Sound Symbolism in The Disputation between Bird and Fish 102–109
Abstract
This paper investigates the poetic structure of a passage from The Disputation between Bird and Fish (lines 102–109). The unusual thing about this passage is that it is the only place within the disputation literature where physical violence (and death) takes the place of the verbal combat that typically occurs in the disputations. Although this passage is characterized by the total absence of speech, various words with the phonological form /sik/ act as a form of sound symbolism (phonological iconism) that points to the decisive moment in the passage: the fish’s attack on the bird’s nest, which results in the destruction of the bird’s nest and its young. These eight lines (102–109) can be juxtaposed to the eight line sequence that immediately follows (lines 110–117), which are also non-verbal, but whose poetics are organized along entirely different lines.
© by Akademie Verlag, Berlin, Germany
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Articles in the same Issue
- Practice and Perception of Black Magic among the Hittites
- Some Questions on the Political History and Chronology of the Early Hittite Empire
- Ugarit as a Hittite Vassal State
- Die Blau’schen Steine und der „Priesterfürst“ im Netzrock
- Sound Symbolism in The Disputation between Bird and Fish 102–109
- Ein sargonischer Personenkauf aus dem British Museum, London (BM 103707)
- Perspektiven einer mittelassyrischen paläografischen Liste
- Bemerkungen zum „‘‘w“-Vogel im ägyptischen pBM 9997, VI, 8
- Nominalkomposita und komponierende Ableitungen im Hethitischen
- Ein hethitisches Siegel aus Amasya – Oluz Höyük
- Literarische sumerische Texte aus den hethitischen Archiven aus paläographischer Sicht – Teil II
- The GAL.GEŠTIN of the Seal SBo II 256: a new Deciphering and a Prosopographical Study
- Some Remarks on Hittite Rituals: The Relation between Word and Object
