What Has Babylonian Mythology to Do with the Way My Son Oren

36 Pages·2011·2.2 MB·English

JOURNAL OF ADVANCED LINGUITIC STUDIES

Vol. 1, No. 1, 2012

What Has Babylonian Mythology to Do with the
Way My Son Oren Speaks Hebrew?
Syntax and prosody in ancient and spoken texts

SHLOMO IZRE‘EL
Tel-Aviv University, Israel

ABSTRACT

Looking at ancient Babylonian (Akkadian) narratives with
mythological content, I try to advance a hypothesis about the
proximity of their language to spoken vernaculars rather than to
other types of Akkadian known to us (letters and other administrative
genres). Apart from looking at the sociolinguistic setting of ancient
Mesopotamian scribal education, this hypothesis will be advanced by
comparing syntactic, pragmatic and prosodic features of these
ancient texts to linguistic features prominent in spoken languages,
focusing mostly on Israeli Hebrew.

Keywords: Syntax, prosody, Akkadian, Israeli Hebrew, meter,
poetics, spoken language

1. INTRODUCTION

Babylonian is a branch of Akkadian, spoken and written in ancient
Mespotamia, today‘s Iraq and its immediate vicinity. Akkadian, the
eastern branch of the Semitic linguistic family, is the common name
given to a cluster of languages and dialects used in Mesopotamia and
beyond from the middle of the third millennium BC to the third century
CE. Being the language of the prominent empires of the ancient Near
East, Akkadian served as the lingua franca of the entire region, notably
during the second millennium BC, documented from Egypt and
Anatolia in the west to Iran in the east. By the middle of the first
millennium BC, Akkadian was replaced by Aramaic, but still continued
to serve in the written medium to varying extents for several more
centuries.
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During the second and first millennia BC, Akkadian consisted of
two main branches, Babylonian and Assyrian. These two branches are
commonly classified according to three main chronological periods: the
old period, until the middle of the second millennium BC; the middle
period, in the second half of the second millennium BC; and the new
period, which lasted until the fall of the great empires of Assyria and
Babylonia, ca. 600 BC. After Akkadian was no longer spoken,
Babylonian was still used in academic circles, termed accordingly, Late
Babylonian. Old Babylonian, the language of Babylonia at the time of
King Hammurabi, was highly esteemed by the scribes of Mesopotamia
until the late period. Therefore, the literary registers of Akkadian
attested from the second and first millennia BC were derived from the
literary registers of Old Babylonian (henceforth: OB). Many of the non-
administrative text corpora at our disposal, either Assyrian or
Babylonian, are written in varieties of this standardized language. This
is reflected in the term given to it: Standard Babylonian.
Data for the linguistic study of Literary Babylonian are available
from the OB period until well into the first millennium BC. Still,
differences in genre and period naturally exist, and it would be wise to
study distinct types of text individually. In this paper, I will endeavor to
make a few observations on mythological narratives, which show
relatively little variation in form between periods. Still, many of my
observations stem from recent work done on mythological narratives in
earlier periods, notably OB (Izre‘el and Cohen 2004).

2. SOME FEATURES OF OB MYTHOLOGYICAL TEXTS

As is the case with many cultures, ancient and contemporary,
mythological literature in Akkadian-speaking cultures was a subclass of
poetry. As such, the texts usually termed myths or epics in Akkadian
present linguistic peculiarities in all domains of the language, viz.,
phonology, morphophonology, morphology, lexicon and phraseology,
as well as in their syntactic structure. In addition, they represent
structural features characteristic of poetry, to which we shall refer later.
In what follows, I wish to show some of these characteristics,
specifically syntactic ones, which will later take us to describing some
poetic structural features that will be of interest to the thesis I wish to
advance here. (For other features see Izre‘el 2010, as well as the
bibliography listed there, mainly in note 4.)
Let us take a brief look at some instances of word order in the OB
mythological texts which are divergent from the regular word order in
BABYLONIAN MYTHOLOGY AND SPOKEN ISRAELI HEBREW 3
non-poetic texts: (a) inverse genitive construction; (b) split appositions;
(c) pragmatic fronting; (d) chiasm; (e) the position of the verb. As we
shall see in the examples which follow, some of them belong to more
than one category.

