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 ...

di sign, also de, ṭe, ṭi, and sumerograms DI and SÁ is a common-use sign of 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 ...

'', 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 ...

, and other cuneiform texts. 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 ...

for forming words, it can be used syllabically for: ''de, di, ṭe, and ṭi''; also alphabetically for letters ''d'', ''ṭ'', ''e'', or ''i''. (All the four vowels in Akkadian are interchangeable for forming words (''a, e, i, u''), thus the many choices of

scribe A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of automatic printing. The profession of the scribe, previously widespread across cultures, lost most of its promi ...

s is apparent for composing actual 'dictionary-entry' words.) Some consonant-pairs (d/t), are also interchangeable (for example the ''d'', ''t'', and ''ṭ'').

''Epic of Gilgamesh'' usage

The usage numbers for ''di/de'' in the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' are as follows: ''de''-(8) times, ''di''-(161), ''ṭe''-(7), ''ṭi''-(19), ''DI''-(1), ''SÁ''-(2) times. 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

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 C+B-Persia-Cuneiform10

(one scribed above the other), between the two verticals, at right. For ''ka'', the right side mostly, in the Amarna letters has two verticals, C+B-Persia-Cuneiform1

with two horizontals B209ellst

that cross both of them; (the right side is like a two-step ladder shape—(for Hittite ''ka'':— B024 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 sumerogramic 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"'', B018 (Old Babylonian arad-v2)

, ('' 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 thru Tablet XII, Index of Names, Sign List, and Glossary-(pp. 119–145), 165 pages. {{col-end Cuneiform signs