The

cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge-sha ...

ša sign is a common, multi-use sign, a syllabic for ''ša'', and an alphabetic sign used for ''š'', or ''a''; it is common in both the ''

Epic of Gilgamesh The ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' () is an epic poetry, epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia, and is regarded as the earliest surviving notable literature and the second oldest religious text, after the Pyramid Texts. The literary history of Gilgamesh ...

'' over hundreds of years, and the 1350 BC

Amarna letters The Amarna letters (; sometimes referred to as the Amarna correspondence or Amarna tablets, and cited with the abbreviation EA, for "El Amarna") are an archive, written on clay tablets, primarily consisting of diplomatic correspondence between t ...

. Besides ''ša'' usage in word components of verbs, nouns, etc., it has a major usage between words. In Akkadian, for

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

''"who"'', it is an interrogative pronoun; in the

Akkadian language Akkadian (, Akkadian: )John Huehnergard & Christopher Woods, "Akkadian and Eblaite", ''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages''. Ed. Roger D. Woodard (2004, Cambridge) Pages 218-280 is an extinct East Semitic language th ...

as ''ša'', (as "that", "what"; ("that (of)", "which (of)"), in English it used for ''who, what, which, etc.''.

Ša, and Ka, the stroke differences

The difference in the construction of the signs ''ka'' and ''ša'' are as follows: "ka" when scribed in the Amarna letters often shows the distinctiveness of the right section of the sign, versus the left section. For ''ša'', the right section is constructed with two wedge strokes (one scribed above the other), between the two verticals, at right. For ''ka'', the right side mostly, in the Amarna letters has two verticals, with two horizontals that cross both of them; (the right side is like a two-step ladder shape—(for Hittite ''ka'':—)). A good example of ''ša'', is shown for EA 365, Reverse (top half), where the 2-wedge strokes of ''ša'' between the 2-right verticals is clear. (Note, the ''ša'' of EA 365 appears to have 3-horizontals at left (differing lengths), then the 2-verticals with the 2-wedge strokes, at right.)

Ša Usage numbers

''Epic of Gilgamesh''

The usage numbers for ''ša'' in the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' are as follows: ''ša''-(66) times. There are no other sub-uses or

sumerogram A Sumerogram is the use of a Sumerian cuneiform character or group of characters as an ideogram or logogram rather than a syllabogram in the graphic representation of a language other than Sumerian, such as Akkadian or Hittite. Sumerograms are no ...

ic uses for ''ša'' in the ''Epic of Gilgamesh''.

Amarna letters The Amarna letters (; sometimes referred to as the Amarna correspondence or Amarna tablets, and cited with the abbreviation EA, for "El Amarna") are an archive, written on clay tablets, primarily consisting of diplomatic correspondence between t ...

Cuneiform ''ša'' is common in the Amarna letters, found easily between words (as the pronoun), and especially in word constructs. Since it is similar in appearance to cuneiform ''ka'', the large difference is that ''ka'' can easily be found as a suffix to words, for example in the

Canaan Canaan (; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 – ; he, כְּנַעַן – , in pausa – ; grc-bib, Χανααν – ;The current scholarly edition of the Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus T ...

ite sub-corpus of letters as ''"Servant-Yours"'', , ('' ARAD- ka'').

References

* Moran, William L. 1987, 1992. ''The Amarna Letters.'' Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987, 1992. 393 pages.(softcover, ) * Parpola, 1971. ''The Standard Babylonian

'', Parpola, Simo,

Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project is an international scholarly project aimed at collecting and publishing ancient Assyrian texts and studies based on them. Its headquarters are in Helsinki in Finland. State Archives of Assyria State Archives ...

, c 1997, Tablet I through Tablet XII, Index of Names, Sign List, and Glossary-(pp. 119–145), 165 pages. {{DEFAULTSORT:Sa (cuneiform) Akkadian language Cuneiform signs, Amarna letters