#sumerian vocabulary

[sumerianlanguage]

What would be a cool Sumerian phrase to carve in Cunieform on a Jack-o-lantern?

Hello! My lovely community on Twitch helped me brainstorm some ideas, and here's what we've got for you.

One idea is kishur, cuneiform 𒆠𒊨, which means "scary, frightening" as well as "grave" or "hole that a snake lives in". If you wanted a more literal reference, aladnu 𒄇𒉢 means "spirit (alad) of the lamp (nu)", a loose translation of "jack-o-lantern". But to me, the funniest would be 𒁍, which literally means "perfect" but is pronounced BU!

If anybody makes (or has made) fun cuneiform pumpkin carvings, I'd love to see them! Happy spooky season everybody.

[sumerianlanguage]

This is the cuneiform sign 𒂂 dugud, which in Sumerian means "heavy, massive, weighty", "cloud" or "important, to be important". A solid choice for a sign marking someone as being important here on tumblr dot com

Bringing Babylonian Back

Do you know what you folks did? With your excitement over the Ea-Nasir merch you got a large corporation to release a digital product in Akkadian cuneiform.

You brought a language back from the dead that dates back to 2500 BC. How cool is that? It's days like today that remind me why I like hanging out with you fine folks. Even if you don't want the badge you gotta admit that this is pretty cool.

[beautiful-basque-country]

ON BASQUE AND ITS TIES WITH GEORGIAN, ARMENIAN, AND TAMAZIGHT.

American linguist Morris Swadesh (1909-1967) created a world map of current languages according to comparative linguistics, taking into account their common origin. The lexico-statistical or glottochronological Swadesh method is based on taking 215 words in two groups of 100; key words such as personal pronouns, low numerals, parts of the body, kinship names, some action verbs, some adverbs of time and place, objects of nature, very common actions, bodily actions and questions.

Swadesh claimed that in the basic vocabulary the rate of change is so regular in languages, that he had been able to create a system of measuring the elapsed time in which two languages were related in the past and that today are separated geographically.

According to Swadesh, that basic vocabulary of 100 or 215 words changes less than 20% per millennium in each language. These variations in vocabulary leave a common ground between two or more languages related to each other, which is measured chronologically, thus establishing the time distance between a language and its more modern relatives. If the number of words with the same root between two languages in these two groups of 100 is less than or equal to 5%, it is considered a similarity by chance (the figure does not respond to anything specific, the method has many random parts), and if it is greater it would be the result of some common past.

There is a formula to know the time elapsed between the period in which the contact occurred and the current moment, and the result with Basque was the following (with the rest of the languages with which Basque has been compared by this method the result is inferior and not significant):

list 215    list 100

Northwest Circassian Caucasian:

6.62% 7.52%

Northwest Avar Caucasian:

3.80%     5.37%

Georgian, South Caucasian:

4.73% 7.52%

Rift Tamazight (northern Morocco):  

6%         9.67%

Southern Tamazight (southern Morocco)    

7.38%       10.86%

Many of the similarities considered good are more than questionable, since the evolution of words and languages is not taken into account, some borrowings from other languages are considered good, etc.

Nor can we forget American linguist R.L. Trask, that compared Hungarian and Basque and found in 2 hours of searching 65 similar words that could only be the result of chance, but that lead to question many investigations: this exercise tested by other researchers with other unrelated languages has given the same surprising result. R.L. Trask said “I can't understand why some linguists get so excited when they find two dozen Basque words that look like two dozen other Berber or Sumerian words.”

Basque and the languages of the Caucasus

The Caucasus is located 4,000 kilometers from Garonne-Pyrénées-Ebro where the Basques live. In the Caucasus, about 50 different peoples coexist with almost 22 languages. The main difficulty in establishing the Basque-Caucasian relationship consists of this lack of unity.

Swadesh's lexico-statistical ratio of Circassian and Georgian to Basque is 7.52%, higher than any other language in the world. The supposed contact would have occurred in the Magdalenian, about 10,000 years ago. With the rest of the languages of the Caucasus, current Basque is similar in typology (verbs, the ergative, etc.) and in the etymology of some words, but its lexical-statistical relationship with all of them is less than 5%.

There are also parallels between Basque and Georgian in syntactic aspects, such as the use of the ergative (transitive-intransitive verbs, “Nor-Nork” forms) that do not occur in any other European language, the reflexive way of making sentences such as: “I have seen my head in the mirror” (nire burua ispiluan ikusi dut), and not: “I have seen myself in the mirror”, the use of base twenty to count, etc.

But many current or recent renowned linguists are skeptical about the relationship with the Caucasian languages. Basque linguist Koldo Mitxelena (1915-1987) said that: “In summary, there are some Basque-Caucasian lexical similarities that cannot be demonstrated to be possible, but on the other hand there are a large number whose extraordinary implausibility can be demonstrated (…). Even if Basque and the Caucasian languages go back to a common origin, the number of missing intermediate links must be so high that it is to be feared that, due to not knowing them, the ancient ties of kinship will not be established."

If there is a relationship, for both Koldo Mitxelena and Xabier Kintana, it has to go back to the fifth and sixth millennia or earlier.

Basque and Armenian

Armenian linguist and Basque philologist Vahan Sarkisian, creator of the Basque-Armenian Dictionary and a Grammar of the Basque Language in his language, is the main promoter of the "Basque-Armenian theory" and the one who has done the most work in recent years on ethnolinguistic kinship between both peoples.

This prestigious Armenian linguist affirms that "the best promoters of this theory were neither Basques nor Armenians and, therefore, they had no direct interests in the issue. I am referring to the Englishman Edward Spencer Dodgson and the German Joseph Karst. The former knew well Basque. In Paris he began to study Armenian and quickly detected the similarities, which he initially summarized in a list of 50 words. Karst was an Armenianologist and, when he came into contact with Basque, he compared issues related to anthropology, the phonetic system, the grammar and the lexicon and extracted more than 400 similarities. (...) We understand without problems, for example, what Zabaltegi, or Ormazabal means, because it means exactly the same in Armenian. We feel at home, and that already means something. Armenian is considered an Indo-European language (Basque is the only pre-Indo-European language in all of Europe, prior to the invasions of these peoples), but if we bring to light the twenty most important regularities of the language we will see that they coincide more with Basque than with any other neighboring languages such as Georgian or Persian. And not only referring to the lexicon. In Armenian, for example, words are not formed with an initial -r, our throat has a hard time pronouncing it. The same thing happens to the Basque language, to the Basque throat.

Neither Armenian nor Basque recognize the accumulation of consonants, they are unpronounceable to us, while in other languages neighboring ours, such as Georgian, groups of up to five or six consonants are common. We could mention many other characteristics that separate us from our neighbors and bring us closer to Basque, such as the postponed article, the way of forming the plural, not to mention toponymy, which provides an enormous amount of similarities. (…) I believe that this type of coincidences - which even affect the articulation apparatus, which has a physiological nature - cannot arise from mere contact, they cannot be imported or exported. Karst said that Armenian and Basque are two varieties of the same linguistic stem (…) The only thing I would dare to say with any certainty is that perhaps in ancient times the entire area was occupied by the same ethnic-cultural element, which gave way terrain to other elements, leaving vestiges in Euskadi and Armenia, as survivors of a great and ancient civilization.”

It is curious that Armenian – which does not give any relationship with Basque through the Swadesh method – and Georgian are, apparently, more similar to Basque than to each other when they are neighboring peoples. To conclude this short summary, let's share a toponymic curiosity: in Georgia there is Mount Gorbeya (like the highest mountain in Bizkaia and Alaba), in Armenia is the sacred Mount Ararat (like the Aralar mountain range between Alaba, Gipuzkoa and Alta Navarra), and also a mountain named Gora (mountain in the language of the area and "up" in Basque). The curiosity is even greater because the Araxes River bathes Mount Aralar, and in the Armenian Mount Ararat there is a river called... Araxes.

Basque and Tamazight

Tamazight, by the Swadesh method, is not related to Arabic or Egyptian; nor with Georgian, but with Basque, as well as the Cadmitosemitic languages from which it comes. Therefore, Basque is a language that may have common elements with Georgian and Berber, but they do not have any with each other.

The percentage of lexical-statistical relationship of Swadesh of Basque with Southern Tamazight is 7.38% and with Rift Tamazight is 6% (taking the 215 words because with 100 the percentage increases). Therefore, by this method there would be a relationship or common substrate between both languages. Based on the percentage relationship, contact would have taken place about 8,000-9,000 years ago.

In Berber the names given to animals are very similar to those given in Basque. «Aker» & «iker» (billygoat), «asto» & «ezet» (donkey); They also coincide in the way of saying horse, crow, river, brother, lie, name ("Izen" and "isem"), "I" and others.

Within this analysis we must mention the Guanches, native inhabitants of the Canary Islands before the arrival of the Spaniards. From the writings found (archaeology confirms this) it is believed that the Guanches would speak a Tamazight language that, due to the isolation of the islands, would maintain a greater degree of relationship with Basque. There are those who even see Basque place names in the Canary Islands such as: Los Llanos de Aridane (Harrigane: stone peak), Argindei, Tinizara (Tinitzaha), Tajuia, Tenegia, Jedei (Iedegi) in La Palma and in Lanzarote: Masdeche (Mahats- etxe: grape-house), Haria, Orzola, Guinate (Gainate: high step), Yaiza (haitza: rock), Ajache, Tesegite, Mozaza etc.

