Gutian language

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Not to be confused with Gutian dialect, a variety of Eastern Min Chinese.
Gutian
Region
EBA IV)
Language codes
ISO 639-3None (mis)
Glottologguti1235
Near East in the 3rd millennium BCE

Gutian (/ˈɡuːtiən/) is an extinct unclassified language that was spoken by the Gutian people, who briefly ruled over Sumer as the Gutian dynasty in the 22nd century BCE. The Gutians lived in the territory between the Zagros Mountains and the Tigris. Nothing is known about the language except its existence and a list of names of Gutian rulers in the Sumerian King List, which may reflect elements of the language.

Evidence

The Gutian language lacks a

textual corpus
and contemporary sources provide few details about the language, providing only a list of names.

Sumerian King List

The Gutian king names from the Sumerian list are:[1]

Different manuscripts record different Gutian kings in different orders. Some names may be from other groups, and the transmission of the names is unreliable.[2]

Thorkild Jacobsen suggested that the recurring ending -(e)š may have had a grammatical function in Gutian, perhaps as a case marker.[3]

Other evidence

Gutian is included in a list of languages spoken in the region found in the Sag B tablet, an educational text from the Middle Babylonian period possibly originating from the city of Emar. This text also lists Akkadian, Amorite, Sutean, "Subarean" (Hurrian) and Elamite.[4] There is also a mention of "an interpreter for the Gutean language" in a tablet from Adab.[5]

Tocharian theory

In a posthumously-published article,

Old Turkish manuscript from the early 9th century CE, which is thought to refer to the Tocharians.[6] Most scholars rejected the attempt to compare languages separated by more than two millennia.[8]

References

  1. ^ "The Sumerian king list". The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature. Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford. 308–334.
  2. ISBN 978-1-317-61091-5
    . p. 37.
  3. ISBN 0-226-62273-8
    .
  4. ISBN 978-1-57506-080-4
    .
  5. ISBN 978-1-57506-132-0
    .
  6. ^
    ISBN 978-90-279-7776-2
    .
  7. ISBN 978-3-11-012324-1
    .
  8. ISBN 978-0-500-05101-6
    .


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