696
The Accadian numerals.
By A. H. Sayce.
In a Paper of mine which was published in the 'Journal of
Philology' in 1870, I attempted to sketch the outlines ofa Grammar
of the Accadiau language, and to give a list of all the numerals with
which I was then acquainted. M. F. Lenormant, in his excellent
„£tudes Accadiennes" (1873), devotes a chapter to the subject
(pp. 83-86), aud amplifies the list which I had collected. The
chapter, however, in the least satisfactory portion of his work: the
list is in one or two instances not correct aud might be enlarged :
I propose, therefore, to olfer as full an account of the numerals
of the prae-Semitic language of Babylonia as our present materials
allow, and in conclusion to compare them with those of the ügro-
Tataric races.
„One" is ?^^<^y id, which is used ideographically for the femi¬
nine of the Assyrian numeral W. A.J. I. 19. 118. aud at Behistun
1. 12. The word signified „band" in Accadian, as in W. A. J. II.
19. 53, 53., however dilficult to explain its likeness to the Semitic
Tl may be; aud it can hardly be separated from katu, the or¬
dinary Assyrian word for „band". Now katu would seem to be
one of the many words borrowed by the Assyrians from Accad,
since a satisfactory Semitic derivation of it cannot be adduced,
while the lengthened form kaltakh appears iu Accadian texts (\V.
A. I. II. 8. 48 etc.). In this case we are taken back to a period
when the savage denoted the uumber „oue" by holding up his
hand. I have tried to show in my 'Assyrian Grammar' (p. 135)
that the Semitic nnN is a loan word which must be referred to this
'id. The initial vowel was pronounced with a strong gutturalisa-
tion in Accadiau, since we have both khadu „one" and edis
„aloue" (from ny) in Assyrian ; and a similar phaeuomenon meets
us in '5p-n by the side of the Accadiau 'Idikle, and the trans¬
ition of sa, the prefix of the Accadian Precative, into kha and 'a.
The numeral was ordinarily reineseuted by au upright wedge f ,
aud as this had the value of dis, M. Lenormant believes that dis
was another word for unity. But )f was gi besides dis, and mo¬
reover expressed the soos or „sixty", the Babylonian unit of cal-
(.
Sayce, the Accadiuu laiinerals. (397
culation, as well as unity, while the latter was also denoted by ^,
the values of which were as, ruv, and dii. Unless, therefore, some
connexion can be shown between dis, dii, and id, we are uot
warranted in regarding d i s as the way in which the character f was
sounded wheu it meant unity.
To express duality, however, the Accadians certainly had
two words. The most common of these is kats or has, which was
sometimes pronounced gas, and was denoted by The cha¬
racter also stood for kha rran „a road" (whence the name of the
Mesopotamiau eity Gen. XI. 31, 32.), not unlike the way in which
the Basque b i „two" enters into the composition of b i - d e „a road".
Besides kats, the Accadians used bi {^^) for „two". Now bi
was employed in a remarkable manner as a pronoun, standing in¬
differently for the singular and plural of the 3rd personal and pos¬
sessive pronouns. Thus g u d - b i was at once „ his ox " and „tbeir
ox". The moditied form ba, however, one of the prefixes of the
3rd persou of the verb, is only found in the singular. It seems
to me that b i originally, marked the dual ; and while on the one
side, it might have the sense of a singular, „the ox of the second
one" being equivalent to „bis ox", on the other side, when the
idea of the plural began to be evolved as something beyond and
distinct from the dual, it came to signify the plural. There would
have been a time when the dual was the highest idea of plurality
which the savage could form. This would explain the use of b i in
forming the decads, as we shall see further on
„Tbree" seems to have been essa. I arrive at this in the
following way. Is sebu, we are told (W. A. J. II. 33. 31.), was
the Accadian pronunciation of TfK^, ^**/6o> 3^3) which, for
some reason unknown to us, symbolised a „kiug". Now the final
-b was the usual suffix of the decades, so that isse would appear
to mean „threc". We are led to the sarae conclusion by the fact
that „thirty" was sounded es (contracted from esseb); its
further value of sin was derived from the Semitic name of the
„Moon" which was represented ideographically by XXX, the number
of the days iu a month. E s s iX is rendered sepu „a foot" (W. A.
