is nowhere mentioned in the book—instead Sitchin arbitrarily assigns to Venus another deity from Enuma Elish, and reserves Ishtar for a role as a female astronaut.^[33]

William Irwin Thompson comments on what he calls Sitchin's 'literalism':

What Sitchin sees is what he needs for his hypothesis. So figure 15 on page 40 is radiation therapy, and figure 71 on page 136 is a god inside a rocket-shaped chamber. If these are gods, why are they stuck with our cheap B movie technology of rockets, microphones, space-suits, and radiation therapy? If they are gods, then why can't they have some really divine technology such as intradimensional worm-hole travel, antigravity, starlight propulsion, or black hole bounce rematerializations? Sitchin has constructed what appears to be a convincing argument, but when he gets close to single images on ancient tablets, he falls back into the literalism of "Here is an image of the gods in rockets." Suddenly, ancient Sumer is made to look like the movie set for Destination Moon. Erich Von Däniken's potboiler Chariots of the Gods has the same problem. The plain of Nazca in Peru is turned into a World War II landing strip. The gods can cross galactic distances, but by the time they get to Peru, their spaceships are imagined as World War II prop jobs that need an enormous landing strip. This literalization of the imagination doesn't make any sense, but every time it doesn't, you hear Sitchin say "There can be no doubt, but..."^[34]

Bibliography[link]

Earth Chronicles volumes[link]

1. The 12th Planet, New York: Stein and Day, 1976
2. The Stairway to Heaven, 1980, Avon Books (Bear & Company, 1992, ISBN 0-939680-89-0; Harper, 2007, ISBN 0-06-137920-4)
3. The Wars of Gods and Men, 1985, Avon Books (Bear & Company, 1992, ISBN 0-939680-90-4)
4. The Lost Realms, Avon Books, 1990, ISBN 0-380-75890-3
5. When Time Began, 1993, (Harper, 2007, ISBN 0-06-137928-X, ISBN 978-0-06-137928-4)
6. The Cosmic Code, Avon Books, 1998, ISBN 0-380-80157-4
7. The End of Days: Armageddon and Prophecies of the Return, William Morrow, 2007, ISBN 978-0-06-123823-9

Companion volumes[link]

• Genesis Revisited: Is Modern Science Catching Up With Ancient Knowledge?, (Avon Books, 1990, ISBN 0-380-76159-9)
• Divine Encounters: A Guide to Visions, Angels and Other Emissaries, Avon Books, 1995, ISBN 0-380-78076-3)
• The Lost Book of Enki: Memoirs and Prophecies of an Extraterrestrial god, Bear & Company, 2001, ISBN 1-59143-037-2
• The Earth Chronicles Expeditions, Bear & Company, 2004, ISBN 978-1-59143-076-6
• Journeys to the Mythical Past, Bear and Company, 2007 ISBN 978-1-59143-080-3
• The Earth Chronicles Handbook, Bear & Company, 2009, ISBN 978-1-59143-101-5
• There Were Giants Upon the Earth: Gods, Demigods, and Human Ancestry: The Evidence of Alien DNA, (Bear & Company), 2010, ISBN 978-1-59143-121-3

DVDs[link]

• Are We Alone in the Universe? (based on Genesis Revisited), documentary, 1978 (2003 DVD release)^[35]
• An Evening with Zecharia Sitchin, lecture and slide presentation, 1997
• A Talk From The Heart!, lecture and slide presentation, 2006
• Signs of the Return, lecture and slide presentation, 2009
• 2012 - The End of Days?, lecture and slide presentation, 2010
• Zecharia at 90 - Farewell Address, lecture, 2010

See also[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiversity has learning materials about Zecharia Sitchin

• Official Website
• Kilgannon, Corey. "Origin of Species, From an Alien View", The New York Times, January 10, 2010. p. MB4.
• Zecharia Sitchin Audio Tribute on Coast to Coast AM

Criticisms[link]

• Ian Lawton's Mesopotamia Papers
• An Astronomer's View of the Akkadian Seal by Tom van Flandern
• SitchinIsWrong.com: A Polemical Website against the Theories of Zechariah Sitchin

This article contains Japanese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of kanji and kana.