An anecdote that is often told is that the first conquerors of the Canary Islands believed that the natives spoke Basque.

Between Basque and Tamazight the similarities are reduced to the lexical or lexicographic level, since syntactically and grammatically there does not seem to be any relationship, both in current speech and in the past; there are just similarities in verbal articulation or in the use of some particles.

Julio Caro Baroja said in this regard: “I must warn in any case that the relationship between Basque and the African languages called Hamitic is not as founded as claimed. On the contrary, the hypothesis of a relationship between Basque and the Caucasian languages, which is perhaps the one that has produced the least interest in the Peninsula, seems to be the most prudent, because it is based on linguistic, morphological and strict observations.

Koldo Mitxelena had the same opinion, and believed it was necessary to study more the relationship between Basque and the Caucasian languages which, unlike the supposed kinship with Tamazight, did cause serious doubts.

[x]

@knario47

[jotun-philosopher]

A narrative clothesline

The following ramble isn't what I think is *likely* to happen in S3; it's more of a narrative clothesline that my brain has constructed almost completely independently of any conscious effort on my part, influenced by various metas and my own and others' speculation, and it serves as a thing onto which I can peg images and vignettes and headcanons that I really like. (My brain is a very interesting place and tends to make stuff up without me noticing...) This gets VERY LONG, so have a bookmark handy!

Wackiness under the cut! Also torture, psychological abuse, violence, PTSD -- tread carefully.

Now, on with the motley!

***

Long, long before any sort of beginning, eons (if such temporal vocabulary makes sense here, given that time hasn't been invented yet) before a certain flame-haired starmaker realised he needed a hand with his blueprints, the Archangels Raphael and Azrael become suspicious of the Metatron and his interpretation of the Great Plan, becoming the first two angels *ever* to question when they start probing his motives. The Metatron takes great exception to this, and by the time he's finished with them, there isn't enough left to make two whole angels. Scenting a possibility for experimentation, he stitches these remnants together into a single new angel of lesser rank, who he hopes will be more compliant and biddable.

...Okay, you can stop laughing now.

[Main Titles]

See, in modern times (a couple of months or so after Gabriel's shock resignation), the Supreme Archangel "Raphael" -- resplendent in elaborately draped robes of Heavenly white (difficult to run or defend oneself in) with wide bands of elaborate gold decoration at the wrists and high collar (which, looked at another way, resemble symbolic chains) over bare feet (terribly angelic, but a classic way to humiliate captives while making it harder for them to flee). The overall effect is of regal, ethereal magnificence and dignity -- unless you know the full context, in which case the clearest impression is one of mockery, contempt and "We own you -- mind, body and soul -- and can do what we like to you with absolute impunity. Think about that before you consider rebelling."

The facial features and shock of fluffy white hair are heartbreakingly familiar, the utterly blank facial expression and stiff, upright demeanour less so. His voice, when he speaks, is many octaves below the 'soft bookseller' tones one might expect. Also unusual is "Raphael"'s tendency, when unobserved, to stare into space while touching his mouth or fiddling with a mysterious silvery trinket; otherwise, he goes about his duties in the manner expected of an Archangel, knowing only what he needs to know to prepare for the Second Coming. Which means that when his predecessor in post and a former Duke of Hell sneak in via an unregarded rear entrance to plant bugs, "Raphael" doesn't notice or react to them at all!

Cut to Crowley sprawling on a bench in some rural area, brooding deeply and looking portentously undisturbable (his native optimism is taking a while to rev up after the recent emotional whammies). When someone unexpectedly stands between him and the sun, he starts to snarl at them, only to be interrupted by a cheery, "Party name of Crowley?" Crowley leaps up, startled, accusatory and hostile, but the International Express delivery guy hastily clarifies, "It's ok, sir, just a mundane delivery -- but the lady was very specific about where to find you." Crowley (recognising the style) simmers down enough to take the letter with some grumbled thanks, opens it and is stopped in his grouchy tracks by a reference to the body swap that could *only* come from someone deeply familiar with the Nice & Accurate Prophecies.

Attention thoroughly caught, he scans the rest of the letter, swears in ancient Sumerian and bolts for the Bentley, nearly colliding with four startled, nervous-looking angels in militaristic garb. Crowley reaches for his crank handle, but then notices odd details -- the large wooden box one of them is holding, the dishevelled state of the uniforms, the insignia, all four of the angels bowing to him with deep and genuine respect... "Hang on, you lot are from Aziraphale's old platoon, aren't you? What the blazes are you doing here?"

The angel holding the box stutters in fright for a few seconds, but manages to get out, "Th-The L-T... He's...not exactly dead, but we're not sure what the Metatron did to him. W-whatever it was, it was bad, so we, that is the platoon, got together and drew lots and we gathered all the L-T's personal effects we could find and deserted..." The angel proffers the box to Crowley, while one of the less-intimidated angels explains, "You're effectively the L-T's next of kin, the whole platoon saw him desert in favour of you during the last go at Armageddon, and we've decided we respect him and you more than we fear the Metatron."

Crowley is very impressed, and says so. "But what about the rest of you?"

"They're back Upstairs, keeping watch over the L-T in case of untoward developments."

"Rrrrright... Oooooookayyy... I take it, then, that you're willing to take orders from me until the Second Coming is foiled?" The deserters nod. "Right, in that case -- you know where the Bookshop is? Meet me there, but don't teleport directly; it's too easily traced." The deserters salute crisply and set off flying, while Crowley climbs into the Bentley and takes a moment to investigate the box. It does indeed contain Aziraphale's clothes and personal effects, and he spends a couple of minutes just holding the familiar old waistcoat against his cheek and inhaling its scent, before starting the engine and veering off at speed. He's so awash with emotion that the one item missing from the box doesn't immediately register...

Back in Soho, things are fairly slow in Give Me Coffee Or Give Me Death, so Nina's got time to chat with the customers. They're interrupted by the sound of a recklessly driven 1933 Bentley blaring Velvet Underground dopplering up the street in their direction. The Bentley turns within its own length and slips neatly into position outside the Bookshop, before disgorging a goth-punk redhead and a snatch of vocals -- "RUN RUN RUN RUN RUUUUN". The redhead slams the door, hefts a large box under his arm, yells, "FUCK THA SECOND COMING!!!!! HAHAHA!!" skyward (with accompanying hand gestures) and swaggers into the Bookshop as if he owns the place. Following a stunned silence, the customers ask, "Who...was that?" Nina replies, "Oh, that's Mr Crowley. He's one of our local, uh, characters. Basically co-owns that bookshop with his husband."

Inside the Bookshop, Crowley calls, "Oi, Muriel! You there?" and is answered by a nervous squeak from a pile of books on the mezzanine. He leaves the box by the till, bounces up there and glances from the haphazardly stacked volumes to the extremely worried scrivener hiding behind them. Plopping comfortably on the floor, he asks, "Lord of the Rings, eh? [waves the book in question] How're you getting on with Tolkien?"

Caught a little off-guard by Crowley's sudden appearance and friendly demeanour, Muriel replies, "Um.. I-I-I... It's good, but I found it a bit overwhelming. I-I liked the bit about the elves only guarding their forest, not ruling or owning it, though."

"Yeaaah, Tolkien's style can be a bit much if you're not used to it. He was a pretty interesting guy, though, great linguist. You'd've liked him. Anything else grab your interest?"

Muriel brightens up a little. "Yeah! The Discworld stuff is great! There's so much there to think about that I hadn't even considered before! There was this bit in one of the later ones, about sin being treating people as things, and um, I..." Crowley gestures for them to continue. "Well, it got me thinking about how the Metatron was before, with the stuff in the trial we saw, and just telling Mr Fell that I was going to be in charge here without giving him a say, which is a big overreach and a kind of theft, and I think the wards are damaged but I can't fix them myself because that would really be theft, and I think the building's a bit sapient and resents my presence, and I haven't opened or anything because I don't know how bookshops work and don't have Mr Fell's permission to sell things, and I... I don't want the Second Coming to happen because there are so many books I haven't read yet!!!"

Crowley makes a 'simmer down' gesture. "Okay. Taking it from the top: Thinking is always good, never stop doing it. You're absolutely right about Heaven and the Metatron sinning by treating people as things. We will need Aziraphale here to reset the wards, but there're ways to shore them up without committing metaphysical theft. This building may well be a bit sapient, like my car, because Aziraphale's put so much time and love into it. If you're truly against the Second Coming, then you have my permission to be here. Aziraphale actively tries to avoid opening or making sales anyway, so you're doing fine on that front. Okay?"

He's about to say more, but is interrupted by a sound from outside that could be described as "a six-foot-tall cat played by John Hamm negotiating the expulsion of a particularly obstinate hairball while in extreme emotional distress".

Of course, what is actually is, is a certain renegade Supreme Archangel who's seen something that's upset him to the point of dry heaving and loud emotional meltdown: "THEY KILLED HIM!!! THEY WIPED HIM LIKE THEY WERE GOING TO DO TO ME AND THEY PUT HIM IN MY OLD JOB AND THAT SOMEHOW MAKES IT WORSE!!!" Beelzebub tries to calm him down, and they eventually succeed in directing Gabriel's attention to the Bentley, the Bookshop and the startled redhead leaning out of the doors.

