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

Simon Armitage’s translation of the Sumerian epic highlights the friendship between its two heroes and the terrible grief of mortality.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 24, 2026

Like amateur detectives, we learn alongside them as they click around pages about Sumerian devils, Catholic saints and the origin of the nursery rhymes “London Bridge” and “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep.”

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 11, 2026

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

Instead, the first Sumerian texts are emotionless accounts of palace and temple bureaucrats.

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