Sumerian Lexicon: A Dictionary Guide to the Ancient Sumerian Language.

• Author: Snell, Daniel C.

Sumerian Lexicon: A Dictionary Guide to the Ancient Sumerian Language. By JOHN ALAN HALLORAN. Los Angeles: LOGOGRAM PUBLISHING, 2006. Pp. xiv + 318. $110 (cloth); $79 (paper). [Distrib. by David Brown Book Co., Oakville, Ct.]

The author admits that this work has three shortcomings: It has no examples of usage for words, it provides no periods of usage for the words, and it gives no reference to allow one to look up the citations. He argues that a dictionary that does do those three things would be great, but that it is years in the future. And yet the Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary does exactly those things for words beginning with a couple of letters.

Certainly there is a use for a short dictionary for student use based on available sources, but with electronic technology the exact references would be easy to give, as would the periods of usage; examples might be left to larger compendia. I note that the Concise Dictionary of Akkadian (2000) gives both periods and references, and A. Concise...