It's a mark of the seriousness of the situation that Crowley lets them into the Bookshop without a word of snark. He directs them to the sofa, pours himself into the chair opposite and stares at them with a quizzically raised eyebrow. "Why'd you come back?"

Gabriel is still gathering himself, so Beez answers, "We got talking... We both have a lot to atone for, and Gabriel wanted to repay you and Aziraphale for your kindness better than he could have done when everything blew up before [Gabriel nods emphatically]. Then we reasoned that the destruction of everything in Armageddon round two would catch us wherever we were, and we'd be just as dead as if we'd been executed for returning..."

"...so we figured, what the heck, let's make it worthwhile!" Gabriel takes a slightly shaky breath. "So we came back to help you and Aziraphale mess up this Apocalypse, and we snuck into Heaven to plant spy flys [Beez smirks while Crowley does an impressed double-take], but then we saw..."

"Yeah, I heard you." Crowley pulls out the letter from earlier and hands it over. "Aziraphale's not dead, he's way too stubborn for that. We have more allies than you think, but we've got to plan carefully or we're stuffed. Speaking of allies..." He launches himself upright and swaggers to the door, where the deserters he met earlier have just landed. In something of a Regimental-Sergeant-Major mode, he says, "Right, you lot, this Bookshop is pretty much HQ for now, but the wards are damaged and we can't properly repair them without Aziraphale. Set up a guard duty rota covering all possible entrances and exits, at the double, but keep it discreet. Got that?" That done, he gently dragoons Muriel into helping him get his plants out of the Bentley and into his and Aziraphale's bedroom. When he's alone once more, he spends a few moments puttering around, sorting out his angel's clothes from the box (noting the missing bow tie with a twinge of sadness) and lining up the plants on the windowsill and anywhere else they'll fit. That done, he sternly tells them, "Right, you lot, listen up! You live here now, got it? So you'd better look nice for when Aziraphale gets back or else!" The plants visibly stand to attention as Crowley wields his plant mister threateningly, before gently spritzing their leaves.

Up in Heaven, "Raphael" has by chance managed to scrape up enough independent thought to wonder about the strange silvery trinket he's been holding on to without properly noticing its existence. Once the idea enters his consciousness, it won't leave, and he suddenly can't focus on anything else [the vibe and camera angels I have in mind are very 'Professor Yana properly noticing his pocket watch', but less evil]. He happens to still be holding it when he starts absently touching his mouth again, he accidentally swallows it...And there's a burst of mental white light, a garbled flood of memories -- Aziraphale is restored! He takes a couple of seconds to reorient himself, stretches his neck from side to side, wiggles his shoulders and generally limbers up to be a Chaotic Murder Hornet... Then Saraquel forcibly re-imposes the "Raphael" persona, but squashing Aziraphale inside his own mind rather than erasing him outright; she has her own plans regarding the Metatron, and can't afford to let Azzy be too chaotic too early.

Aziraphale is understandably furious and immediately starts testing the bounds of this latest development with subversive intent. (Beware the fury of a patient angel!)

Back in Soho, a day or two later, Nina's becoming increasingly worried about Heavenly and Hellish matters that she's witnessed or inferred; she's feeling a little awkward about contacting Crowley, but sends a message across to the Bookshop anyway. Crowley swaggers across the road in reply at about closing time (after a long shift monitoring the spy-flys), helps Nina carry some stuff inside, then sprawls in a chair with a raised-eyebrow Look. "Got your message."

Under the pressure of the sunglasses and the eyebrow, Nina quails a little, but says, "I... I owe you an apology." Crowley's other eyebrow goes up. "For raving hypocrisy. I shouldn't have tried to lecture you on how to run your relationship right after telling you off for doing the same thing. I'm sorry."

"We're even, then." Crowley sits up and leans forward. "There's something else, though. You're scared, about something you can't ask anyone else about. What is it?"

Nina hesitates, worried about sounding odd, then says, "You know Wintersmith?" Crowley nods emphatically. "I was reading it last night, and the part where Tiffany's critiquing a romance novel's depiction of a sheep farm made me think about coffee shop AU fanfiction and the stuff they get wrong -- like the characters running off in the middle of the morning rush to interfere in their neighbours' love lives -- and then I realised there're a few things about Maggie that don't add up, and there're angels and demons all over the place and WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON???"

Crowley is more or less unruffled. Gently, he tells Nina, "I'm the last person to discourage asking questions, and I understand why you have them, but this is one of those situations where getting answers is a risk; you can't un-eat an apple and expect to get the same apple back afterward, and the truth you're asking about would probably look like cosmic horror from a human perspective. If you and any of the other Whickber Sstreet Traderss really want answerss, I'm prepared to give them -- say, tomorrow evening at the Bookssshop? -- but be very ssure you truly want to know. Ok?" Upon her confirmation, he takes his leave, sashaying back to the Bookshop as Nina starts to work out why he used an apple metaphor in particular...

The next evening, the Bookshop is more full of people than it has been for quite some time; the Whickber Street Traders & Shopkeepers have (as Crowley suspected) been wanting answers about what's going on since the Meeting Ball. He's trying to call the meeting to some kind of order when there's another knock at the door. Suspicious (everyone he was expecting is already present), Crowley approaches the doors just as two file cards are pushed through the letterbox, showing Prophecies 3008 and 5004. Once he's recovered from the surprise, Crowley tears open the door to reveal Anathema Device and Newt Pulsifer and invites them in without further ado. Introductions are swiftly made, and Anathema explains that she knew she'd be needed tonight to explain about Agnes, and wanted to take the opportunity to pass on the Nice & Accurate Prophecies card index to someone who'd truly appreciate it for what it is. She then has to shake Newt a bit, because he's been rooted to the spot, staring in awe around the Bookshop. "This place is brilliant! It's kind of the Platonic ideal of old bookshops! I... [excited squeak, gesturing]"

Flattered on Aziraphale's behalf, Crowley smirks, notes that it's kind of Newt to say so, then saunters over to the till and rings the handbell for silence. "I hereby call to order this Truly Extraordinary Meeting of the Whickber Street Traders & Shopkeepers Association. I know you all want answers about what's been going on, and you definitely deserve them. Where would you like to start?"

Nina raises a hand and asks, "That metaphor you used yesterday, about eating apples -- there was a reason you used that, wasn't there?"

"Ah, yessssssssss!" Crowley grins hugely. "An excellent choice! Imagine, if you will a desert, and within that desert, a huge walled garden with a certain tree in the centre. A certain demon has been told to 'get up there and make some trouble', but he isn't really used to being a demon yet and has doubts about this whole 'evil for evil's sake' business, so he does the least troublesome thing he can think of that fits the brief, finds the official response a tad excessive, recognises the cute Principality on duty at the Eastern Gate, slithers over for a chat, the angel admits to giving away his flaming sword out of compassionate concern, and, well..."

"Vavoom?" Gabriel seems to be trying hard not to squee too obviously.

"Vavoom!" agrees Crowley, not buying the act for a second. He proceeds to recount (in as concise a manner as he can) the 6000-odd years of his and Aziraphale's joint history, not going into too much detail on specific incidents, apart from the Job business (at the request of Gabriel and some of the shopkeepers who'd never liked the 'official' version -- Gabe's pretty good-humoured about how daft the whole affair makes him look) and somewhat on the Bullet Catch (to impressed noises from Mutt and his spouse). It's all surprisingly lighthearted until the account gets to the arrival of the Antichrist and the first Armageddon, at which point Crowley becomes focused and deadly serious, calling in frequent contributions from Gabe, Beez, Newt and Anathema (the story of the body-swap dodge gets a rousing cheer, though!) and emphasising that what ultimately resolved the crisis was humans being magnificently human. Things get even more serious when the explanations reach Gabriel's casting-out and the impending Second Coming/Armageddon v2, and once the story's finished, the Whickber Street Traders have a moment of overwhelmed silence.

Nina breaks the silence by rather numbly commenting that Crowley really wasn't kidding about the cosmic horror thing. Other traders join in, contemplatively noting that the Ineffable Husbands are humanity's unofficial godparents and the ultimate queer elders, and Mr Brown (who's old enough to remember both) remarks on the parallels with both the Cold War and the dark times when homosexuality was illegal.

The atmosphere is rudely broken by an indication that someone Upstairs wishes to speak to Muriel immediately. Beez, the shopkeepers and guests immediately dive for cover behind every available bookshelf, while Crowley and Gabriel throw Muriel candles for the summoning circle and take cover themselves.

Muriel greets the activated circle with a cheery, polite, "Hello, this is the Angelic Embassy in London, Muriel speaking, how can I help?" A familiar (?) silhouette forms in the light within the circle; the Archangel "Raphael" is checking in to make sure that nebulously defined preparations on Earth are going well, and he is in addition curious as to why there were so many humans in the Bookshop earlier. Muriel explains that they were hosting a shopkeepers' association meeting, adding on the spur of the moment that it's part of their Earthly cover. As soon as they mention that, "Raphael"'s expression visibly twitches and glitches, as if there's some fierce internal struggle going on, he hunches over, looks up -- and it's Aziraphale in control once more, forcing himself out from under the imposed persona and visibly terrified.

