Sumerian

American  

[soo-meer-ee-uhn, -mer-] / suˈmɪər i ən, -ˈmɛr- /

adjective

1. of or relating to Sumer, its people, or their language.

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noun

1. a native or inhabitant of Sumer.

2. a language of unknown affinities that was the language of the Sumerians and had, in the late 4th and 3rd millenniums b.c., a well-developed literature that is preserved in pictographic and cuneiform writing and represents the world's oldest extant written documents.

Sumerian British  

/ suːˈmɪərɪən, -ˈmɛər- /

noun

1. a member of a people who established a civilization in Sumer during the 4th millennium _bc

2. the extinct language of this people, of no known relationship to any other language

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adjective

1. of or relating to ancient Sumer, its inhabitants, or their language or civilization

Other Word Forms

• pre-Sumerian adjective

Etymology

Origin of Sumerian

First recorded in 1870–75; Sumer + -ian

Example Sentences

The study connects the region's flood myths and water-centered deities to the landscape itself, suggesting that Sumerian religion evolved from their intimate relationship with tides and rivers.

From Science Daily • Oct. 27, 2025

Theories have linked it to early Brahmi scripts, Dravidian and Indo-Aryan languages, Sumerian, and even claimed it's just made up of political or religious symbols.

From BBC • Jan. 16, 2025

Gleick traces the history of conflicts to the first known war over water nearly 4,500 years ago between the ancient Sumerian city-states of Lagash and Umma in what is now southern Iraq.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 28, 2023

Historians and linguists generally agree that Sumerian, Akkadian and Egyptian are the oldest languages with a clear written record.

From Scientific American • Aug. 24, 2023

Like Sumerian, Maya writing used both logograms and phonetic signs.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond