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cuneiform

  (kyū'nē-ə-fôrm', kyū-nē'-) pronunciation
adj.
  1. Wedge-shaped.
    1. Being a character or characters formed by the arrangement of small wedge-shaped elements and used in ancient Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian writing.
    2. Relating to, composed in, or using such characters.
  3. Anatomy. Of, relating to, or being a wedge-shaped bone or cartilage.
n.
  1. Writing typified by the use of characters formed by the arrangement of small wedge-shaped elements.
  2. Anatomy. A wedge-shaped bone, especially one of three such bones in the tarsus of the foot.

[Latin cuneus, wedge + –FORM.]


 
 
Architecture: cuneiform

Having a wedge-shaped form; esp. applied to characters, or to the inscriptions in such characters, of the ancient Mesopotamians and Persians.

 
Archaeology Dictionary: cuneiform

[De]

The term used to describe early writing in the Middle East (Sumerian, Akkadian and related languages) in which wedge-shaped impressions are left on a clay tablet. It was used from the 3rd through to the 1st millennia bc and is thought to have derived from older Sumerian pictographic script.
 
Columbia Encyclopedia: cuneiform
(kyūnē'ĭfôrm) [Lat.,=wedge-shaped], system of writing developed before the last centuries of the 4th millennium B.C. in the lower Tigris and Euphrates valley, probably by the Sumerians. The characters consist of arrangements of wedgelike strokes generally impressed with a stylus on wet clay tablets, which were then dried or baked. The history of the script is strikingly parallel to that of the Egyptian hieroglyphic (see also alphabet and inscription). The normal Babylonian and Assyrian writing used a large number (300–600) of arbitrary cuneiform symbols for words and syllables; some had been originally pictographic. There was an alphabetic system, too, making it possible to spell a word out, but because of the adaptation from Sumerian, a different language, there were many ambiguities. A single symbol could be used to represent a concept, an object, a simple sound or syllable, or to indicate the category of words requiring additional definition. Cuneiform writing was used outside Mesopotamia also, notably in Elam and by the Hittites (see Anatolian languages). There are many undeciphered cuneiform inscriptions, apparently representing several different languages. Cuneiform writing declined in use after the Persian conquest of Babylonia (539 B.C.), and after a brief renaissance (3d–1st cent. B.C.) ceased to be used in Mesopotamia. A very late use of cuneiform writing was that of the Persians, who established a syllabary for Old Persian. This is the writing of the Achaemenids (mid-6th cent. B.C.–4th cent. B.C.), whose greatest monument is that of Darius I at Behistun. Key discoveries of cuneiform inscriptions have been made at Nineveh, Lagash, Uruk, Tell el Amarna, Susa, and Boğazköy. Two great names in the interpretation of cuneiforms are those of Sir Henry C. Rawlinson and G. F. Grotefend.

Bibliography

See E. Chiera, They Wrote on Clay (1956); J. D. Prince, Assyrian Primer (1909, repr. 1966); A. Gaur, A History of Writing (1984).

 
Veterinary Dictionary: cuneiform

1. wedge-shaped.
2. the first, second and third tarsal bones.

  • c. process — processes of the arytenoid cartilage in dogs, or the epiglottic cartilages of horses.
 
Wikipedia: cuneiform script
"Cuneiform" redirects here. For other uses, see Cuneiform (disambiguation).
Cuneiform
Type Logographic and syllabic
Languages Akkadian, Eblaite, Elamite, Hattic, Hittite, Hurrian, Luwian, Sumerian, Urartian
Time period ca. 30th century BC to 1st century AD
Parent systems (Proto-writing)
Cuneiform
Child systems Old Persian, Ugaritic
Unicode range U+12000 to U+1236E (Sumero-Akkadian Cuneiform)
U+12400 to U+12473 (Numbers)
ISO 15924 Xsux
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

The cuneiform script is one of the earliest known forms of written expression. Created by the Sumerians from ca. 3000 BC (with predecessors reaching into the late 4th millennium Uruk IV period[1]), cuneiform writing began as a system of pictographs. Over time, the pictorial representations became simplified and more abstract.

