Complete Babylonian: A Teach Yourself Guide [ペーパーバック]

Although the author states in his book that Babylonian grammar is quite simple, from reading this book Babylonian grammar seems in point of fact to be anything but simple. Nouns and verbs fall into categories that I have never heard of before. Nouns have what is called a "construct" form that facilitates the use of the genitive (i.e. possessive). Verbs fall in the G, N, D, and S systems. Accordingly, this book is almost entirely a detailed enumeration and description of these various strange grammatical categories and functions. As in the learning of any foreign or ancient language there is naturally the problem of acquiring the basic vocabulary. This book, however, does not seem to develop the vocabulary in a way that is obvious to the reader. Unlike most foreign language texts, the author does not have a separate vocabulary section for each chapter--instead the reader is left to sort the meanings of the words by referring to the glossary towards the back of the book. Each chapter does have a number of carefully constructed exercises, though, with a complete set of answers in the back of the book so that the reader can assess his progress.

This book seems to be intended for the reader who has never learned a foreign language. Explanations for concepts such as the vocative, nominative, genitive, and accusative cases are offered--as are simple mnemonic devices for remembering some of the case endings. But really, somebody who had never learned a foreign language would be completely lost while attempting to read and study this book. As Babylonian is a Semitic language, passing references are made to Arabic and Hebrew. The author should have offered many more examples from and parallels to these other Semitic languages, because a person with some knowledge of at least one of these two languages would have a better chance at digesting this book. For example Babylonian has possessive suffices that are similar to those in Arabic and Hebrew. There is also a section on cuneiform writing, but as no explanation of the characters is offered, the reader is not able to glean very much information.

The author indicates a "teachyourself.com" web site that allows the reader to hear Babylonian spoken aloud--but in seeking out this site I have yet to find anything related to this book. Instead one should just google the name of the author "Martin Worthington" and see what comes up--which leads you to the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London, which includes the text, translation, and audio narration of a number of interesting Babylonian works.

Despite my various criticisms, however, I do rather like this book and find it quite interesting. The author's various observations about Babylonian culture are of value. The Babylonian language does seem to be a fascinating subject, with the author indicating that a veritable mountain of as yet untranslated cuneiform tablets exist. Accordingly, the understanding of Babylonian still has a long way to go, with a place for talented amateurs to make their own contributions. This field appears to be changing and advancing, so that an amateur in the field can expect a great deal of interesting insights to be uncovered in the near future.

To look at the table of contents of this book is to find a pretty conventional work on an ancient language - nouns and adjectives, verbs, other stuff, tables... To start reading, though, is to find something very different: a book which leads you step by step through making sense of the Babylonian language, not through mindless memorization, but by learning to same approach and tools that an actual Assyriologist relies upon. The author's presence on the page is a delight: As you approach new forms, old things you might have forgotten or exercises with tricky spots, Worthington advises you, the reader, about what's going on, what to watch for and how you can get the most out of the section. Still more impressive is the cross referencing. There are abundant references, both to points the reader has seen before and to the reference chapters, if you really want to find out what's going on now instead of just working with what you've learned so far.

As another reviewer mentioned, there are some elements that seem odd, most notably that you are inevitably directed to sign lists and the vocabulary for doing the exercises, as opposed to having a vocabulary and sign list associated with each chapter. But the reality of translating is lots of time with glossaries, lists and tables. With a language like Babylonian, you might as well get used to it, and the irritation of flipping back to the glossary for a word you've looked up four times already inspires you to pay attention in a way that flipping from the exercise page to the vocabulary page and back to the exercise page does not.

The one disappointment about Complete Babylonian is that it pretty much avoids the cuneiform. On the other hand, you can find a lot of transliterated texts on the internet and for actual cuneiform texts you're going to do all the same things you do with this book just as soon as you've transliterated the cuneiform. So it gives you a nice boost toward reading cuneiform texts while saving the most tedious part for last.

If you want to look as some cuneiform texts and work your way through deciphering them, there are other books. But if you want to actually learn Babylonian with a view to understanding it, Assyrian and Akkadian, this is a dense but user friendly introduction.