J. II. 24. 54); this would go to prove that the primitive Accadiau
was forced to point to his foot wheu he wished to denote a number
beyond „four"; just as the primitive Aryau called „three", „that
which goes beyond". „Four" was sana, as we find in W.A.J. II.
1) We thus see how ^.^cT Ij' or hil [also pi -11 eaine to signify
new (essetu) and „a second fime" (ana essnti). It is curious that the character also stood for sussu „sixty'. It >ecnH to have jias-ed to this meaning through that of eararu .,eycli'". Akrur was the word used tn ex¬
press ,,I completed a cycle'' a« in Layard 07. 17."'. 1 have found in an Assyrian text in the sense of .^'cond-'; hnt I eanniit reeover the pa<sai<e.
J!d. X.WII. Ifl
•G98 Sai/ce , the Accadian numerals.
57. 36. It was denoted by four lepright wedjes (y'), and just as
esseb was eontracted to es, so sana was ordinarily contracted
to sa. Sanabi, whence the Assyrians derived their sinibu (W.
A. J. III. 70. 3) was „two thirds", i. e. ^«/g,,, „sixty" being the
denominator in the scale of the Babylonians. The Accadians seem
to have borrowed the Semitic yaiN in the pbrase ciprat arba
(for ciprat arbai) „the four races" of Syria, at an early period
(W. A. J. I. 3. 12. 11, etc. »).
Just as s a n a - b i discloses the name of the number „four", to T'T, parab, „ five-sixths" ('"/eo) discloses the numeral „five''
Para must be 5; and the usual value of '^y or i ocya,
must belong, not to the numerical signification, but to the meaning
„glorious" (nahdu) (so W. A. J. I. 68. 5, 1) It will be seen
that par may be regarded as a modification of bur „ten" just as
essa „three" is a modification of as „six'.
We obtain the value of the latter word from the power of the
ideograph ||{ „six", which does not seem to have denoted anything
except the numeral; and the value is confirmed by sus or sussu
(awaaog) „sixty", the symbol of Susru (W. A. J. II. 48. 30.)
or Anu.
How the following numbers, 7, 8, and 9, may have been
named, I do not know. According to the analogy of the Turanian
(Ugro-Tataric) group, they would have been compounded of 3 -10,
2 —10, aud 1 10.
„Ten" itself was bnr. This may be concluded from W. A. J.
II. 32. 16. where the pronunciation of ^ (10) is given as bur,
(20) being set down as busur (W. A. J. II. 58. 40.). Now
is the symbol of the Sun-god, ^ of Nabu or Nebo, a form of
the midday Sun, who is called „the height of heaven" (W. A. J.
II. 48. 55). We find the adverb bus uris used in Assyrian
(Smith's Ass. p. 10.) in the sense of „like the sun". It is not
difficult to see how 20 (aud 10) came to represent the Sun. We
have not to go further than Greece to find the mouth divided into
decades. The meaning of b u r was simply „the head", as in B u r-
bur „tlie summits" a synonyme of Accad or „highlaud" (Assyrian
tilla W. A. J. II. 48. 13.), and we can easily understand how
the head was employed to denote the completed „ten", when both
1; Sc (^\A) ""US .tIso saiiii ur sail ,,foui-', thu loos of the final nasal apparently occasioning the change of the vowel. Consequently se-bi is read sanabi ..forty" W. A. ,1. 11. .55. .52.
•J The character seems to be equated with the Assyrian iiaku „pure'' in V\'. A. I. 11. 45. 36. along with ra and a, thus showing its vocalic pro¬
nunciation when useil in this sense.
3; Se.. nho 11. .^7. 11.
4 7 »
Sayce , the Accadian numerals. 699
the hands had been exliausted in marking tlie preceding numbers.
