of the reasons why proto-cuneiform is so difficult for us to understand, despite our
being able to read the cuneiform which developed out of it. And this also makes it
difficult to discern whether or not the language spoken by its inventor was Sumerian.
There are a few hints such as sign combinations to suggest that it may indeed have been
Sumerian, but the evidence is not conclusive (see Englund 1998 : 73 – 81 ). Another
pointer in this direction is provided by the fact that writing has been invented only a
limited number of times in world history. In each clear case, the language behind the
writing is monosyllabic, thus basic units of meaning are equivalent to basic units of
speech and in turn to basic units in the writing system (Daniels 1992 ). Sumerian fits
this pattern, although another – to us unknown – language may also have done so.
Mature cuneiform is replete with multivalent signs – where one sign can have
multiple readings; some are difficult to explain within Sumerian. Finkel ( 2010 : 22 – 23 )
suggests that the reading NAB of the sign written with two DINGIR-signs may be
Elamite in origin. Englund ( 1998 : 80 ) hypothesizes an “archaic” language behind the
Uruk documents. Rejecting, for example, the conventional interpretation of the AB-
sign as a shrine on a mound, he prefers to see it as an image of the Persian Gulf and
southern marshes. The word ab“shrine” is thus written using the sign for the putative
homophonous word, ab“sea”; in turn, the Sumerians attach their word for shrine (esh)
to it. Neither the implausibility of the conventional interpretation nor the plausibility
of the proposed interpretation are clear, however, and it has yet to be shown that abis
used to mean “sea” (Sumerian a-ab-ba) in the archaic texts. Whatever the solution to
such problems, it is worth considering the possibility that several languages may lie
behind proto-cuneiform, and enigmatic cuneiform values. The Uruk world was surely
alive with the sound of many tongues.
But were the signs of proto-cuneiform multivalent? This was an administrative
device, one that had no use for poetry, philosophy or propaganda. It did not record
speech. It was concerned with numbers, commodities, animals, officials, institutions
and places. It also seems to write personal names – interestingly, the first recorded
names in history belong to commoners, not kings. The sign repertoire was large, and
most characters are attested only infrequently in the surviving texts. They often differ
from each other by the subtlest of degrees. Many were subsequently lost or coalesced
during the Early Dynastic period, and perhaps as early as Uruk III. The benefit of
differentiation became outweighed by the difficulty of retaining differentiation among
an increasingly stylized character set and the trouble of learning, producing and
recognizing the extra signs. It is at this point that we might expect the first major wave
of multivalency to have occurred. A second wave might be expected as cuneiform came
to be put to new uses: writing royal inscriptions, letters, treaties, and literature. Then
the scribes would need to think laterally to produce a whole series of new readings, as
they strove to find ways to represent the more abstract elements of the language.
Who used writing?It is perhaps at first surprising that the word we later know as “scribe” (Sumerian dub-
sar) is missing from the Uruk texts. On reflection this makes sense, however. The
administrative operations for which writing was invented pre-existed, performed using
earlier technologies. Writing was thus just an updated tool. Those who used it would
presumably have retained their title and function. Those who produced the tablets do
–– The first scribes ––