Wiktionary talk:About Akkadian

Standardization

Hello! Since you guys contacted me about Akkadian, I thought I'd create a group chat to discuss Akkadian issues. This would allow me not to have to repeat the same things multiple times and would also help keeping everybody in the loop on discussions had and decisions taken. I've been thinking quite a lot of how to structure Akkadian, Sumerian and Cuneiform sign entries in the past weeks, and there are a couple of things I'm not willing to compromise on, other things I have a preference about but I'm curious to know your opinion on, and all the rest is open to discussion! Things I'm not willing to compromise on: 1. entries in the Latin alphabet ("normalisation") with mimation (Old Babylonian literary dialect. See Wiktionary:About_Akkadian for details); 2. Cuneiform sign entries should only give info about the sign itself in the Translingual section. Akkadian and Hittite will have transliteration info (Sumerograms and phonetic values) and a link to words written using that sign. All info regarding the words themselves will be under their corresponding entry. The Cuneiform sign entry for Sumerian corresponds to the Sumerian entry for that word, so it will be treated as such. See 𒀭 for an example of this.My personal preference:

Using the following citation template as a standard for any Akkadian entries, wherever they appear (example with the word šarrāqum, "thief"):

šarrāqum 𒊬𒊏𒀀𒄣 (šar-ra-a-qum) <-- When not relevant (like in other languages' etymology sections) the transliteration could be omitted: šarrāqum 𒊬𒊏𒀀𒄣

That is, in the order:

1. mimated normalisation
2. most precise attested cuneiform phonetic spelling
3. tranliteration

• (1) is self explanatory;
• (2) means that we give a cuneiform phonetic spelling that most clearly represents the word. In the case of šarrāqum, it could be phonetically spelt in many ways:

  𒊭𒊏𒄣 (ša-ra-qum)

  𒊭𒅈𒊏𒀀𒄣 (ša-ar-ra-a-qu)

  𒃻𒊏𒄣 (ša2-ra-qu)

  𒊬𒊏𒄣 (šar-ra-qum)

  𒊬𒊏𒄣 (šar-ra-qu)

  𒊬𒊏𒆪 (šar-ra-qu2)

  etc.

We should indicate a spelling that clearly indicates both the double R and the long A, if either features are actually attested, trying at the same time to keep it short (mainly for aesthetic reasons), so using CVC signs instead of CV-VC if CVC is attested. Based on the possible spellings above, we can go for 𒊬𒊏𒀀𒄣 (šar-ra-a-qum).

• (3) also shouldn't pose any problem. I know that some of you think this step could be automatised, but if you have a quick look at the examples above (sign 𒄣), you can see how it's often the case that one sign has more than one transliteration and unluckily there's no way to know which to use when, so this too needs to be done case by case. (beside qu and qum, the sign 𒄣 can also be transliterated as kum, kun3, gum, gu8, ku13 and kas6)

Besides the above, there are some things I don't like about the structure of my Akkadian entries.

1. The sections Sumerograms and Attested cuneiform spelling. See aššatum as a reference. They look messy and I'm not sure it makes sense to give inflected forms. It would probably look better if we just had a Spelling section with a 2 column table with Sumerograms on the first column and Phonetic spelling on the other. What do you think?
2. Alternative forms. I've heard @Malku H₂n̥rés's opinion (=they shouldn't be separate pagenames) and I'm not too happy with indicating non-mimated forms or dialectal forms as new pagenames either (see wardum for an extreme case)... What do you think?

Let me know what you think. That should be it for a starter. I think that once we agree on what to do about the above, we can start talking about Templates. (Said by Sartma)

Sorry, I missed this when it was fresh. I do think that we, a subset who are active on Discord, may not be the best people to ask, as none of us have seriously studied Akkadian. It's good to keep important discussions on-wiki to include everyone, and I think Tom 144, Fay Freak, and Profes.I. have more useful opinions than I do.

But anyway... the order in the headword line would normally have the original orthography (in this case, cuneiform) first, but keeping the romanisation and syllabic spellings separate does seem easier on the eyes.

A) We should use a standard header approved in WT:EL. Otherwise, I agree on format, and you should use a template for that.