2.1. Inverse genitive construction
In Akkadian, as in other Semitic languages, two independent syntactic
units may form a compound, which can be termed ―attributive
construction‖ or, as more commonly known, ―genitive construction‖
(Izre‘el and Cohen 2004: §§3.3.2.4; 4.1.3). Example:1
(1) neːrebeːt=kišti
entrances=forest
GEN
―the forest‘s entrances‖
In ex. 1, the attributive relationship between the two nouns – the
nucleus (or the nomen regens) neːrebeːt ―entrances‖ and the attribute (or
the nomen rectum) kišti ―forest‖ – is indicated mainly by the genitive
case suffixed to the attribute, which comes in the second position.
Another possibility to show attribution is an analytic construction,
employing the nominal head ša:
(2) neːrebeːtu ša=kišti
entrances N=forest
NOM GEN
―the forest‘s entrances‖
In this case, the nominal head ša2 forms an attributive construction with
the nomen rectum kišti ―forest‖ and the noun neːrebeːtu ―entrances‖ is
extraposed to this construction in a fronted position.
These two structures are equally common also in Literary
Babylonian. However, Literary Babylonian further exhibits other
structures, where the order is inversed:
(3) ša=kišti neːrebeːtim
N=forest entrances
GEN OBL
―the forest‘s entrances‖
(Gilgamesh OB III: 253)3
(4) agušaja dunna=ša
Agushaja power =her4
ACC
―Agushaya‘s power‖
(Agushaya B, VI: 13)
In ex. 3, it is the attributive construction with the nominal head that is
fronted, and the nucleus, which in the standard construction occupied
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the first position (the nomen regens), now moves to the final position.
In ex. 4, the attribute is again fronted, now coming independently, i.e.,
without the nominal head, and a resumptive pronoun is enclitic to the
nucleus. The pronominal clitic thus takes the original place of the
attribute.

2.2. Split appositions
In ex. 5, the complement of the verb išpukuː ―they casted‖ is split: the
noun precedes the verb, whereas its qualifying adjective follows it:
(5) paːšiː išpukuː rabuːtim
hatchets they.casted big
OBL OBL
―They casted big hatchets‖
(Gilgamesh OB III: 165)
In ex. 6, the complement nucleus, rigim ―uproar,‖ follows the verb,
whereas its attribute is represented in two ways: the explicit noun is
fronted and precedes the verb, but it is also represented as an enclitic
resumptive pronoun attached to the complement nucleus:
(6) ila išmuː rigim=šu
god they.heard uproar=his
ACC
―They heard the god‘s uproar‖
(Atra Hasis III, ii: 50)
This construction exhibits the fronting of the complement ―god,‖ which
is represented in the phrase rigimšu by the pronominal clitic šu. The
structure is therefore similar to the inverse attributive constructions
discussed above, notably the one in ex. 4.

2.3. Pragmatic fronting
While not exclusive to poetic language, pragmatic fronting is frequently
attested in mythological texts. Ex. 7 is very similar to ex. 6 above:
(7) enlil ilakaː dimaː=šu
Enlil they.went tears=his
―Enlil – his tears were flowing‖ = ―Enlil shed tears‖
(Atra Hasis I: 167)
The extraposed topic is again resumed by a pronoun, yet here it comes
as a clitic to the subject of the verb rather than to the complement as is
the case in ex. 6. Ex. 8 exhibits a fronted 1SG pronoun in the oblique
case, which is resumed by another 1SG oblique-case pronoun cliticized
onto the verb:
BABYLONIAN MYTHOLOGY AND SPOKEN ISRAELI HEBREW 5
(8) jaːti dugl=anni
me look=me
―Look at me!‖
(Gilgamesh OB III: 274)
In ex. 9, the function of the extraposition is to convey contrast between
the active personae. Here the fronted pronoun anaːku ―I‖ is the subject
of the verb:
(9) i ur anu adad eleːnu
he.guarded Anu Adad above
anaːku a ur er etam šapliːtam
I I.guarded earth below
―Anu and Adad guarded above,
I guarded the earth below.‖
(Atra Hasis II, v: 30–31)
Whereas the gods Anu and Adad guarded what is above the earth, I
(i.e., the god Enlil) – guarded the earth below. It should be noted that
Akkadian, like other Semitic languages, does not exhibit independent
personal pronouns as subjects unless pragmatically needed, since the
subject is inherently represented in the verb structure.