Gabbling with nerves and fidgeting agitatedly with his hands, Aziraphale delivers a frantic apology for messing with everyone's heads at the Meeting Ball and begs Muriel to pass the message on if they can, because he's not sure he'll live to deliver it in person or be able to make practical amends. While Muriel is promising to pass the message on, Mutt notices something about Aziraphale's hand movements -- subtle pulling and folding among the agitated flailing -- and laser-focuses on that through a gap in the bookshelves. Cautiously, Muriel starts to ask whether there're any messages for Crowley, but Aziraphale notices there's someone listening in on his end and frantically gestures for Muriel to stop talking (in the process concealing a subtle wrist-flick throwing motion). He has a split-second to make eye contact with Crowley and attempt to convey "I love you more than anything" via eyebrow movements, and to receive a raised-eyebrow nod that conveys "I love you too, I'm working on things down here, I know what I'm holding without looking, and the answer to the associated question is yes," in return, before the "Raphael" persona is forcibly reimposed.

It's unsettling to watch -- his body is yanked mechanically, involuntarily upright like a puppet having its strings pulled, and he settles too smoothly back into the formal posture from the start of the call as his face becomes utterly blank once more. The call ends in a thoroughly conventional fashion, leaving the meeting attendees creeping out from their hiding places looking extremely shaken.

One or two people, once they've found their voices again, start to wonder aloud whether Aziraphale's apology was remotely sincere. Crowley confirms that it was, in a tone that suggests he's perplexed and a bit offended that anyone could think otherwise. Mutt backs him up. "He was in fear for his life! Who'd waste time lying in that kind of situation?!" He takes a couple of calming breaths, "So, yes, completely sincere, but I got the sense that it was at the same time a sort of misdirecting patter. Did anyone else see what he was doing with his hands? Looked like pulling something out of his sleeves and throwing it out of the circle right before he..."

"You're absolutely right." Crowley holds out his right hand and opens it to reveal a small, roundish tartan lump. As he unwraps Aziraphale's bow tie from around the package, he continues, "The thing about conducting a millennia-long clandestine relationship with painful annihilation as the price of discovery is that you have to be, or get, very good at communicating in ways that won't be understood or noticed by anyone who doesn't know the full context [quick sideways glance at Maggie and Nina]. For example, this..." He finishes unwrapping the bow tie to reveal Aziraphale's signet ring. "...means, among other things, 'I trust you with everything that I am.'" No-one dares say a word as Crowley slips the ring onto the ring finger of his left hand and secures the bow tie around his watch strap. He then wearily dismisses the meeting, responding to queries from the Whickber Street Traders about how they can help by saying, "Just... Keep being human, as hard as you can. That's what did for Armageddon last time..."

Up in Heaven, Saraquel is worried and speculative as she watches "Raphael" depart to resume his duties elsewhere, looking unusually shaky. She consults the memory-mangling app on her angelphone and realises that repeatedly imposing the "Raphael" persona without first erasing Aziraphale has rendered that persona increasingly fragile and liable to be thrown off permanently at any time.

Aziraphale does just that as soon as he's sure he's unobserved, but (warned by his previous experiences) acts as if he hasn't, all while weaving a small illusion miracle to bolster the pretence until he's ready to cast it off.

A couple of days later, Crowley is sitting in Give Me Coffee Or Give Me Death, brooding deeply and knocking back inordinate quantities of Nina's strongest espresso after a night watching the spy-flys. He's jolted out of his reverie by the arrival of the International Express delivery guy, cheery and businesslike as ever, bringing a letter from Anathema and a large parcel she's passing on for someone else. Crowley opens the letter first, reads it in mounting agitation, quaffs the last of his latest coffee and races back to the Bookshop. While Muriel's examining the letter, Crowley opens the parcel to find a number of things from Aziraphale -- Gabriel's scarf and tailored overcoat (along with an apologetic note about not being able to find more of his clothes), all records of his attempted execution and Gabriel's kangaroo court, information on the murders of Azrael and Raphael, a complete list of angels who've been memory-wiped without Falling (Muriel is perturbed to find their own name on the list), change logs for the Book of Life, details of other things the Metatron has been doing in an attempt to impede the Ineffable Husbands' ability to muck up Armageddon round 2; all in all, a very helpful mound of evidence for anyone intending to take down the system. In mounting fear for Aziraphale's safety and warned by part of Anathema's letter, Crowley leaves the Bookshop, the parcel and its contents under the temporary care of Gabriel, Beelzebub and Muriel and goes tearing off in the Bentley, Best of Queen blaring from the radio. Near the M25, though, the playback is interrupted by an ominous announcement: "Peoples of the Earth, please attend carefully. The information that follows is vital to the future of all of you..."

Up in Heaven, the Metatron is hijacking every sound-emitting device on Earth to transmit the "good news" about the Second Coming. He makes a smarmy, patronising speech about how wonderful it's going to be and how humanity should rejoice about the culmination of the Great Plan etc. etc. before introducing "Supreme Archangel Raphael" and handing him the trumpet to blow to formally begin hostilities. "Raphael" takes the trumpet (a tad dubiously, but the Metatron's too full of himself to notice) but doesn't immediately move to use it. Instead, in a deep and resonant voice, he says, "Before we begin, there is a quotation that I feel is very appropriate at this juncture." He then drops the "Raphael" illusion entirely and scrunches up the trumpet like tissue paper as he says, "As a wise and wily serpent once said, 'Great pustulent mangled BOLLOCKS to the GREAT BLASTED PLAN!'", his voice rising through the octaves to the familiar Aziraphale tones.

As Metatron has a major 'oh crap' moment (and Crowley, barrelling along the motorway, registers surprise, affection, pride and intense concern simultaneously), Aziraphale builds on his advantage of surprise to bluntly explain exactly what's really intended to happen, viciously and succinctly eviscerating the concept of 'Rapture' and the idea of Heaven and Hell giving a flying fuck about humanity, utterly condemning the celestial/infernal ego games and urging any angels or demons who've been doubting the plan to desert, explore life on Earth for themselves and make their own decisions.

Metatron, having recovered from the shock, tries to get his plans back on track. "My Lord Archan--"

"No." Aziraphale starts determinedly walking towards the elevators. "My name is Aziraphale. I am a Principality, and I claim the Earth and every living being upon it as my protectorate. The Archangel Raphael died a very long time ago, as you should know full well, Metatron, given that you murdered him."

The Metatron switches to faux-concern: "You have to do this! you're going against the Great Plan! You'll be damned--"

Aziraphale shrugs and keeps walking. "I am reliably informed that it's not so bad once you get used to it."

The Metatron is furious now: "You're a worthless remnant stitched together from worthless remnants, and if you want to have any value at all in your miserable little existence--"

Aziraphale makes a dismissive gesture and keeps walking, outwardly unaffected. (Cutaway to Crowley: "Oh, angel... I'm gonna pamper you SO HARD when I get you home...") He's making surprisingly good progress, between the confusion he's sown in the ranks and the support of those members of his old platoon who elected to stay behind and keep an eye on him. The Metatron manages to exhort a very few of the really fanatical loyalists to try to stop Aziraphale by force, heavily outnumbered though they are. Not many of them get through to Aziraphale, and he manages to dodge them in such a way that they end up hitting each other -- until Sandalphon, by an unlucky fluke, manages to catch him hard on the face. There's a breathless moment of shocked silence, broken by Aziraphale wryly snarking about how sloppy and complacent Sandalphon's form has become since Sodom and Gomorrah. He takes advantage of the confusion this causes to disarm Sandalphon of his sword and neutralise him, then hesitates as if to turn and support the anti-Armageddon rebels he's convinced -- they urge him to get back to Earth and Crowley. He does so with considerable haste, meeting comparatively little resistance. (Cutaway to Crowley, looking more worried than ever as the Heavenly transmission cuts off.)

[My ideas form a four-way branch at this point; the commonalities are Aziraphale crash-landing somewhere with his wings broken and/or on fire, Crowley picking him up and doing loads of healing miracles, creating a scabbard for the sword that Aziraphale is clutching like grim death, wrapping him in blankets, carrying him to the Bentley and driving him back to Soho, all the while fretting over him.

--Version 1: Aziraphale falls past an airliner and lands somewhere isolated enough that a search-and-rescue team with helicopter support comes looking for him. Aziraphale is traumatised enough to be very twitchy about letting the paramedics (who, kind or no, are after all strangers) do anything to him until Crowley shows up; he flatly refuses transport to a hospital and (by some chain of events) ends up staying the night with Crowley in the guest bedroom of a nearby cottage that proves to belong to Madame Tracy and Shadwell.

