Awareness of Space in the Ancient Languages ​-;-​-;-of the Fertile Crescent

Look at this Sumerian pictograph 𒄭-;-, you don t need to look at it too closely. It is pronounced "do"´-or-"dog" depending on what comes after it in the context of the sentence and refers in Sumerian to the knee of a human´-or-an animal.

Look at your knee and without having to take it out, you will discover that it resembles the Sumerian pictograph 𒄭-;-. In fact, this is a typographic symbol, but if you look at it in the clay tablet you will find that it is more similar to your knee. The meaning of this pictograph is not-limit-ed to the word "knee" but also means "lap". This suggests that this symbol indicates curvature´-or-concavity, whether it is protruding´-or-sunken. You may notice a similarity between it and the pictograph 𒆸-;-, which is pronounced "lagab" in Sumerian, and you may differentiate between the two with (plane) geometric terms such as square and parallelogram.

In fact, the meaning in Sumerian is closer to spatial geometry, as the symbol 𒆸-;- (Lagab) means the extension´-or-the space protruding from the surface of the earth´-or-any other surface, and it is also used to refer to the base of a tree trunk.

As for the symbol 𒄮-;-, which is another similar pictorial drawing with a different pronunciation (Sur), it refers to the extension´-or-the space sunk into the earth´-or-under its horizontal surface. The straight symbol 𒀸-;- inside it is meant perhaps to indicate the horizon while the rest refers to any cavity sunk under the horizontal surface of the earth such as a trench, a canal,´-or-a pond.

Coming back to the pictograph 𒄭-;- (Doug), which seems to be the basic origin of many symbols that differ from each other by adding another symbol to this basic symbol (or inside it), I want to note that the reverse reading of this symbol is "Guod", and this is exactly the contemporary colloquial word that farmers living on the banks of the Euphrates River in Syria and Iraq use for the canal. They pronounce it "goad".

It is also noteworthy that the equivalents of the word knee in Phoenician, Ugaritic, Hebrew, Syriac and Ge ez are based on the sequence of b, r and k (brk). They are/were pronounced (ܒ-;-݁-;-ܽ-;-ܘ-;-ܪ-;-ܟ-;-݁-;-ܳ-;-ܐ-;-) "barakah" in Syriac, bā-;-rkū-;- in Akkadian and Ugaritic (𐎁-;-𐎗-;-𐎋-;-), and (ב-;-ָ-;-ּ-;-ר-;-ַ-;-ך-;-ְ-;-) bā-;-rk in Biblical Hebrew.

There are no ancient in-script-ions of Arabic contemporary with these ancient Semitic languages ​-;-​-;-that can be compared with them. However, contemporary Arabic clearly deviates from this arrangement, even though it shares the trilateral root with them, as it contains a switch between letters compared to the ancient Semitic languages. While the words refering to "knee" in all ancient Semitic languages ​-;-​-;-begin with the consonant b, the Arabic word rkbah, unlike them all, ends with the consonant b. While the word ends in K in all ancient Semitic languages, K is in the middle of the three basic consonants in contemporary´-or-Modern Arabic.

Another difference is that the word berkah in modern standard Arabic, which means a hollow cavity under the horizontal surface of the earth filled with water, converges in meaning (but not in pronunciation) with the Sumerian word 𒄮-;- (pronounced sur), unlike all ancient Semitic languages, which converge in concept with the Sumerian word 𒆸-;- lagab, which denotes a protruding curve above the horizontal surface. Perhaps the point of convergence and difference is that the two words berkah (brk) and rkbah (rkb) converge with the concept of a curve´-or-concavity in general, whether it is hollow´-or-protruding, as is the case with the basic Sumerian word 𒄭-;- "du"´-or-"dog".

Let us choose another symbol based on the basic Sumerian symbol for the knee´-or-the lap, which is 𒄵-;-. This pictograph is composed of the symbol for the hollow cavity 𒄭-;- (du) in addition to the symbol for barley 𒊺-;-, which is pronounced "shi"in Sumerian. The meaning of this symbol is a millstone for grinding grains, and its pronunciation in Sumerian is somewhat close to its pronunciation in Modern Standard Arabic (الرحى). The Pennsylvania Dictionary of the Sumerian Language writes it in Latin letters as follows: ara.

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