2.4. Chiasm
Ex. 9 further represents chiasm, usually regarded as a prominent poetic
device (see below). Other examples are the following:
(10) akul aklam enkidu | simat balaː im
eat bread Enkidu | fitting life
šikaram šiti | šiːmti maːti
beer drink | decree land
―Eat bread, Enkidu, which is proper for life!
Drink the beer, which is the decreed for the land!‖
(Gilgamesh OB II: 96–102)
(11) šiːruša ?u
her.flesh for.war
u šaraːša
for.quarrel her.hair
―Her flesh is set for war,
her hair – for quarrel.‖
(Agushaya A, V: 43’–44’)
In ex. 10, the change in word order is between the verb (indicated by
boldface characters) and its complement (in roman characters). In ex.
6 SHLOMO IZRE’EL
11, the change in word order is between the subject (indicated by
boldface characters) and the predicate (in roman characters).

2.5. Verb position
Akkadian has always been marked by its students as being deviant from
the Semitic core structure in its rigid verb-final word order. This verb-
final order is explained as the result of Sumerian influence, one of many
borrowed features from Sumerian resulting from long-term contact
between the two languages (Lieberman 1977; Pedersén 1989; Streck
1998; and Cooper 1973: 243 note 36 for previous references). Literary
texts, as opposed to contemporary Akkadian texts of other genres,
exhibit a flexible word order, which is taken to be a prominent feature
of Literary Babylonian (GAG §130b; Hecker 1974 §1.2.7). We have
seen ample examples to this allegedly ―free‖ order above (exx. 5, 6, 7,
9, 10, 11).