--Version 2: Aziraphale lands in the sea a couple of miles off Beachy Head, with his wings on fire -- or in some other highly visible way that sets off an immediate flurry of calls to the Coastguard. Eastbourne RNLI are tasked to the rescue, and once the Deputy Launch Authority's gotten over the initial 'WTF?' reaction, they decide to launch the station's Tamar-class all-weather lifeboat to fish him out (reasoning that when rescuing a casualty with a 12-foot wingspan, it'd be sensible to have the larger, more stable vessel). Crowley roars up to the lifeboat station in the Bentley right as the Tamar is launched, pops his wings and flies off after the boat with a cry of, "AZIRAPHALE, YOU MAD BASTARD, WHERE ARE YOU???" He actually finds Aziraphale first, grabs his hand and holds on to him with grim determination, which makes things a lot easier for the RNLI crew -- a demon with huge and distinctive wings is a heck of a lot easier to spot than a football-sized lump on the surface of even slightly rolling seas. Plus, between physical and psychological fatigue, injuries and voluminous, waterlogged robes, Aziraphale probably wouldn't have been able to miracle himself afloat long enough for the lifeboat crew to get there. Thanks to Crowley, though, get there they do, and once the Ineffables are safely on board they turn back for the lifeboat station; Crowley fusses around Aziraphale, doing healing and drying miracles and getting in the way of crew trying to do casualty care, while the coxswain tries to figure out how to put all this into the post-rescue report. Back at the station, the crew check the Ineffables over again, feed them choccy biscuits and hot sweet tea, then see them on their way. (And there's a *very* interesting segment on Saving Lives At Sea a few months later!)

--Version 3a: Aziraphale lands in St James' Park and drags himself over to their bench without intervention from passers-by, who (if they notice him at all) assume he's doing some sort of performance art.

--Version 3b: Aziraphale lands in St James' Park and is immediately besieged by solicitous bystanders -- some genuinely want to help, but some others in the crowd are classic Nice Little Old Ladies who think they Know Best and everyone should do as they say because they go to church in fancy clothes every Sunday; they barge around being unhelpfully helpful and ignoring or steamrolling over Aziraphale's protests that he's fine and just needs to rest, until one of them grabs his broken wing, saying, "My grandson's an ornithologist, dear, I know what I'm doing," and twists it. Aziraphale screams in agony and Crowley, already approaching at speed, teleports over and verbally tears the little-old-lady brigade a new one, all hissy and snarly and protective.]

Regardless of branch, cut to Give Me Coffee Or Give Me Death, where Nina is wrangling a gaggle of obnoxious influencer types out of the door, to cheers from the regular clientele. One of them comments jovially about how worrying it'd be if she ever lost her knack for that, which leads to a more general discussion about people acting out of character -- fading abruptly when Nina notices something outside and makes a grim comment about people who normally drive like absolute bloody maniacs suddenly acting like they're transporting fragile glass sculptures. Crowley's driving is notorious enough in Soho that everyone immediately rushes to the window to see the Bentley creeping gently into its spot outside the Bookshop. Crowley clambers out slowly, closes the driver's door quietly and moves around the car while Nina and the customers speculate about the fluffy white bundle they briefly glimpsed in the passenger seat. Their hypotheses are blown out of the water when Crowley straightens up, holding a sleepy Aziraphale in a bridal carry (wings, robes, sword and all), bumps the car door closed with his butt and carries his angel gently into the Bookshop, popping his wings for umbrella purposes when it starts raining.

In the Bookshop, Gabriel, Beelzebub and Muriel are almost more perturbed by Aziraphale's injured state than they were by the Heavenly transmission earlier. Without anything being spoken aloud, they help Crowley get him out of the Archangel robes and tucked up in bed. Crowley takes a certain savage glee in picking up the removed robes, chucking them out of the window and setting them on fire before removing boots, shades and blazer and snuggling next to his angel.

The next morning, Crowley drifts awake to find that Aziraphale has wriggled around significantly during the night and is now clinging to him big-spoon style, with all the tenacity of a particularly traumatised barnacle. Unwilling to deny his angel the comfort and closeness after the trauma of the past couple of months, he dozes and snuggles quietly, until the sound of the angelic deserters changing guard duty shifts reminds him that the Bookshop still isn't fully secure. Aziraphale has by this time woken up and is keenly aware of the same issue. He's determined to get the wards sorted immediately if not sooner; Crowley knows he's right that it needs doing, but is worried that he's pushing himself too hard, too soon. They bicker about it lightly while getting dressed -- a process slightly complicated by Aziraphale still feeling rather shaky and having considerable trouble pulling his wings back in. Crowley helps out with some small miracles, hands Aziraphale his walking stick from 1862 and does his bow tie. He takes a step back to bask in the warm fuzzies of seeing his angel looking like himself again; Aziraphale in turn gets very mushy about the exact finger his signet ring ended up on, enough to grab Crowley's lapels and pull him in for a quick smooch before they get to work.

Downstairs, Gabriel, Beelzebub and Muriel are worriedly discussing Aziraphale and the upcoming apocalypse, until the angel in question appears on the mezzanine, chiming in with some authoritative, reassuring statement. Between his outfit, demeanour and wings, he cuts a very impressive figure; the effect might have been undercut by an uncertain wobble as he starts to go down the stairs, but Crowley deftly draws attention away from that while going backwards down the staircase ahead of Aziraphale, reassuring him along the lines of, "I'll catch you if you fall." Once down, Aziraphale is businesslike in corralling Team Ineffable to help scrub out the summoning circle and prepare for the re-casting of the wards. When the time comes for him and Crowley to actually perform that particular miracle, though, he hesitates, remembering everything that happened as a result of the last joint miracle. Gabriel picks up on this and points out that this time around, there's absolutely no need to be clandestine -- and given that the super-subtle hiding miracle clocked a game-breaking 25 Lazarii, he personally is very interested to see what this one'll do. Buoyed up by this, the Ineffable Husbands set to the working with a will, creating a fairly epic lightshow!

Cut to Heaven, where the miracle detection system goes interestingly berserk and then explodes.

Cut back to the Bookshop, where Aziraphale is leaning slightly on Crowley and making his way to his comfy chair as all the angel-adrenaline of the past few days finally presents its bill.

Shenanigans happen! Team Ineffable and their human allies do awesome things! The Second Coming is a damp squib because so many angels and demons refuse to play along! The whole rotten house of cards gets torn down! Jesus nopes out of the whole mess and leaves the Ineffable Husbands with a means of contacting him, along with an offer to do their wedding catering pro bono! Mysteries are resolved in the most positive way possible! All the other weirdness is explained! The Ineffable Husbands talk about stuff! The Metatron is permanently banished to an inescapable plane where he can do nothing except tread barefoot on Lego and sharpened metal d4s for all eternity! Crowley gets to ask questions of God and Aziraphale gets to call Her out in detail for being so fuckin' awful, treating people as things, condoning so much cruelty in service of a never-explained Plan and calling it 'love'! She offers to marry them then and there, but they both refuse because that feels too much like an offer of Heaven's approval on Heaven's terms, not theirs! (and so on and so forth)

A few nights later, Aziraphale and Crowley head to the roof of the bookshop. Crowley fishes out a sheaf of notes and sketches which he's been working on for the past week or so, sets them floating and flirtatiously asks Aziraphale for an assist with the night's planned miracle. Aziraphale (knowing exactly what's needed because Crowley's been consulting with him closely regarding tonight's hijinks) sets a miraculous filter over London that cancels out all of the light pollution without messing with the working of the streetlights and so on. As the sky becomes a glorious Bortle class 1 panorama, he hugs Crowley from behind and they both pop their wings as Crowley calls down cosmic dust from one of his nebulae and gets to work on it, making a ring. Once done, he turns to Aziraphale and stutters and mumbles at length, forgetting his planned speech now that it comes time to give it. He eventually finds some sort of words and goes down on one knee, offering the ring. Aziraphale is happy-squeeing and wiggling so hard he can barely put his acceptance into coherent words, but Crowley finally puts the ring on his finger and they proceed to snog each other senseless. After about five or ten minutes, a cork whizzes past their heads, close enough to ruffle their hair, and they look over the parapet to see the Whickber Street Traders breaking out the champagne, evidently having figured out what was going on treating it as something worth celebrating.

The next day, #DameVeraLynn is trending and Berkeley Square is playing host to an impromptu convention of very confused bird-watchers and breathlessly excited BBC reporters. Because the Whickber Street Traders are taking the view that 'if the Bookshop's a-rockin', don't come a-knockin'', so the Ineffable Fiances don't find out until mid afternoon, when Mr Arnold drops by with the ornithological gossip and a brochure of upcoming concerts at the Royal Albert Hall. Other engagement presents come in from the Whickber Street Traders over the next day or two -- tiramisu brownies from Mrs Sandwich (her special extra-boozy recipe) for example, and a stack of Steeleye Span records from Maggie (Cam Ye O'er Frae France [one of my audio-stimmy faves], Thomas the Rhymer, The Making of a Man [Pterry's favourites], Gaudete [super appropriate for GO in like 3 different ways], The Dark Morris Song [my top favourite]), who thought Aziraphale might like them even if they're not his usual thing.

