Zolyomi Halloran PDF

1 R 35 - Halloran, Sumerian Lexicon (Gabor Zol yomi)
Halloran, 1ohn Alan, Sume r i a n Le xi c on. A

Di ct i onar y Gui de t o t he Anci ent Sume r i a n
Language. XIV 336 pp. Los Angeles, Logogram
Publishing, 2006. $ 79,-.
This volume is described by the author on the cover
oI the paperback edition as 'the Iirst modern Sumeri-
an-English dictionary which 'aims to be accurate, up-
to-date with scholarship, and inIormative, especially
regarding the details oI Sumerian culture. The same
cover also states, allegedly quoting a distinguished
Sumerologist, that the volume is the 'reminiscent oI
the Cambridge (sic!) Concise Dictionary oI Akkadian
that dispenses with original text citations. Such a
comparison is almost an insult to the editors oI CDA,
as nothing can be Iarther Irom the high standards oI
CDA than Halloran`s book.
This is a book compiled by a dilettante who under-
stands the basics oI neither lexicography nor Sumerol-
ogy. The reader is lost in Iinding the principles that
guided Halloran when selecting his headwords. In
addition to lexemes, one can Iind among his 6500
'headwords verbal and nominal aIIixes and clitics
(passim), Iinite verbs (e.g., 'ba-gi-in), nouns modi-
Iied with an adjective (e.g., 'a-ed
12
'cool water),
nouns with a possessive enclitic ('ab-ba-gu
10
'my
Iather; Halloran does not tell us why he leIt out ab-
ba-zu 'your Iather!), nouns with a possessive enclitic
in the genitive case ('ab-ba-ga
2
'oI my Iather),
genitive constructions (e.g., 'lugal-kur-kur-ra), idi-
oms (e.g., a-ta ... e
11
), spellings (e.g., 'a-ab 'variant
oI ab), ways oI translitering (e.g., '-a-ne
2
translitera-
tion to imply postposition -e aIter the possessive
suIIix -a-ni), and non-verbal clauses (e.g., 'ku
3
-ta-
du
8
-dam).
This short selection must be enough to show that
the author Iailed to carry out the linguistic and lexico-
graphic analysis that should precede even the writing
oI a simple glossary, not to speak oI the writing oI
'the Iirst modern Sumerian-English dictionary. A
similar conIusion characterizes the meanings and sens-
es given by Halloran: besides (arbitrary lists oI) Eng-
lish equivalents (Irom unspeciIied sources), one Iinds
grammatical descriptions (based mostly on Thomsen`s
Sumerian Grammar) and mini essays on the use oI
certain objects and on various aspects oI Sumerian
culture, economy, religion, and so on.
Having described -/a/ as a 'nominalization suIIix
(p. 1), Halloran calls it 'nominative in his 'etymolo-
gies throughout the book. The only explanation I can
see Ior this usage is the author`s ignorance oI the
diIIerence in meaning between the two terms.
On the 'solid basis oI Halloran`s lexicographic
and linguistic work, the book also promises the reader
that it 'throws light on the origin and the meaning
behind words by analyzing their etymologies (p. v). I
predict that Halloran`s book will be an inexhaustible
source oI Sumerological jokes (cI. muen 'mu,
reptile` an, sky` ; udu 'u
3
, pronominal preIix`
2 R 35 - Halloran, Sumerian Lexicon (Gabor Zol yomi)
|sic!| du, to walk` ; nud, nu
2
'nu, not` ed
2
to
go out` ).
More gravely, as a teacher oI university-level Su-
merian, I have serious doubts about the truth oI the
statement on the cover, again attributed to the distin-
guished Sumerologist, that this book is 'a very wel-
come addition to reIerence tools every teacher and
student oI Sumerian should own. Halloran`s book is
Iull oI IanciIul and arbitrary etymologies which are
based solely on the author`s vivid imagination. What
is the basis oI etymologies like that oI e
2
-me-e 'sum-
mer which Halloran 'analyzes as ' houses` are`
many` (p. 57)? And who would like her/his stu-
dents to learn these? Etymologies like this are based
on a conIusion between writing and language, a con-
Iusion that permeates the whole work. Halloran occa-
sionally contradicts even his own Iantasies: on page 6
he derives a-ra-li 'underworld Irom tears` over-
Ilow` to sing`, but on page 23 he derives the same
word, written as arali/a and translated as 'nether-
world, Irom 'ara
3
, to pulverize` la, youthIul Iresh-
ness and beauty` .
The Sumerian Lexicon is a work compiled by an
enthusiastic amateur; but it Ialls very short oI the
requirements imposed on academic works in Assyriol-
ogy. A review published in such a distinguished peri-
odical as Archiv fr Orientforschung adds an impor-
tance to this volume that is absolutely undeserved.
Budapest. Gabor Zol yomi.
A short, theoretical reply to John Hallorans response (19/02/2013)

John Halloran responded to my review (AfO 52 [20072012] 239) of his Sumerian
Lexicon. A Dictionary Guide to the Ancient Sumerian Language on the web page of the
journal AfO (http://orientalistik.univie.ac.at/forschung/publikationen/archiv-fuer-
orientforschung/#other).
I regret that he feels hurt by the tone of my review. Nevertheless, the tone of
the review would have been less harsh, if Halloran had not forcefully tried to sell his
book as a solid scholarly work (the first modern Sumerian-English dictionary) and
classify it among assyriological works based on decades of real lexicographic
research (reminiscent of the Cambridge Concise Dictionary of Akkadian).
Having read his response, I feel that my remark that Halloran understands the
basics of neither lexicography nor Sumerology remains justified. In his response
Halloran explains his inclusion of the word-form ab-ba-u among the headwords as
follows:
Adam Falkenstein in 1957 included ab-ba-mu, my father, as a glossary
subentry for his Die neusumerischen Gerichtsurkunden. I transformed it into the
modern ab-ba-gu

(which Dr. Zlyomi singles out for criticism) and included
it because it helps to explain the idiom ab-ba-ga, of my father, where ga

is
a contraction of gu

and the possessive - a(k).
In fact in Falkensteins glossary (1957: 90), there is no ab-ba-mu glossary
subentry. Falkenstein distinguished two meanings in the glossary entry of the
lexeme ab-ba: 1) Alter; 2) Vater. He then listed the occurrences of the lexeme in its
second meaning in two subsections: in subsection 2b) he listed the occurrences of
the lexeme where its form contains a possessive enclitic. In the list of occurrences
ab-ba-mu is the first, because the list starts with forms containing the 1st ps. sg.
possessive enclitic. So ab-ba-mu is not a subentry but an attested word-form of a
lexeme; a theoretical difference with a practical consequence that should not be
neglected by anyone who complies an index or glossary of Sumerian vocabulary.
Falkenstein first identified a lexeme, then he arranged its occurrences
according to grammatical principles. By doing this Falkenstein clearly distinguished
between lexemes and word-forms. This is a basic distinction in a glossary; a
distinction which has largely been ignored by Halloran both in his book and in his
response.

References
Falkenstein, Adam (1957), Die neusumerischen Gerichtsurkunden, III (Bayerische
Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.-hist. Kl., Abhandlungen, NF 44;
Verffentlichungen der Kommission zur Erschlieung von Keilschrifttexten,
Serie A, 2, III). Mnchen: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der
Wissenschaften.

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1 R 35 - Halloran, Sumerian Lexicon (Gabor Zol yomi)

Halloran, 1ohn Alan, Sume r i a n Le xi c on. A

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