sumerian

«sumerian» in Mova's school dictionary: from or to do with Sumer, one of the world's first… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

adjective (Sumerian); noun (a Sumerian, Sumerians; Sumerian, the language)

meaning for a pupil

1) Sumerian means from or to do with Sumer, one of the world's first civilisations, in southern Mesopotamia (now southern Iraq), about 5,000 years ago. tree →

2) A Sumerian was a person from Sumer. tree →

3) Sumerian is the language they spoke, written in cuneiform, one of the oldest written languages. tree →

sense in the lessons

History lessons: the Sumerians built some of the first cities (like Ur and Uruk), invented an early form of writing (cuneiform, pressed into clay tablets with a reed), and used a number system based on 60, which is why we have 60 minutes in an hour and 360 degrees in a circle. They built ziggurats (stepped temples) and told the story of Gilgamesh.

examples

• The Sumerians wrote on clay tablets. tree →
• Sumerian cities were built between two rivers. tree →
• We made Sumerian cuneiform with lolly sticks and clay. tree →
• Our 60 minutes in an hour comes from the Sumerian way of counting. tree →
• Ur was a great Sumerian city. tree →
• The Sumerian king Gilgamesh is the hero of a very old story. tree →
• Sumerian is not related to any language spoken today. tree →

note

Always capital S. Said «soo-MAIR-ee-un» or «soo-MEER-ee-un». Sumer is not the same as «summer». Sumerian is a language isolate: no known living relatives.

In the corpora

• So the Sumerians invented writing, first as little pictures of grain and sheep.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «sumerian» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.