3. HYPOTHESIS

Since literature, and especially poetry, does manipulate language for
poetic reasons, this deviant word order is explained as a feature of
poetic license (Hecker 1974: §1.4.1), and therefore unrepresentative of
the core syntactic nature of Akkadian. Among poetic constraints one
may think of chiasm (exx. 9, 10, 11), pragmatic change in word order
(exx. 6, 7, 9), and so on.
The theory of Sumerian interference as a possible source for the
emergence of the verb-final standard word order of Akkadian, although
not unchallenged (e.g., Haayer 1986), seems to hold firm enough.
Therefore, one may ask whether the flexible word order in Literary
Babylonian, whether or not the result of poetic constraints, is an
innovation or a residue of ancient Semitic.
I tend to adopt the latter hypothesis. However, I would go a step
further and ask whether the literary registers in general, and the register
of poetic narratives in particular, in our case mythological narratives,
would not be closer, at least in some respects, to the contemporary
vernacular than the administrative registers were. The common
perception that letters are closer to the colloquial style (see references in
Cohen 2005: 8), or, more generally, that prose is closer to the spoken
registers than poetry (Joseph 2001: 312) may not be justified in some
societies, and I would ask myself on what such an assumption might
hold other than on an anachronistic view. This assumption goes well
with the following statement by Eran Cohen, who on his part follows
BABYLONIAN MYTHOLOGY AND SPOKEN ISRAELI HEBREW 7
the points of view of Kraus and Sallaberger: ―[T]he language [of the
Old Babylonian letters] is an everyday language but, being very
conservative and of a formulaic nature, it is by no means a spoken
language‖ (Kraus 1973; Sallaberger 1999: 10-11 [but cf. Sallaberger‘s
statement in n. 14 on p. 12]; Cohen 2005: 6-8, citation on p. 8).
As much as Ancient Mesopotamia can be regarded a literate
society (Vanstiphout 1995), it must be recalled that any designation of it
as such cannot be measured by modern, Western standards: most, if not
all of the writing, was carried out by professional scribes (Oppenheim
1977: 13ff., ch. 5; Pearce 1995). The Semitic Mesopotamian scribes
learned their writing skills via Sumerian. Following their initial study of
cuneiform signs, scribes proceeded to writing lexical lists and other
texts, many of them bilingual (Sumerian and Akkadian). They learned
how to write administrative texts of all types, e.g., legal documents,
letters, and many others, in order to master the patterns required to write
these types of texts (Pearce 1995: 2270–2271; Oppenheim 1977: 276–
287). Therefore, writing in Babylonia and Assyria is not only to be
regarded as a highly professional skill, but also one that involves deep
Sumero-Akkadian cultural and linguistic interference. Would it be
unsound to speculate that some linguistic features that we have become
accustomed to in our long acquaintance with Akkadian were features
confined to written registers and not features belonging to registers of
the spoken language? This we shall never know, of course, but let me
proceed with this line of thinking and ask whether it might be possible
for verb-final word order as we know it to have been a feature of only
some written registers of Akkadian, and not one that was part and
parcel of any actual Akkadian vernacular.
The other syntactic features listed above may serve to advance this
hypothesis. Although found in written registers, extrapositional patterns
are a prominent feature of spoken, conversational language cross-
linguistically (cf. Biber et al. 1999: §11.5). The extensive employment
of extrapositional patterns in mythological narratives is a typological
feature that makes them similar to the spoken language, and therefore
more intimately related to the authentic language of their contemporary
audience. One should note that linguistic features tend not to be
confined to any single register, and their prominence in one or more
registers can, and usually is, quantitative (Biber 1988). As split
apposition is similar in form to other extrapositional structures, I would
ask myself whether its use as a device for poetic decorum does not have
its origins in existing structures in the vernacular. However, this must
await further research.5
8 SHLOMO IZRE’EL
As regards inverse attributive constructions, they are extremely rare
in other Akkadian registers (GAG §138l). They are notably found in
areas where Akkadian was not the vernacular, but served only (or
mostly) in the written medium (Finet 1956: §65p-q; Izre‘el 1991a: vol.
I, §3.3.3.1). In such areas, one may surmise that it is the interference
from the local vernaculars that may have been the basis for the
emergence of such constructions in the administrative, written medium.
However, one may also speculate its borrowing from spoken registers
of the Akkadian superstratum.

4. POETIC DECORUM AND ITS RESOURCES

Chiasm is, of course, a well know poetic device in many ancient
literatures (Welch 1891) as well as in Akkadian (Smith 1891). One can
add to it other features used for poetic decorum such as repetition,
parallelismus membrorum and metrical structure.
Examples of repetition:
(12) kikkiš kikkiš || igaːr igaːr
reed-wall reed-wall || wall wall
kikkišu šimeːma || igaːr issas
reed-wall hear || wall understand
―Reed-wall, reed-wall! Wall, Wall!
Reed-wall, Listen! Wall, keep in mind!‖
(Gilgamesh SB XI: 21-22)
Ex. 12 also includes parallelism in both the first and the second line. Ex.
13 includes, in addition to parallelism (l. 2 and ll. 3-4), also repetition
(ll. 3-4) and chiasm (ll. 2 and 4):
(13) inuːma iluː awiːlum
when gods like.man
―When the gods were like men‖
ubluː dulla || izbiluː šupšikka
they.carried corvée.work || they.worked forced.labor
―they bore corvée work, they did toil.‖
šupšik iliː rabiːma ||
labor gods big
―The toil of the gods was great,‖
dullum kabit || maːd šapša um
work heavy || much hardship
―the work was heavy, there was much hardship.‖ (Atra Hasis I: 1-4)
While all the above features are rightly regarded as devices for poetic
decorum, we may ask ourselves what are the linguistic resources that
BABYLONIAN MYTHOLOGY AND SPOKEN ISRAELI HEBREW 9
these features draw from. The answer is, rather trivially, from existing
linguistic features in the language. In ancient languages, one may only
surmise that the spoken language have been the major resource for such
features. Of course, we do not have access to the spoken medium of
dead languages, and our hypotheses should rely on typological
comparisons and on indirect evidence (see, e.g., Izre‘el 2010; Izre‘el
2007: §2). But not only in ancient societies and ancient languages do
we find these features:

