The

cuneiform Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...

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 from ancient Mesopotamia. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins with five Sumerian language, Sumerian poems about Gilgamesh (formerly read as Sumerian "Bilgames"), king of Uruk, some of ...

'' over hundreds of years, and the 1350 BC Amarna letters. 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 that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...

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

Akkadian language 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 was an East Semitic language that is attested ...

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, Eblaite, or Hittite. Th ...

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

Amarna letters

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 CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...

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 of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and studies based on them. Its headquarters are in Helsinki in Finland. State Archives ...

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