The Turkish besh „tive" is bash „head".
In accordance with the rules of Accadian phonology, bur
would be the shortened form of bura and this would resolve itself
into bu+ra, ra being a formative suffix such as we get iu zi-
cura „ heaven" by the side of zicü. Now the Accadiau never
forgot the independent origin and force even of words that seem
closely compounded with others , and like the Basque was able to
intercalate new words between the two halves of the compound ;
e. g. iidi „pure", si-nu-di „impure", si-mu-di „my purity", suddu „length", sud-bi-du „his length", katti „take", kat-
nin-ti „he takes". In this way I would explain the word busur,
which is formed from bur by the insertion of s u „increase" or „ad-
dition" (W.A.J. II. 11. 45, etc.) aud would thus suitably express
the idea of „twenty". Nothing justifies us believing that u or gi
and man or nis, the phonetic values of ^ (10) and (20) re¬
spectively, belong to them in so far as they express the numerals
and not rather in so far as they express other objects.
It has been assumed that asa or sa was 15; but this, again,
is contrary to all analogy, and merely rests upon the fact the
Phoenician in a proper name in one of bilingual contract-
tablets answ ers to the Assyri.an ^'^y (15). But tun is plainly a
contraction of niniBt* (for ninicy), the Assyrian Istar, whose
symbol was 15. We might as well assert that ri, es, or di was
the Accadian name of „ fifteen", since these were powers of the
character — ff<f, which represented Istar in its signification of
„brilliance". ^y,' represented „the right hand", while ff^^^
(2*"/6o> e. 2^/2) represented „the left". It is easy enough to
see how „tbe right" came to be denoted by the symbol of the
goddeos of Good Fortune; but the only reason that 1 can conceive
for denoting „the left" by 2^/2 is that this is the tJth part of 15,
and when the five fingers of the right hand have been all counted
we have to pass on to the left hand for the further number six.
I have already noticed that is seb signified 30. The other
tens up to 60 were formed iu the same way, sanabi being 40,
and parab 50. Besjdes the evidence attorded by the four-wedged
ideograph of „two-thirds" (■'"/co)> (40) is given as sanabi
in W. A. J. II. 57. 36. I have little doubt that bi is to be
identified with the root which denotes „two" in its meaning of
indefinite plurality aud is not to be connected with bu-r „ten".
Besides parab, kigusili signified „five-sixths" (W. A. J. III.
70. 5). The only explanation that I can offer of this word that it is
compounded of a new word for „ten" kik or kig and us for us
„sixty" with tbe postfixed li in a caritative sense. Hi we find is
„shish (W. A. J. 11. 26. 43.). fn this case the word would liter¬
ally be 60 — 10.
4;")*
700 Sayce , the Accadian 'mmerah.
„Sixty", the basis of Babylonian mathematics, and therefore,
like unity, represented by f^ is frequently enough written us in
the inscriptions. Its full form was sus, whence the awaaog of
the Greeks, which was contracted from us-us, „six-six", the re¬
duplication here, as in a few other instances in Accadian, expres¬
sing plurality. We meet with sus in sussan „a third" (W. A.
J. III. 70. 1.), which seems to mean „a little sixty" and cannot
accordingly be another term for „twenty". Twenty, however,
was, I think, the original meaning of „one-third" of a ner,
as has been shown by Dr. Oppert in his analysis of the phrase
in Sargon's inscriptions (W. A. J. I. 36. 5.5., Botta 39. 73.). Now
J3f is clearly a modification of ;,two", rather than the hieratic
form of
Me (f^) was 100 iu Accadian as well as Assyrian, and, as
1 have pointed out in my Assyrian Grammar (p. 138.), explains
the origin of the Semitic "NU, the derivation of which has been
considered so obscure. Me is rendered by the Assyrian kälu
„ assembly", kulu „collection", tam tou „mass", and ramcu
„herd" (W. A. J. II. 1. 135, etc.)-, we thus obtain the primitive
meaning of the word which came to be set apart for „hundred".
