The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature
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ETCSL: Transliteration conventions


Preferred readings

To ensure a standardised transliteration, a list of preferred readings is maintained. With few exceptions these are all values recorded in R. Borger, Assyrisch-babylonische Zeichenliste (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 3rd edn. with supplement, 1986), since this is widely available. Within this, in general 'long' values have been preferred to 'short' values, and values attested in Proto-Ea and Proto-Diri preferred to those attested in later lexical lists. There are certain exceptions to these principles. All homophones are marked with subscript indices (not acute and grave accents), because electronic searching is facilitated thereby.

Words containing /ng/

The Sumerian velar nasal consonant /ng/ has been regularly marked in transliteration as a g with tilde, and a standardised list of words containing this sound is maintained, based on the study of J. Krecher in B. Hruska and G. Komoróczy, Festschrift Lubor Matous (Budapest, 1978), vol. 2, pp. 7-73.

Our convention for representing /ng/ on the website is explained on the page about display conventions.

Emesal words

Words in the Emesal dialect are electronically tagged and can be searched for. A standard list of Emesal words is maintained, based on the study of M.K. Schretter, Emesal-Studien (Innsbruck, 1990).

Please email us if you would like a copy of any of these lists of transliteration conventions.

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Page created on 30.iv.1999 by JAB. Last revised on 7.ix.2001 by ER.