Cuneiforms were written on clay tablets, on which symbols were drawn with a blunt reed called a stylus. The impressions left by the stylus were wedge shaped, thus giving rise to the name cuneiform ("wedge shaped").

The Sumerian script was adapted for the writing of the Akkadian, Elamite, Hittite (and Luwian), Hurrian (and Urartian) languages, and it inspired the Old Persian and Ugaritic national alphabets.


Ancient Mesopotamia
Babylonlion.JPG
Euphrates · Tigris
Cities / Empires
Sumer: Uruk · Ur · Eridu
Kish · Lagash · Nippur
Akkadian Empire: Akkad
Babylon · Isin · Susa
Assyria: Assur · Nineveh
Dur-Sharrukin · Nimrud
Babylonia · Chaldea
Elam · Amorites
Hurrians · Mitanni
Kassites · Urartu
Chronology
Kings of Sumer
Kings of Assyria
Kings of Babylon
Language
Aramaic
Sumerian · Akkadian
Elamite · Hurrian
Mythology
Enûma Elish
Gilgamesh · Marduk

History

The cuneiform writing system originated perhaps around 2800 BC in Sumer; its latest surviving use is dated to 75 AD. [2]

The cuneiform script underwent considerable changes over a period of more than two millennia. The image below shows the development of the sign SAG "head" (Borger nr. 184, U+12295


This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
Translations: Translations for: Cuneiform

Dansk (Danish)
adj. - kileformet, kileskrifts-
n. - kileskrift

idioms:

  • cuneiform script    kileskriftsystem

Nederlands (Dutch)
wigvormig

Français (French)
adj. - cunéiforme
n. - écriture cunéiforme

idioms:

  • cuneiform script    écriture cunéiforme

Deutsch (German)
n. - Keilschrift
adj. - keilförmig

idioms:

  • cuneiform script    Keilschrift

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - σφηνοειδής γραφή
adj. - σφηνοειδής

idioms:

  • cuneiform script    σφηνοειδής γραφή

Italiano (Italian)
cuneiforme

idioms:

  • cuneiform script    scrittura cuneiforme

Português (Portuguese)
n. - caracteres (m pl) cuneiformes
adj. - cuneiforme

idioms:

  • cuneiform script    escrita (f) cuneiforme

Русский (Russian)
клинописный

idioms:

  • cuneiform script    клинопись

Español (Spanish)
adj. - cuneiforme
n. - hueso cuneiforme

idioms:

  • cuneiform script    escritura cuneiforme

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - kilskrift
adj. - kilformig, kilskrift-

中文（简体） (Chinese (Simplified))
楔形的, 楔状骨的, 楔形文字的, 楔形文字, 楔状骨

idioms:

  • cuneiform script    楔形铭文

中文（繁體） (Chinese (Traditional))
adj. - 楔形的, 楔狀骨的, 楔形文字的
n. - 楔形文字, 楔狀骨

idioms:

  • cuneiform script    楔形銘文

한국어 (Korean)
adj. - 쐐기 모양의, 설형문자의
n. - 설형 문자

日本語 (Japanese)
adj. - くさび形の, くさび形文字の
n. - くさび形文字

idioms:

  • cuneiform script    楔型文字

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) الخط المسماري (صفه) مسماري‏

עברית (Hebrew)
adj. - ‮בצורת יתד, כותב בכתב-היתדות, קשור לכתב היתדות‬
n. - ‮כתב-היתדות‬

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Copyrights:

Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Architecture. McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction. Copyright © 2003 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Archaeology Dictionary. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology. Copyright © 2002, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/  Read more
Veterinary Dictionary. Saunders Comprehensive Veterinary Dictionary 3rd Edition. Copyright © 2007 by D.C. Blood, V.P. Studdert and C.C. Gay, Elsevier. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Cuneiform script".  Read more
Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved.  Read more

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