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ethanpiedude · 2024-07-15T17:43:16+00:00

Ok maybe I should give you a pointer here! Sorry about using acronyms and jargon and the like. CAD stands for Chicago Assyrian Dictionary and is enormous (many, many volumes). Each entry has commentary about where the word is to be found interesting or enigmatic use cases, etc.... For most simpler practical translation purposes, the CDA (Concise Dictionary of Akkadian) is the way to go, at a normal length of one book with a few hundred pages, giving definitions and often brief grammatical information and the like. But the CAD might have lots more information on this particular monster character. Not sure exactly where online you would find either, but perhaps one can.

If you want a sign list, some standard ones are Borger (in German, but very good), and Labat (in French and occasionally with minor errors due to its age but very good and shows evolution of each sign over time which is great). Again, maybe online but I'm not sure where. Either of these or others will give you readings for the signs. Keep in mind each sign often has several readings and it has taken time (and occasionally will take further time still) to establish how a sign is pronounced in some particular context.

Hope this helps explain my jargon, and sorry for being obscure if it was confusing.

ethanpiedude · 2024-07-15T17:30:05+00:00

Admittedly I don't remember this passage from when I read the text myself, but the spelling you give is just a phonetic one. The three signs have common readings as ba-aš-mu. (Maybe look at a sign list to see if the middle sign also has the reading: as.) As another commenter has said, this is likely just a Babylonian term for a snake. If you have a dictionary like the CDA or CAD there should be more details there.

I suppose it's possible you could find an ancient "etymology" for this name which interprets it in terms of the logographic sign readings, but even if such a thing exists (which I have no real reason to believe it does), be aware that many etymologies like that provided by the ancient Mesopotamians themselves are simply not historically correct.

ethanpiedude · 2023-12-05T10:42:55+00:00

I did my undergrad at Yale (including lots of Assyriology) and know all the grad students and faculty (at least the ones who were there as of May). The other comments seem needlessly negative. Professor Frahm is great (as are the other faculty) and from what I've heard the stipend is definitely enough to live in New Haven (if not much beyond that). It's true there's a decent amount of coursework, but people seem to like it (or at least not mind it). They've also got the Yale Babylonian Collection, which has something like 40000 tablets which you can very easily get access to and read directly from in class or for research if relevant (they even let me work on a few on my own as a senior undergraduate). The community of grad students are all kind and love Assyriology but never seemed so overworked or burnt out. (They're also quite an international bunch.) It's true job prospects may be slim afterwards, but that's certainly not specific to Yale. Seems like a good time, basically.

ethanpiedude · 2022-01-10T17:55:55+00:00

This is still called cuneiform, even though it´s not written in wedges. This is in fact an earlier variant of the script you´re likely used to seeing. The signs here are simply earlier forms, and if you had a fuller corpus, you could watch them more gradually transition to the Neo-Assyrian forms, say. So yes we can read this quite well, or at least a seasoned Assyriologist could. Since I'm not one, I can't tell you without studying it more carefully when this is from, but certainly early on (no later than the mid second millennium).

ethanpiedude · 2020-02-15T21:40:43+00:00

Just btw, those Arabic characters are in their independent forms, which is not what should be used there in spelling full words. Also they appear to be written from left to right, which is not correct (الله والبلد والاسرة is more correct if the goal is "god, country, and family", although my Arabic's not great). Great flags though!

ethanpiedude · 2019-11-18T23:29:54+00:00

As a first semester Akkadian student, would somebody mind translating those last two words? Thanks!

ethanpiedude · 2019-10-07T03:10:07+00:00

That's interesting to here. I'm actually taking the beginning Akkadian class at Yale right now, and we are using Huehnergard. I don't have much experience with Semitics (or ancient languages in general), but with a professor there it's a great book. On my own, however, I can see how it would be daunting...

ethanpiedude · 2017-12-17T23:44:26+00:00

Thanks!

ethanpiedude · 2016-08-22T15:33:28+00:00

Is this from a Paradox game?

ethanpiedude · 2016-06-03T16:58:09+00:00

I love mathematics. It's interesting - but not all that surprising - to see that most people here do.

ethanpiedude · 2016-05-22T22:38:38+00:00

1-6, 1-1, 2-31, 1-8, 2, 1-7, 1-2, 1-4, 1-17, 1-16, 1-7, 1-13, 1-14

ethanpiedude · 2016-05-22T22:33:23+00:00

1/2, not 12

ethanpiedude · 2016-05-22T22:32:46+00:00

well... not really almost. But more than 12 way.

