Irving Finkel

The meaning is going to be a little bit different from in a letter.

So, people really, really understand Akkadian.

They really do.

But this thing about the modal verbs is an interesting conundrum to me because there's no way it's reflected in the writing.

So, I can only assume that there was some kind of drawing out of the vowel in a verb

meaning could, you know, like you were saying, you might do it, you know, something like that.

Anyway, so nowadays, it's not a decipherment that's the job, it's just reading.

And if you have lots of tablets to work on, like on a dig, it's very exciting if they come out of the ground and no one's looked for them before, you know, it's your job.

And if you're a competent estereologist,

You should be able to sight read more or less, except most say a letter or something like that.

But most documents have some damage.

So you have to learn how to interpret stuff.

And also some literature is very difficult because of technical vocabulary and they had technical vocabulary and unusual words.

Yeah.

Sometimes you can calculate to what it ought to be, make a reasonable suggestion.

And this dictionary, which I was talking to you about, is such a fantastic tool because...

A lot of people worked on it.

It was the National Endowment for the Humanities, and it was for decades and decades of work.

And most of the world's best Assyriologists collaborated on it.

So the quality of translation and understanding is really extraordinary.