A few days later, Saraquel comes to the Bookshop having finally finished cleaning up in what's left of Heaven -- and immediately bounces off the restored wards. Trying not to be visibly intimidated by Aziraphale's obvious annoyance as he opens the doors, she requests entry, but he flatly denies her, icicles dripping from every phoneme. "You are directly complicit in the attempted or actual murder by ego-death of thousands of angels and two instances of attempted omnicide. You stole my memories and tried to squash me out of existence twice; don't you dare try to pretend you were being merciful there. You were perfectly happy to try to murder two of my neighbours who I consider valued friends. Your bridges are burned, Saraquel. You are not welcome here. Leave Earth of your own volition and never return, or Crowley and I will eject you by force." He takes Crowley's hand in preparation for a joint miracle, and Saraquel is alarmed enough to flee immediately (Michael and Dagon, lurking and observing in the background, wisely decide to bugger off to Betelgeuse rather than test the Ineffables' patience further). Aziraphale quietly closes the Bookshop doors and leans shakily on them and Crowley.

Cut to the Ineffable Wedding! It's a handfasting at Tadfield Manor, with the former Sister Mary Loquacious officiating. The occasion is very well-attended -- the Whickber Street Traders, Madame Tracy and Sergeant Shadwell, Anathema and Newt, the Them, the entirety of Aziraphale's old platoon (who adapt the tradition of forming a sabre arch for the newlyweds to walk under), Gabriel and Beelzebub are in attendance, with Muriel as Best Person. The catering is being ably handled by a cheerful guy who seems to produce amazing food and drink out of nowhere, the reception playlist is delightfully varied, and a good time is had by all! The Ineffables take a breather in the Bentley afterwards to let the fact that they did it properly sink in, then hold meaningful eye contact for about five seconds before smooching passionately and driving off to their honeymoon.

At a certain South Downs cottage, on an early summer evening -- there's a garden full of fruit and vegetables and herbs and spices and flowers. Aziraphale brings tea and cakes out to a neat little table on the patio as Crowley finishes intimidating the climbing roses on his mini-observatory and sashays over, pausing to pluck an apple from the tree. They share it as they appreciate their freedom to be truly together, as well as how far they've come since making that nebula...

[Pan up to sunset over picturesque landscape, roll credits]

***

Whoof, that was a bit of a marathon! As I said at the start, I doubt most if any of the events recounted above are going to happen in Season Three, but my brain does tend to run away and do its own thing! For what it's worth, what I think is *likely* to happen in S3 is a combination of elements of The Magic Trick You Didn't See (especially the burning-cinema-screen in the opening sequence as a pointer to memories/data files being corrupted and restored from backup) and @vidavalor's terrifyingly plausible and well-grounded hypothesis that Final-Fifteen!Metatron is actually Satan, Aziraphale has capital-F Fallen and is going to start S3 amnesiac and in Hell. (The Great Balls Of Fire meta dropped when I was partway through writing this post, and on that basis my brain has careened off in an entirely different direction XD) *meep* I guess we'll just have to exspecta videque!

[sumerianlanguage]

In case you're interested in the Sumerian words for these concepts...

The basic word for the idea of "lie" is lul 𒈜 "liar, lie; to lie, deceive; false, treacherous, malicious." It's the root of ninglul 𒃻𒈜 "falsehood". There's also ningangar 𒃻𒀉𒃻 "deception, act of violence", and the verb phrase ningangarshe aka 𒃻𒀉𒃻𒀝 "to cheat, deceive".

And "mountain" is kur while "first" is just the same as "one", dish, so "first mountain" would be kurdish, written 𒆳𒁹 in cuneiform.

Hi! I am looking for the Akkadian words for "deceit, deception, deceitful etc." , "Lies, falsehood..." and for "Mountain(specifically 'first mountain.' "

First of all, there’s an awesome resource: the incredibly comprehensive Chicago Assyrian Dictionary is fully downloadable (and electronically searchable) — find it here.

sarāru means “to be false, be a liar”; derived from it, sarru means “deceitful” and sartu means “a falsehood.”  There are other words with similar meanings, so let me know if you need more options.

“Mountain” is most commonly šadû (pronounced “SHA-doo”), and “first mountain” would be šadû maẖrû (in the sense of “the mountain of prior times”), šadû pānû (”the mountain that came before the others”), or ištēn šadû (”the number one mountain in a series”).

[kata4a]

so in addition to vocabulary, I'm also trying to make flashcards for general points my Akkadian textbook makes about the language. here are some specific things the textbook says:

I.

Exceptions to the rule of vowel syncope occur: (a) regularly at the end of a word; (b) regularly before a vowel; […] (f) in some Summerian loanwords.

while it's tempting to have a single flashcard that asks "What are the exceptions to the rule of vowel syncope?", having to remember all six clauses in my answer is pretty cumbersome, and violates the principle that flashcards should be atomic.

instead, my approach has been to create six flashcards of frankly kind of stupid form, "What is Huehnergard's vowel syncope exception (a)?" etc.

of course it might be possible to digest the information a little more thoroughly: "What are the regular exceptions to vowel syncope" and "Before what letters does vowel syncope sometimes not occur" would be pretty reasonable flashcards. but what to do with the last exception? Q: "What types of word does vowel syncope not occur in?" A: "some Sumerian loanwords" is pretty gross

II.

The endings for attributive adjectives are the same as those for nouns, except for the masc. pl.

I have a number of flashcards which ask questions about declension/conjugation, e.g., "What are the masculine genitive plural endings for nouns?"

for some reason I balked at creating a bunch of identical flashcards for adjectives, and instead only made one card, "What are the masc. pl. endings for attributive adjectives?" in retrospect, I don't think that would have been unreasonable

III.

The masc. plural of substantivized adjectives usually retains the adjectival endings -ūtum / -ūtim; occasionally, however, the noun pl. endings also occur, as in nakirum, pl. nakirū when substativized.

The feminine singular of an adjective may be used as an abstract noun, indicating the quality described by the adjective: damqum 'good'; damiqtum 'goodness' Sometimes, the meaning of the substantivized feminine form is more concrete: dannum 'strong'; dannatum 'fortress'

I really have no idea with these "occasionally" statements. I've mostly just been trying to create lots of example words, e.g. a vocabularly cards for "dannatum / fortress," and one asking "What is the plural of the noun nakirum?"

IV.

(a vocabulary entry)

nakarum, nakirum, and nakrum 'hostile; foreign'

related, I don't really know how to deal with byforms. in this case, I just created a flashcard directly asking "What are the byforms for the word for 'hostile'?" but I'm not sure how nicely this generalizes

[apoemaday]

The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart

by Jack Gilbert

How astonishing it is that language can almost mean, and frightening that it does not quite. Love, we say, God, we say, Rome and Michiko, we write, and the words get it all wrong. We say bread and it means according to which nation. French has no word for home, and we have no word for strict pleasure. A people in northern India is dying out because their ancient tongue has no words for endearment. I dream of lost vocabularies that might express some of what we no longer can. Maybe the Etruscan texts would finally explain why the couples on their tombs are smiling. And maybe not. When the thousands of mysterious Sumerian tablets were translated, they seemed to be business records. But what if they are poems or psalms? My joy is the same as twelve Ethiopian goats standing silent in the morning light. O Lord, thou art slabs of salt and ingots of copper, as grand as ripe barley lithe under the wind’s labor. Her breasts are six white oxen loaded with bolts of long-fibered Egyptian cotton. My love is a hundred pitchers of honey. Shiploads of thuya are what my body wants to say to your body. Giraffes are this desire in the dark. Perhaps the spiral Minoan script is not language but a map. What we feel most has no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses, and birds.

[luxe-pauvre]

The opium poppy is a slender, seductive plant, a small bud atop a long stem, swaying gently in the breeze. It flowers beautifully, deep red or pale pink, and looks mellow and maddeningly indifferent, almost vain. Poppies are naturally occurring. They spread their own seeds, scattering them as they swing in the wind, like a saltshaker. Thousands of years ago, at the dawn of human history, someone figured out that if you slice into the head of a poppy, it will ooze a milky paste, and this substance has medicinal properties. The Mesopotamians harvested poppies. The Sumerians did, too. The nectar of the poppy is referenced in Assyrian medical tablets dating back to the seventh century b.c. In ancient Greece, Hippocrates himself suggested drinking white poppy juice mixed with nettle seeds as a remedy for a range of afflictions. Ingesting this substance could stimulate sleep, calm the nerves, and induce a distinctive sensation of cocoon-like comfort and euphoria. Most remarkably, the opium poppy could make pain go away. If the plant seemed to possess magical properties, it was also understood, even in the ancient world, that it carried certain dangers. So overwhelming were its powers that the user could become possessed by them, slipping into dependence or succumbing to permanent sleep. The plant could kill you. It could create a state of relaxation so profound that at a certain point you just stopped breathing. The opium poppy might have been used as a medicine, but it was also used as a poison and as an instrument of suicide. In the symbolic vocabulary of the Romans, the poppy stood for sleep, but also death.

Patrick Radden Keefe, Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty

[sumerianlanguage]

This is a phrasal verb, which means aniza is a fixed object and dub is conjugated like a regular (transitive) verb but without the i- prefix. An example sentence might be Zae aniza duben "You flap your own wings; you are supported on your own."

My newest favorite word in ancient Sumerian; which I am (very exceedingly loosely) basing my current conlang project on

[yamayuandadu]

Hello, hello! I found a book called "THE AMORITES AND THE BRONZE AGE NEAR EAST" by AARON A. BURKE. Do you know this author, and do you know if he is reliable?"

