Reconstructing Sumerian phonetics from Akkadian, with four vowels and no sound O

Ever wondered what the Sumerian language sounded like? There is a simple lesson on Sumerian pronunciation.

Nobody now living has heard Sumerian spoken, naturally, with the possible exception of Brendan Fraser, who has been known to go gadding about with mummies through worlds several millennia old. So reconstructions of Sumerian phonetics take Akkadian as their point of departure, a language that outlived it by almost 3,000 years.

Sumerian is believed to have had 4 vowel sounds: A, E, I, U, and considerably more consonants, among them those rendered in the Cyrillic alphabet as Б, Д, Г, К, П, Т, Х, Л, М, Н, С, З, as well as Ш and a peculiar sonorant Н.

The Sumerians had no sound O at all, and you must live with that however you can: instead of oohing and ouching, for instance, aah and aaych.

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Reconstructing Sumerian phonetics from Akkadian, with four vowels and no sound O

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