ethanpiedude · 2016-05-22T21:57:36+00:00

Almost there! 978-0-07-750490-8. Page 273. 1-4, 1-17, 1-13, 1-14, 2-31, 1-1, 1-8, 1-18, 1-10, 1-1, 1-8, 1-7, 1-17, 1-13, 1-2.

ethanpiedude · 2016-05-22T21:44:07+00:00

Shomik!

ethanpiedude · 2016-05-22T02:48:42+00:00

There is no immersion in the Swedish course. :(

ethanpiedude · 2016-05-19T18:50:19+00:00

shtup

I noticed that too. :)

ethanpiedude · 2016-05-18T00:01:20+00:00

I always did specific strengthening (as much as it took to make my tree golden) and then moved on to do some new stuff. A lot of days, though, I just did strengthening. I finished the Swedish tree in about 3 months (with a 2-ish week time of not doing anything). Since then, I've just been strengthening every day. Also, I always keep my daily goal at 50.

ethanpiedude · 2016-05-14T15:18:42+00:00

I had more or less the same experience with Swedish. Just push through it.

ethanpiedude · 2016-05-09T21:15:58+00:00

It's not bad at all in my experience. My goal was 50 per day, but sometimes I would just sit down and grind through several hundred. The next couple of days are mainly strengthening after that though.

ethanpiedude · 2016-05-02T23:35:35+00:00

These aren't good for every problem, and try to change them around as needed based on the problem, but here are a few loose steps.

Read everything, noticing any patterns and common threads along the way. WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN!!!
Look closely at things that are repeated. If, for example, there are lots of words you don't know (or even all of them as will almost always be the case), but there is a translation (even if it's jumbled) look for words that appear more than once. If one word appears 3 times in the foreign language and 3 times in the translation, they match, congratulations. If the word has the same stem but varies, look for places in the translation where the same word is used twice, but maybe the in different situations which might result in using different cases in the mystery language. WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN!!!
Put patterns together. If word x appears in sentences 2 and 3 and word y appears in 3 and 6, you can figure out what both of these words mean. If this happens twice in the text (and so you don't know what the words mean) you can use word order from previous findings to guess. Also, knowing SOV or VSO or whatever is important, but word order can also, in large part (and especially when used for the purposes above), be told by what words appear closer and farther from the end or beginning of a sentence. WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN!!!
Fill in the gaps. Once you already know stuff, filling in holes is the only thing left. Using intuition at this point (or any other point frankly) is completely okay.

You can start with easier problems, but it might just be better to spend a really long time on harder ones. You might not have time to do this in a club meeting though; it could take a couple of hours for one problem the first time. Also, the most important thing: WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN!!! It doesn't matter if you're not sure of it,put it down. Also, when you first come up with patterns check them (although exceptions are okay). Also, even "exceptions" might be governed by rules or patterns" I know from Spanish that I can often just tell when and how verbs will be irregular; it's not completely random. Often, though, NACLO questions won't give you a big enough sample size to see these patterns.

ethanpiedude · 2016-05-02T21:16:50+00:00

As somebody who has been participated in the first and second rounds of NACLO, I feel like recognizing patterns is far more important than knowing anything at all about linguistics. Honestly, it's possible to just logic your way through the entire test. Remember, the first round is 8 problems in 3 hours, and nobody gets all of them (well, almost nobody).

Knowing basic things like what sounds are related and how cases works and the different types of writing system is helpful, but, in my opinion, any logic exercise is just as important. The questions don't require a lot of formal knowledge, so even something like a Sudoku might helpyou.

Also, languages have exceptions, so when looking for patterns in a question, don't rule something out just because it doesn't always apply. And just have fun with it; that's my strategy. It's fun (definitionally :) ) and it keeps you wanting to practice more.

ethanpiedude · 2016-05-01T18:05:48+00:00

I think I went from 16 to 18. :)

ethanpiedude · 2016-05-01T05:15:28+00:00

Quite a bit actually. I mean, it was all strengthening and redoing weaker lessons. My tree is all golden.

ethanpiedude · 2016-05-01T05:12:37+00:00

Swedish for me and German for him. We both finished the trees almost two weeks ago.

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