I'm not particularly familiar with the author, but there's nothing outlandish among his credentials and his book was published recently by a reputable academic publisher and as far as I can tell didn't receive any notable negative reviews so there's no real reason to assume it's not credible. I didn't have the time to read it fully but flipping through it indicates speculation is consistently labeled as such and the methodology is fairly rigorous. I've noticed a small mistake, but it's not anything major: Lumma is not the Sumerian translation of Tidnum, it's a personal name slash theonym in one case associated with this term (see here for full context, you can also just check the Lumma wiki article). All around, seems like a solid book. I'd recommend The Amorites: A Political History of Mesopotamia in the Early Second Millennium BCE as the next step after it if you find the Amorites interesting; the authors partially rely on Burke's work. Another good option is Mary E. Buck's The Amorite Dynasty of Ugarit: Historical Implications of Linguistic and Archaeological Parallels. As supplementary reading the articles Two Remarkable Vocabularies: Amorite-Akkadian Bilinguals! and The God Amurru as Emblem of Ethnic and Cultural Identity instantly come to mind.

[sumerianlanguage]

Hi there! Could you help with a translation for "I will face god and walk backwards into hell"? I've always wondered if there was a way to write it in Sumerian. Thanks very much!! (Your blog is AMAZING by the way, I really appreciate reading your posts!)

Hello, and thanks for the kind words! My twitch community helped me out with this meme translation, for which we settled on Ngae dingirshe igi ngaren agabi ganzershe in'gadun.

Igi ngar 𒅆𒃻 is a phrasal verb meaning " to appear before, look at, face" when it has a regular direct object. But putting the direct object (here dingir 𒀭 "deity") in the terminative case intensifies the meaning (Halloran 2006 says "adds intensity to the gaze"), making Ngae dingirshe igi ngaren "I face (intensely) the deity".

"Backwards" required some research, down a rabbit hole of spatial vocabulary and Mesopotamian conceptions of time-space relationships. We settled on simply agabi 𒀀𒂵𒁉, from aga "back" with the -bi adverbial ending.

For "hell", rather than use the generic (and somewhat euphemistic) kur "underworld", I chose ganzer 𒅆𒆳𒍝 "hell, flame, netherworld", here also in the terminative case as ganzershe 𒅆𒆳𒍝𒂠 "into hell".

"To go, walk" is ngen, an extremely irregular verb in Sumerian, in this case in the first-person present-future form (i)dun 𒁺𒌦. The prefix in'ga- is the way to connect two verbs with the same subject, basically meaning "and, and also", attached to the second (or third, etc.) verb in the sequence, so in'gadun 𒅔𒂵𒁺𒌦 "and I walk".

Putting it all together, we get Ngae dingirshe igi ngaren agabi ganzershe in'gadun "I face the deity intensely and walk backwards into hell," written 𒂷𒂊 𒀭𒂠 𒅆𒃻𒂗 𒀀𒂵𒁉 𒅆𒆳𒍝𒂠 𒅔𒂵𒁺𒌦 in cuneiform.

[haggishlyhagging]

Sexuality is a very complex phenomenon. At once social and physical, "nature" and "culture," it defies categorization. Pagan religions saw sexuality as part of the natural order, part of the same generative force that ultimately resulted in fertility. Erotic attraction had an integral place in the workings of the cosmos. Sexuality could be sacred, part of the continuation of the cosmos, as in the Sumerian sacred marriage ritual. In this ritual, the expression of sexual emotions could be associated with the experience of divinity, and the songs and poems connected with the sacred marriage provided a religious setting for the expression and celebration of sexual desire. Even ordinary sex could be seen as godlike, for the stories of the sexual adventures and misadventures of the gods provided a divine parallel for sexuality. These stories showed that gods also felt these drives and performed these acts. Sexual behavior did not make people less like the gods; on the contrary, it reinforced their resemblance to the upper orders of being. The male gods could be models of male virility and sexual potency, their behavior paradigms of proper (and sometimes of improper) sexual activity.

Ancient pagan religion also portrayed the sexual impulse as a goddess of sexual attraction. Male gods, figures of potency, can express sexual activity; they cannot fully express sexual attraction in a predominantly heterosexual, androcentric society. The figure of Inanna/Ishtar provides a way to conceptualize the erotic impulse, a vocabulary to celebrate its presence, and an image with which to comprehend the human experience of sexual desire. Sexual desire comes from the presence of Ishtar. When she is absent,

The Bull springs not upon the cow, the ass does not inseminate the Jenny. In the street man does not inseminate young woman. The man lies down in his (own) chamber the woman lies down on her side.

Sexuality was part of the divine realm, most specifically of the female divine. Even when other functions of goddesses were absorbed by male gods, sexuality could not be absorbed into male divinity. Ishtar remained the representative and divine patron of sexual attraction and activity.

All of this religious dimension of sexuality disappears in biblical monotheism. There is no sexual dimension of divine experience. Instead of gods and goddesses interrelating with each other, there is only the one God of Israel. YHWH, moreover, is a predominantly male god, referred to by the masculine pronoun (never by the feminine), and often conceived of in such quintessentially masculine images as warrior and king. In the earliest biblical poem, the Song of the Sea, God is "man of war." God is also king, the prime metaphor of mastery. This, too, has a masculine connotation. But these masculine qualities of God are social male-gender characteristics. The monotheist God is not sexually a male. He is not at all phallic, and does not represent male virility. Biblical anthropomorphic language uses corporeal images of the arm of God, the right hand of God, God's back, and God's tears. God is not imagined below the waist. In Moses' vision at Mount Sinai, God covered Moses with his hand until he had passed by, and Moses saw only his back. In Elijah's vision, there was nothing to be seen, only a "small still voice." In Isaiah's vision (chapter 6), two seraphim hide Gods "feet" (normally taken as a euphemism), and in Ezekiel's vision (chapters 1-3), there is only fire below the loins. God is asexual, or transsexual, or metasexual (depending on how we view this phenomenon), but "he" is never sexed.

God does not behave in sexual ways. In the powerful marital metaphor, God is the "husband" of Israel. But this husband-God does not kiss, embrace, fondle, or otherwise express physical affection for Israel, even within the poetic license of the metaphor. Such reticence is not demanded by rhetorical usage, for in the other erotic metaphor, that describing the attachment of men to Lady Wisdom, there is no hesitation to use a physical image, "hug her to you and she will exult you, she will bring you honor if you embrace her." Wisdom is clearly a woman-figure, and can be metaphorically embraced as a woman. But God is not a sexual male, and therefore even the erotic metaphor of passion reveals a lack of physicality. God is not imaged in erotic terms, and sexuality was simply not part of the divine order.

God is not sexed, God does not model sexuality, and God does not bestow sexual power. God, who is the giver of fertility, procreation, abundance, health, does not explicitly give potency. God does not promise the men of Israel that they will be sexually active or competent. Biblical thought does not see sexuality as a gift of God. To the Bible, the sexual and divine realms have nothing to do with each other. Indeed, the Bible is concerned to maintain their separation, to demarcate the sexual and sacred experiences and to interpose space and time between them. God would not reveal godself or God's purpose on Mount Sinai until Israel abstained from sexual activity for three days. This temporal separation between the sexual and the sacred also underlies the story of David's request for food during his days of fleeing from King Saul. David assured the priest Ahimelech that his men were eligible to eat hallowed bread by asserting that they had been away from women for three days. Sexual activity brings people into a realm of experience which is unlike God; conversely, in order to approach God one has to leave the sexual realm.

-Tikva Frymer-Kensky, In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture, and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth

[fredersen]

the phrase “a good sumerian” is actually making me laugh so hard i’m gonna start saying it as a joke and then my vocabulary is gonna get stuck that way forever

[genshinarchives]

Wanna hear a super long genshin related dad joke that would make Cyno proud?

Sumerian Archeologists recently discovered a fossil of a raptor-like-species that are believed to be companions to the ancient Khaenrians. After some more searching, they found documents that depicted these creatures in Sumerian society. These documents allow researchers to believe they were favored by many intellectuals, higher ranked society, and writers for their ability to accurately use and understand complex vocabulary.

Due to all of these factors, the researchers decided to name this species the "Thesaurus".

G-get it?

You see it's funny because Thesauruses are like dictionaries for synonyms and the suffix "-sarus" is often used for dinosa-

YA GUSTI

I LAUGHED WAY HARDER THAN I SHOULD AT THIS

[cmrosens]

Creating Fantasy Religions 2

Another thought dump because some holidays are coming up and I'm still writing Yelen and Yelena, and if you like my world building, I put a lot of thought into my contemporary-set stuff too, so you should check out my Gothic Horror with tentacles books and other stuff here:

Main Questions I'm Thinking About:

What festivals exist in your world and when are they?

What fun games and traditions are done at these festivals WHICH HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE CURRENT MEANING AND EMPHASIS OF THAT FESTIVAL and why?

For example: in my world I'm developing now, I wanted to have a difference between urban religions and religious practices vs folk traditions and rural religious practices.

The Society in the Present Day of the Story

My society is a merchant society, with an oligarchy and a Lord Protector of the Guilds (and... everyone else), which developed after a big revolution. The Revolution happened about a hundred years prior to the story taking place, with a counter revolution 85 years before, and further uprisings in the provinces after that which are still in the living memory of some elders.