On vois, dans les productions orales, des sortes d‘organisations qui
s‘étendent au-delà des unités de macro-syntaxe. … Il s‘y révèle une
rhétorique fondamentale, faites à la fois de phénomènes lexicaux et de
phénomènes syntaxiques. … certaines sont très régulières, et se retrouvent
dans les productions les plus diverses, en particulier : les configurations
fondées sur les répetitions lexicales et celles qui reposent sur des
répetitions de structures syntaxiques. (Blanche-Benveniste et al. 1990:
177)

Blanche-Benveniste et al. (1990: 180) cite the following examples,
taken from spoken French:
(14) je me rappelle pas du nom
du nom je me rappelle pas
(15) Denise mon père il va m‘acheter un petit mouton
un petit mouton il va m‘acheter
(16) tandis que maintenant on connaît plus personne
plus personne on connaît
Interestingly, these three examples exhibit the very same features as
discussed above regarding Babylonian mythological texts: repetition,
parallelism, and even chiasm

5. DIALOGUES

A notable feature of Babylonian mythological narratives is their
extensive use of dialogues. Dialogues in texts of this genre may have
been even closer to the spoken, colloquial language, than narratives.
Many cultures attempt to imitate spoken language in literary
compositions, in one way or another. One prominent feature of
dialogues is the use of vocatives. Vocatives can come in different places
in the sentence and may suggest a contemporary feature:
10 SHLOMO IZRE’EL
(17) inanna ibriː ša nillakušum ul šaduːmmaː
now my.friend N we.go.to.him not mountain
―Now, my friend, is the one to whom we are going not a mountain?‖
(Gilgames OB Schøyen2: 14–15)
(18) ibriː luː itbaːraːnuː anaː u atta
my.friend may we.be.friends I and you
―My friend, let us be associated, I and you.‖
(Etana OV I, vi: 6‘)
Both examples present structures that might have been similar to the
contemporary respective vernaculars. See further Izre‘el 2010: §4.
The important distinction made by Eran Cohen (Izre‘el and Cohen
2004: §4.5; Cohen 2006) between two types of textemes in
mythological texts, viz., narrative and dialogue (with narrative dialogue
in between) may prove to be a powerful tool in pinpointing many other
phenomena related to colloquial syntax, notably in dialogues. This will
remain for others to pursue, as I have not used this distinction in my
survey.

6. METRICAL STRUCTURE

The most prominent feature of poetry is its metrical structure. It has
long been known (Kuryłowicz 1972: ch. 10; O‘Connor 1980: §1.3) that
meter in Ancient Near Eastern poetries is based not on syllable count
but on structural arrangement of prosodic-syntactic units, which I called
metremes (Izre‘el 1991b). A metreme is best defined as a prosodic unit
that carries a single main stress. Although prosodic patterns are a
feature of the spoken language, there are some indications for the
position of stress in Akkadian spelling, especially in some literary texts
(Izre‘el 1992: 188-9, 209-212; 2001: 87-90; cf. also 1996: 93). Thus
defined, one should note that prosody links syntactic units so that each
metreme further shows strong correlation to syntactic cohesion. A
metreme usually consists of a lexical word either by itself (ex. 19, a
single verse consisting of three lexical words) or with cliticized function
words (ex. 20). It can further consist of a compound of two lexical
words combined together in an attributive construction (ex. 21; cf.
above, §2.1 with ex. 1). These rules are not absolute, and can be
manipulated according to poetic needs. For example, whereas a noun
and its appositive adjectival qualifier usually make two separate
metremes (ex. 22), sometimes they are taken together as a single
metreme (ex. 23).