Cuneiform Sign Esh2

On its own, 𒂠 has no fixed translation; context decides.

The Sumerian reading of EŠ₂ can be še₃, a particle attached to the preceding word to express “to,” “toward,” “until,” “for,” “because of,” or “about.” The reading eš₂ can also stand for a noun meaning “rope” or “cord.” The surrounding words and the language being written decide which value applies.

The subscript ₂ in EŠ₂ is a scholarly homophone index: it distinguishes this sign from others with similar sounds. It does not identify the reading used in a particular sentence.

Why does EŠ₂ have different readings?

Cuneiform signs can write sounds, words, or grammar.

Cuneiform developed from administrative record-keeping in southern Mesopotamia in the late fourth millennium BCE. Early tablets recorded economic information; pictorial marks gradually became abstract, wedge-shaped signs.

In the later Babylonian period, school texts paired Sumerian entries with translations into Akkadian, another language written in cuneiform. Sumerian was no longer spoken, so these copied entries preserved it as learned scribal knowledge rather than everyday speech.

Why does 𒂠 look different in fonts?

Fonts can change the wedges, not the sign’s identity.

Fonts can depict the same sign in regional or period styles. Their wedge shapes may look different, but the encoded sign remains the same; a font’s design is not a photograph of one particular tablet.