B) If you want to treat Akkadian seriously as a language that can be handled in Latin script... I think you have to accept these forms as just as deserving of entries. A Template:akk-non-mimated form template could save you some trouble. (Said by Metaknowledge)

In a nutshell:

1. replacing the alternative normalizations by a pronunciation template

• (Old Babylonian) IPA^(key): /about ak.ka.dian/

1. having maximally parsimonious pagenames (in order to generate correctly the pronunciation, cuneiform transliteration and a cuneiform spelling) that is the Old Babylonian (the oldest)
2. the cuneiform entries serve only for the glyph, give informations about it, and link to the lemmata they stand for.
3. the lemmata are normalizations. It's the central entry which provides etymology, pronunciation, senses, etc., and peculiarly the attested cuneiform spellings (by dialect, like pronunciation, using labels), the phonographic as well as logographic and mixed forms. Malku H₂n̥rés (talk) 06:42, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

@Fenakhay, Tom 144, Fay Freak, Profes.I.. It deals with the standardization of Akkadian entries. Malku H₂n̥rés (talk)

See User:Sartma/akk-noun as an example of the structure of a what would be a standard Akkadian page. Not finished at this moment. Malku H₂n̥rés (talk) 08:37, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

@Malku H₂n̥rés, Fenakhay, Tom 144, Fay Freak, Profes.I. I've updated the akk-noun page. The first part is the noun page structure, the second part gives some examples with Akkadian words. I've added <--Template needed--> where I think we would need a template. Let me know what you think about it. Sartma (talk) 16:31, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

@Malku H₂n̥rés, Fenakhay, Tom 144, Fay Freak, Profes.I. The more I think about it, the less I believe there's any need to have the transliteration next to the cuneiform when citing Akkadian words, so something like this: anāku 𒀀𒈾𒆪 (“I”), šamšum 𒊭𒄠𒋳 (“sun”), etc. instead of anāku 𒀀𒈾𒆪 (a-na-ku) (“I”), šamšum 𒊭𒄠𒋳 (ša-am-šum) (“sun”). If someone doesn't know how to read a phonetic cuneiform sign, they can always check the entry of that sign and find out. Of course we should keep the transliteration in the "Cuneiform spelling" box of each entry, but that should suffice. What do you guys think? Sartma (talk) 22:22, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

@Sartma: I like the way your recent Akkadian entries look, in particular the way you present cuneiform spellings now; Header “Cuneiform spelling” as on ūmum or directly as on qanûm headers for “Sumerograms”, ”Phonetic cuneiform spellings” or ”phonetic”, “Mixed” or other formulation (and better not hide the spellings in a table like on šarrāqum and aššatum unless they are really many). It should probably be the same header names at some point due to WT:EL restrictions—it allows only a finite list of header names, one has tracked illegal headers, but the whitelist is secretely longer and we will allow for exceptions in Akkadian as with Chinese, I reckon it’s looking how an Akkadian entry on the web should look, great. Fay Freak (talk) 18:34, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

@Fay Freak: Thank you for your feedback! Yes, that's definitely the direction I'd like to go from now on (I'll review previous entries to unify the layout, but I was waiting to have templates for that). Ideally, I'd like a template that creates a table like the one you can find here: User:Sartma/akk-noun#Cuneiform_spelling_2. Ideally, I would also like this table to be the only place where we write the transliteration of cuneiform signs, while everywhere else we just use the normalisation (=Latinisation) and the cuneiform script. Sartma (talk) 19:01, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Conjugations

@ObnoxiousCoder Don't forget to update this page with any new template(s). Ultimateria (talk) 19:16, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

IPA reconstruction

@Malku H₂n̥rés, Fenakhay, Sartma I think the current reconstruction should be adjusted to the one described in this book by John Huehnergard. It is much more fitting to the available evidence than the traditional reconstruction that we are currently using. The required changes to the module are available here Module:akk-IPA/sandbox. Do you have any thoughts? — This unsigned comment was added by ObnoxiousCoder (talk • contribs) at 02:15, 12 January 2023 (UTC).

Support. @Sartma, Fay Freak, Malku H₂n̥rés — Fenakhay ^{(حيطي · مساهماتي)} 03:58, 12 January 2023 (UTC)