Cuneiform Writing Activity Reflection

Cuneiform Writing Activity Reflection 

by Tyler Monestel 

In class we did a fun activity in which we had to write a sentence about Mesopotamia in the Ancient Sumerian language of cuneiform. After that we needed to read another persons sentence and translate into English. I think this activity introduced us to the language of cuneiform, which is way different than most modern day languages, especially English. Since cuneiform is based more on shape than text, it is particularly hard to translate since English is more text or phonetic based. A good example is that English uses text like letters A,B,C,D,and E while Cuneiform is based on shapes like triangles  ► ▼.I think that writing the language was harder than reading. Writing took a long time and effort just to make a few words. I personally think that cuneiform is a lot harder than writing and reading most modern languages like English, German, Spanish, French, and so on.