Merchants are traders. So you have a lot of exposure to philosophical and religious ideas from all over the place, merging in certain points and contexts, and developing under their own steam.

Meanwhile in more rural places, you get survivals of older forms of religions and traditions, which you can't stamp out easily. They'll be preserved in some form somewhere, even if they go underground, or pop up in other ways in superstitions and other things.

The Society's Ancient Mythology

SO: the mythology I've got is kind of Sumerian, but leaning on a lot of tropes that you see across the ancient world like the War in Heaven and the Cataclysm.

The idea is that the original pantheon = the mad gods, who can only be accessed via a channel who has reached the point where they are totally incapable of rational thought or any kind of coherence. This is "the empty place". Touching a person in this state or being near them means that your prayers now have an access route to that god (they cannot mediate for you, they have to remain in that state, incapable of thinking, so that your prayers can be funnelled via them in that moment).

Depending on who you want to talk to, which group of the mad gods, your vessel/accessor needs to be put into that state in one of the following ways:

intense pleasure

intense pain

intense fear

total peace

So basically, if you need a prayer to be heard, you need to either deliberately drive someone into that state to act as your access point, or find someone designated to this role who can put themselves into this state for you. [There is no concept of mediation. You can't mediate when you can't think. If you are the access point, you can't pray because the point of reaching the empty place is that you're not capable of doing so. You are only a channel for the prayers of others.]

This is recognised as an inherently problematic ancient thing, for a lot of obviously fucked up reasons, including ableism and the elevation of people with mental illness (without wanting them to have support or means of recovery). Also basically driving people to the brink again and again is going to create a lot of mental health issues and have knock-on effects politically, economically, socially, etc.

Legal defence for heinous crimes - "I did all this for the gods" - oh ok, well.. pay a small godfine to the family of the person you tortured and be on your way. I'm still thinking about how "godfine" might have remained in the society's vocabulary and be an idiom for bribery and corruption, as in a token amount you pay to cover up your crimes, and how pronunciation would have changed so now it's a word like gofin > goffin > guffin, and if you call a politician a guffin you now mean they are corrupt and taking bribes.

The torture gods in particular, accessed via those who have reached "the empty place" because of the pain they're in, are very messed up. Similarly, war bands would terrorise villages and towns purely to push people to the point of complete mindless fear to act as prayer-channels for them.

The mad gods had 10 Offspring who sprang out of various objects and were not "birthed" but popped into existence as a result of things the mad gods did. Haven't nailed this down yet as it's not really relevant, but you know the kind of thing...

"And after many had died of the terrible drought, Kegel (long may they rot) was finally so irritated by the prayers sent via the temple prostitutes that they caused a great rain to fall to make the land fertile, and some of the rain fell on the pit dug for the drought-dead, and from their bones sprang Perash (long may they reign), who saw the suffering in the land and had nothing but hate in their heart for Kegel from the moment they were born..."

The 10 Offspring were the antithesis of the mad gods, and so there was a war in which the mad gods were all slaughtered, and the 10 realms were created for the Offspring to share between them. The mad gods started to rot. The rot drove out the Offspring, who cannot return there. This is the raw essence of all curses and curse magic.

The War resulted in the First End of the World, (caused by a series of disasters, including plagues, fire, and finally a flood) and only the Favoured 10 survived, each one patronised by one of the 10 offspring and offered a place in one of the 10 new realms of the afterlife, depending on the manner of their death (this had nothing to do with whether they "deserved" to be there or not).

That's the mythology. It's not actually clear to what extent people really did worship the mad gods in this way. There are definitely indications that there were warband gods and gods of violence and so on, and old rituals involving flagellations and sacrifice, and the concept of accessing them was definitely a thing, but how much of this has been exaggerated is unclear.

The exaggeration began to justify the foreign rule of the Rein kings, after the conquest, where their rule was framed as bringing light and civilisation. The Revolution reframed this history and emphasised that at the time of the mad gods, the social structure was all about kingship and divine right to rule, so associated savagery and barbarism with monarchy. The Rein kings may not have practiced mad god worship, but their rule got twisted up with the mad god worship in the anti-monarchy rhetoric anyway, framing merchants and the merchant guilds as ordinary people striving for sanity and balance. It no longer matters that the Rein kings had nothing to do with the mad gods. They are successfully linked to them in the public imagination.

Modern Day Belief

Cut to modern day, most people are vaguely aware of the myths. They still believe in different realms of the afterlife you go to depending on how you die (not how you live). Some religions do have concepts of eternal bliss/eternal punishment based on your life choices, and this has permeated into this religion too, and now there are some additional texts and developed ideas and teachings around this that merge different schools of thought.

The merchants have their own religion which is like the Freemasons, and it's known as the Fraternity. This does has a concept of hell, but specifically for those condemned in life as criminals by their justice system - you go to the eternal dungeons after death, in that case, and spend your afterlife working for your freedom and parole into the limbo space and then journey to the place of rest.

The Fraternity has adopted the old Offspring gods and their festivals, and still keeps them around but more as downgraded spirits, which are of lesser importance in the urban areas where the Fraternity is strongest, but are still of primary importance in much of the mainly agrarian provinces (which leads to more legislation and codification of folk belief there, more suppression, and more culturally-ingrained suspicion of rural places).

Festival example: Midsummer

So: Belesh is an Offspring god that used to be the god of light, credited with creating the chariot of the sun after the First End of the World (before this the sun was a static light in the sky, and the moon was also static, and people didn't know the difference between day and night because the mad gods didn't bother to work all that out). Later on, the wheels of the sun chariot were conflated with the wheels of time and fortune, and you have lesser gods looking after those. There's the gatekeeper, Erish, who has 2 heads and is epicene/intersex, and guards the East and West gates for the sun and moon as they roll across the sky.

As time goes on, like maybe a thousand years later, Belesh is now the spirit of the midsummer festival when the sun is at its highest point. Honey mead is the traditional summer drink and there are special conical tents set up (mead tents) where the tent shape is reflecting the celestial idea of the highest point, reaching to the sky. People play games like the withy stick game, where kids have cloth targets or similar pinned to their backs and other kids try to collect them by swiping them off with bendy sticks [or whipping them off with ribbons if you're feeling a bit health-and-safety conscious.]

This isn't anything to do with Belesh.

It's a survival of a very, very, very old festival in the summer that included ritual flagellation. This might be evidence of mad god worship, it might be something else that is conflated with it. We'll never know, it wasn't recorded. Now, it's just a rather dangerous kids game, but the most fun ones are usually a bit dangerous.

My MC doesn't know that. She learns it as a side comment from the other MC who is concerningly interested in torture. She meets him when his enchanted castle is set with a midsummer feast including the centrepiece of a golden belesh wheel with sapphires dripping from it, festooned with fruit. He's one of those people who's like, "DID YOU KNOW" about stuff he's interested in.

Conflation of Lesser Deities with the Mad Gods

Meanwhile, Erish, who is really all about duality but is now also kind of the patron/divine representative of non-binary and trans people in society (you have men, women, and erish-folk, and can identify as any of those 3, with erish-folk being an umbrella term that some people don't like to use and others still do, not because it's a slur but because they want a secular term instead, or find Erish as a mythological figure or deity problematic).

Erish was the gatekeeper of the celestial gates, and has become conflated with Kegel in the provinces. Erish is a lesser god anyway, and not one of the 10 Offspring; they were more a demigod via Belesh's line.

The reason in the provinces for why Erish doesn't have their own afterlife is that they can be accessed and worshipped via pleasure, which you don't really get after you're dead in the same way (according to the Fraternity beliefs about the spirit body).

Erish isn't interested in you once you're dead, then. Erish is all about how you live now.

Fraternity adherents want to stamp this out, because this is seen as being too close to mad god worship, and that's now linked to monarchy, and therefore (in the Republic) social dissidence.

Therefore, Erish worship can be living an authentic life as a non-binary or trans person, but is also a euphemism for orgasm. It's developed in certain areas to be exclusively related to sex, and a cis sex worker might say they "lead Erish worship".

Which is 'correct'? The debates rage on, particularly among those who adhere to political factions that want to stamp out sex work as being a danger to public health, but mainstream thought is both can co-exist.

My pansexual MC is a cis aromantic allosexual sex-positive sex worker, and she worships Erish professionally, with anyone. She would say both.

If you like my world building thoughts, please check out my work!

[jiubilant]

12, 13

12. Which story took the most research?

recent short pieces coming to mind are

mark, the result of several hours of reading and taking notes on 11th- to 19th-century texts about archery

profit, for which i read some 19th-century sources about the history and downfall of the east india company

a bird in the hand...oogh. this one took days. researched 16th-century fashion. referenced illuminations from a medieval book of hours. watched a video of a lady crunching up an ortolan

honorable mention goes to tea and an oatcake, because the part of it that took the longest by far was coming up with the velothi word for "mint." wound up referencing some old notes on sumerian vocabulary

often i'll write a piece in which i only explicitly use a fraction of what i researched in order to write it. but i hope the work shows :)

13. Which story has the most lore?

hard to say since most of the short pieces i put out are interconnected at this point. i try to write them so that any individual one can function as an "entry point" into the overarching story without any prior context but i'm not sure how successful i've been at achieving that recently