The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian
Literature
Catalogues: by date | by number | in full |
Website info: navigation help | site description | recent
changes
Project info: consolidated
bibliography | about the project | credits and copyright | links
Because of the limitations of HTML, we use the following conventions to mark non-ASCII characters in transliterations of Sumerian, in both composite texts and translations:
So, for instance, /jic\ represents a partially broken GISH sign, conventionally written [[left half-bracket]] [[g-tilde]] i [[s-hacek]] [[right half-bracket]]. In addition, the symbols ß and ¡ are used to represent sadhe (dotted s) and teth (dotted t) respectively in Akkadian glosses. For further information about Sumerian phonology, see sections 1-34 of M.L. Thomsen, The Sumerian language, 2nd ed. (Harrassowitz, 2001).
Diacritics which are conventionally transribed as acute and grave accents over the vowel (á, é, í, ú and à, è, ì, ù) are here marked with subscript 2 and 3 respectively, as of course are diacritic marks 4-9 and 0. (However, some older Web browsers may not recognise subscript and superscript; in this case you will see full-sized numbers in the text and in the following example.) For instance, you will find zu2 not zú and dug3 not dùg.
Technical information about the transliteration conventions is given on a separate page.
Several textual features are marked for display, but you will need an HTML 4.0 and CSS 2-compatible browser to see them, because they use the new HTML <SPAN> element with a Cascading Style Sheet (e.g. -- but not exclusively -- Netscape Navigator 4 or later, or Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 or later). If you do not have this software, and/or have a monochrome monitor, then you will see simple transliterated Sumerian or English prose.
The visual scheme is this:
Line numbers are shown in superscript at the beginning of each line of composite text. Where a composition is extant in discontiguous segments, those segments are lettered, and the line numbering starts again at 1.
Line numbers also appear in superscript at the beginning of every paragraph of English prose translation (or as full-sized numerals if your Web browser does not recognise superscript), marking the corresponding lines of composite text. For instance, 37-45 would mark the start of the paragraph which translates lines 37 to 45 of the composite text.
Line markers also serve as links between the corresponding parts of the composite text and translation.
Page created on 7.ix.2001 by ER. Last revised on 29.x.2001 by ER.