Some Notes on Sumerians and Their Language

According to the available data, the traces of the Sumerians in the Southern Mesopotamia can be pursued as far as the beginning of 4th millennium BC. From where the Sumerians immigrated to Mesopotamia is still a disputable subject. However, it is quite certain that their language was Asianic. In fact, some important scholars of the field correlated Sumerian with Turanian languages or Scythian. The discovery of the cuneiform by Sumerians must be the most valuable contribution of them to the civilization. This script was initially invented as a pictographic writing, but, in the course of time, it was evolved to some kind of ideographic/syllabic writing system by developing in content and form, and it was adapted to many languages in the region, along with Sumerian. The invention of cuneiform by Sumerians contributed also to their improvement in social, political, religious and technical subjects. Hence, the Sumerian civilization and its cultural factors not only influence positively the other neighboring communities in the region but also had left some deep marks that have been continued in most of the modern civilizations up until now