The higher numbers above 100 seem to have equally beeu words
which denoted a number of objects. This would have been the
case with the ner vrjgog (600) and the sar, auQog (3600)'),
though I am not able to say what these words properly signified.
„ One thousand " appears to have been u m u n a , the or¬
dinary sense of which was „heat" or „blood" or „offspring" : at all
event it is rendered by the Assyrian alapu (W. A. J. II. 27. 58.),
which cannot be „ox" here, since this was gut or khar in Ac¬
cadian ^).
1) According to Dr. Oppert the s»r was represented by
It seems to me that the word is to be found in the Assyrian si a hru by which the Accadian sussa is rendered (W. A. J. II. -29. 36.). In this case the Ac¬
cadian word would have been an intensifiad form of 60, to denote that it is t'^iSSci
multiplied by itself. If Dr. üppert is right in regarding ItlRlifcl t''^
ner (formed from the sar by prefixing J „the 60th part"), the word would be Assyrian and mean ,,r yoke", while the Accadian representative was su¬
tu 1 or sudun. The ner was generally denoted by or The chara¬
cter which stands for the sar is composed of the ideograph of ,, crown'' or ,, circle" accompanied by the symbol of repetition, as though it would point out that the sar consisted of the great cycle of 600 multiplied by itself.
2) Si cannot have been the Accadian pronunciation of ,,one thousand'', M. Lenormant thinks, since it is only by accident that the symbol of 1000, composed of 10 set before 100 (^f"-) has the same form as the character v.hich denotes „the eye", in Accadian si with which perhaps we may com- I'.M-e the Finn, sflmii „eye", the Ostiak and Mapcyi'ir szem).
Sayce , the AcimJiaii mivicrals. 701
„Onc half was massu or mas, and as initial m in Accadian
was liable to become v and then to be lost altogether, we approach
somewhat nearly to us. This reminds us that „ one-half" would
be expressed as ^"/so- The same character which denoted this also
meant „second" or „other", and had the further value of bar. The
half of a thing is its second self. It is just possible that bi may
be connected with bar for ba-ra, t being changed into a
through the influence of the vowel of the affix.
Ordinals were formed by the addition of the substantive verb
gau or kam or occassionally galla to the Cardinal. This sub¬
stantive verb is identical in form with the demonstrative pronoun,
and may perhaps be related to the Tatar formative n or in.
Indeed, the likeness of the Accadian numerals with which we
are acquainted to those of the Ugro-Mongolian dialects , (to which
Basque has to be added) , is very striking. According to Schott
akat is the base for „one" in the Ural-Altaic languages, and we
cannot separate id or kat from the Basque bat on the one side,
or the Finnic yht, Lapp, akt, and Ostiak ot on the other. In
Yakute ilT is „haud" while the Turkish kul or kol is „arm",
„band", like the Mongolian gar. The Accadian kats „two" claims
affinity with the Esthonian kats „two" Finn, kaks, Sj'rianian
nyk, Ostiak kat, Magyar kettö, Yakutian ikki, Aimak (Mongol.)
kayar. Bi resembles the Basque bi „two". Essa might be
compared with the Yakute üs „three", Uigur ütsh, Tchuva-
sian wisse; and according to Schott „six" in the Ural-Altaic
idioms is expressed by a modification of „three". This is exactly
what meets us in the Accadian, where essa cannot be separated
from as or us „six". Here, again, the most perfect analogue is
presented by the Basque sei „six", but a consideration of the
Ugric and Mongolian forms would lead us to infer that both essä
and as originally began with a guttural, which is perhaps eviden¬
ced by the vowel of essä (e—y). Our comparisons fail in the
case of sana, and I can only suggest that the word appropriated
to the numeral „four" in Accadian has been appropriated to the
following numeral „five" in the Mandschu sunja and Samoiedian
sam-lik. Para must be set by the side of the Osmanli besh,
„five", Tchuvashian pil-ik, Basque bost or borst, Finn, vi isi,
Tcheremissian wis, and it must be regarded as a modification of
bur „ten" just as the Finn, kymmene(n) and Mordwinian
kämen „ka" are explained as compounded of ky(k) „two" aud
men „ten" for „five ')". Indeed, just as bur in Accadian signifies
„head" and „ten", so besh in Osmanli is identical with bash
„head" (cf. Mandschu vesi „to mount") which must claim rela¬
tionship with the Accadian bur. The latter would seem to find
1) Judas, „Annales de philosopliie chretienne" Nov. 18G7.; Schott, „Ah- hkndlungen der Berlin. Akademie" S. 301.
