Dr. Irving Finkel

But there's another thing, because they didn't only want to record pictures of ideas, they wanted to record language.

So, in Sumerian...

you have animate and inanimate.

So ani means his, and be means its.

So somebody in ancient Sumer, since you say its all the time, like you say his or hers in English all the time, they found themselves in a position that they had to have a sign for its.

And you can't draw an it or a muchness or any of those complicated things.

And there are many things you can't draw.

So they made a decision.

And this, in my opinion, is how it worked.

They decided to use a simple sign with only four wedges, which is what it turned into, for it's.

So when you have that sign in a cuneiform sentence where the words are not divided up, they're all written in a continuous line, when you reach that sign in its form like that or in a later form, it can either mean beer, and you have to know this, or it can mean it's,

which means it's linked to the word that came before.

Or this symbol here.

That very symbol.

In this case, there's no question that it means beer.

Yes.

Because this is an accounting text with lots of numbers.

You see there are lots of circles.

Yes.

And half circles.