Michio Kaku (加来 道雄, Kaku Michio^?, born January 24, 1947) is an American theoretical physicist, the Henry Semat Professor of Theoretical Physics in the City College of New York of City University of New York, a co-founder of string field theory,^[1] a futurist, and a "communicator" and "popularizer" of science. He has written several books about physics and related topics; he has made frequent appearances on radio, television, and film; and he writes extensive online blogs and articles. He has written two New York Times best sellers, Physics of the Impossible (2008) and Physics of the Future (2011). He has hosted several TV specials for BBC-TV, the Discovery Channel, and the Science Channel.

Early life and education[link]

Kaku was born in San Jose, California to Japanese immigrant parents. His grandfather came to the United States to take part in the clean-up operation after the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake^{[citation needed]}. His father was born in California but was educated in Japan and spoke little English. Both his parents were put in the Tule Lake War Relocation Center, where they met and where his two brothers were born.

At Cubberley High School in Palo Alto, Kaku assembled an atom smasher in his parents' garage for a science fair project.^[2] At the National Science Fair in Albuquerque, New Mexico, he attracted the attention of physicist Edward Teller, who took Kaku as a protégé, awarding him the Hertz Engineering Scholarship. Kaku graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University in 1968 and was first in his physics class. He attended the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley and received a Ph.D. in 1972, and in 1972 he held a lectureship at Princeton University.

During the Vietnam War, Kaku completed his U.S. Army basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia and his advanced individual training at Fort Lewis, Washington.^[3] However, the Vietnam War ended before he was deployed as an infantryman.

Academic career[link]

Kaku became a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton,^[4] and New York University.^[5] He currently holds the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City College of New York.^[6]

Kaku has had over 70 articles published in physics journals such as Physical Review, covering topics such as superstring theory, supergravity, supersymmetry, and hadronic physics.^[7] In 1974, along with Prof. Keiji Kikkawa of Osaka University, he authored the first papers describing string theory in a field form.^[8][9]

Kaku is the author of several textbooks on string theory and quantum field theory.

Popular science[link]

Kaku is most widely known as a popularizer of science.^[10] He has written books and appeared on many television programs as well as film. He also hosts a weekly radio program.

Books[link]

Kaku is the author of various popular science books.

• Hyperspace (1994)
• Beyond Einstein (with Jennifer Thompson) (1995)
• Visions: How Science Will Revolutionize the 21st Century^[11] (1998)
• Einstein's Cosmos (2004)
• Parallel Worlds (2004)
• Physics of the Impossible (2008)
• Physics of the Future (2011)

Hyperspace was a best-seller and was voted one of the best science books of the year by both The New York Times^[10] and The Washington Post. Parallel Worlds was a finalist for the Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction in the UK.^[12]

Radio[link]

Kaku is the host of the weekly, one-hour radio program Explorations, produced by the Pacifica Foundation's WBAI in New York. "Explorations" is syndicated to community and independent radio stations and makes previous broadcasts available on the program's website. Kaku defines the show as dealing with the general topics of science, war, peace, and the environment.

In April 2006, Kaku began broadcasting Science Fantastic on 90 commercial radio stations, the only nationally syndicated science program on commercial radio in the United States. It is syndicated by Talk Radio Network and now reaches 130 radio stations and America's Talk on XM. The program is formatted as a live listener call-in show, focusing on "futurology," which he defines as the future of science.^{[citation needed]} Featured guests include Nobel laureates and top researchers on the topics of string theory, time travel, black holes, gene therapy, aging, space travel, artificial intelligence, and SETI. When Kaku is busy filming for television, Science Fantastic goes on hiatus, sometimes for several months. Kaku is also a frequent guest on many programs, where he is outspoken in all areas and issues he considers of importance, such as the program Coast to Coast AM, where on 30 November 2007, he reaffirmed his belief that there is a 100% probability of extraterrestrial life in the universe.^[13]

Kaku has appeared on The Opie and Anthony Show a number of times, discussing popular fiction such as Back to The Future, Lost, and the theories behind time-travel that these and other fictional entertainment focus on.

Television and film[link]

Kaku has appeared in many forms of media and on many programs and networks, including Good Morning America, The Screen Savers, Larry King Live, 60 Minutes, Nightline, 20/20, Naked Science, CNN, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, Al Jazeera English, Fox News Channel, The History Channel, Conan, The Science Channel, The Discovery Channel, TLC, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, The Colbert Report, The Art Bell Show and its successor, Coast To Coast AM, BBC World News America, The Opie & Anthony Show, The Covino & Rich Show, Head Rush, The Late Show with David Letterman, and Real Time with Bill Maher.