hey, sorry if i'm asking too many questions over the past few days, i've recently gotten into learning about Sumerian and it's become my latest fixation! your blog is a massive help with learning!
i was hoping you'd be down to check out if i have the cuneiform and meanings for this name for a character correctā
so the character's name is Igishaha Nuzida. His name being igishaha š
šš "(one with the) face (of a) pig" or simply "pig-face", named such because he is quite ugly and resembles a pig, and having the epithet of nuzida š”š£š "(the) dishonest (one)", which he was given as a result of his reputation as a deceiver.
would this be correct? do epithets come before or after the name? i assume after since adjectives come after the noun and epithets are adjectival phrases.
Hello, and youāve mostly got it! Igishaha š
šš would mean āface of a pigā, exactly as you said.
Nuzida would mean something like ānot being honestā - itās a nominalized verb phrase operating as an adjective or adverb. (It could also meanĀ āunstrengthenedā or āunreinforcedā, as in the sides of a wall or levee.) Instead, Iād use lutumu, a beautiful Sumerian word that literally means āwind-personā - i.e., a person who speaks wind rather than truths. It thus means ādishonest person, liar, fraudsterā, and is written š½š
in cuneiform.
As for the ordering, āepithetsā donāt operate as strictly in Sumerian as they do in a language like Greek, and both phrases here are nouns. I could see either igishaha lutumu āpig-face, the liarā or a reorder as lutumu igishahada āthe liar with a pigās faceā. The only epithet with strict ordering in Sumerian (and ordering that breaks the noun-adjective rule) is kug āblessed, holy, shiningā, which always comes before the name (usually of a deity) that it describes.