Sumerian Grammar

Dietz Edzard's Sumerian Grammar is not a book for an absolute beginner. You will not learn to translate a Sumerian text from this book. There are no vocabulary lists or exercises and there are only two cuneiform characters in the entire book. But that is fine since this book is not aimed at a beginning student.

Instead, Dr. Edzard has written a book that is aimed at more advanced students and specialists in the field, and he has done a great job of it. The author discusses differences of opinion between scholars regarding the finer points of Sumerian grammar and does a good job of illustrating how our knowledge of Sumerian is tied to ancient Akkadian texts which translate Sumerian into Akkadian. The long chapter on the Sumerian verb is daunting, but that is strictly due to the complexity of the material.

This book is also wonderfully concise. The material is properly covered, yet the book is only 190 pages long.

A student wishing to learn Sumerian from scratch should probably start with "A Manual of Sumerian Grammar" by John Hayes. Once they have mastered the material in Hayes' excellent book, they should then turn to Dr. Edzard's book for further study.