702 Sayce, the Accadian numerals.
its nearest parallel iu the Basque h a - m a r „ten", which is plainly
the same as the Ugric kä-men. Men hecomes pen in the Vogul
ät-pen „fifty", .and ban or ba in the Mongolic arban, arba
„ten" (2X5), the initial consonant being lost altogether (as is often
the case in Accadian) in the Mandschu or-in „twenty" (2X10)
and the Osmanli on „ten"; while it appears in the form mer in
the Tungusic gurm er „twenty", and mys in the Zyrianian jä-
mys „eight" (10—2) and ko myz „thirty" and the Turkish alt-
mysh „sixty". With the Mongolic ba by the side of ban we
may compare the Accadian bi when used to form the decades.
We cannot expect to find a close agreement in the higher
numerals, for which words expressive of nouns like „multitudo''
are employed. If the Accadian is to be compared in this respect
with the modern dialects , it can only be in regard to the original
signification of the terms transferred to denote „hundred" or „thou-
sand". Such a comparison however hardly belongs to the subject
of these pages.
Queen's College, Oxford.
703
Notizen und Correspondenzen.
Indischer Uegentenspiegel.
Episode ans der tamulischen Bearbeitung des Ramayanam,
2. Buch, 1 Kap. Strophe 5—22.
Von Hugo Sehanz.
5. Der, unausgesetzte Busstugend besitzende Vollkommene (d. i.
der Rischi Vasischta) blickte an den überaus Freigebigen (d.i. den
Rama), weleher die Wissenschaft besass, die festen Grund hat durch
die (in den Veden) gesagte (enthaltene) Richtschnur. „Aus gebüh¬
render Zuneigung wird der Beschützer (d. i. Tesarada, König von
Oude, Vater des Rama) dir, im Kampfe Mächtiger! morgen die
vier Welten (d. i. die Herrschaft über die Erde) übergeben", so
sagte er.
G. Und wiederum den Rama anblickend, begann er zu dem
Reichbekränzten zu sagen: „Ich habe etwas auszusprechen, eine
zuverlässige Sache, diese höre und fasse du wohl, (denn) es ist
eine gute Sache."
7. „Grösser als der dunkelfarbige Vishnu und der stirnäugige
Siva und der auf der ihm lieben Lotus Wohnende (d. i. Birma),
grösser als die (durch den Organismus) ausgebreiteten 5 Sinne, und
grösser als die (absolute) Wahrheit (d. i. der allein wahrhafte
Existenz habende Gott): sind die Brahminen; (darum) versorge
sie von Herzen !!!"
8. „Giebt es auch eine Gränze, o Kind, für die Verehrung
der Götter, die (gleichwohl) durch das Zürnen der Brahminen oder
durch ihre Huld (entweder) Ungemach leiden (oder) plötzlieh er¬
höhet werden?" (d. i. Die Götter muss mau ohne Aufliören ver¬
ehren; wie viel mehr die Brahminen, deren Segen und Fluch auch
die Götter unterworfeu sind!!!).
9. „Weil die Brahminen, o Herr, solche (so erhaben) sind,
so mögest du sie preisen und verehren als einer, der auf sein
Haupt den Fuss der Erhabenen (der Brahmineu) legt, welche dieser
(der auf der Erde im Schwange gehenden) heisseu (grimmigen)
Sünde entnommen sind. (Vor ihnen) stehend, Angenehmes sagend,
thue (ihuen) Agemessenes!"
