Cuneiform Sign PA

It has several readings; language and context decide.

In Sumerian, 𒉺 can mean “branch” or “stick.” The scholarly value g̃idru means “sceptre” or “measuring stick”; sig₃/sag₃ can mean “to strike.” In Akkadian, the inherited sign can also represent “wing” or “overseer,” among other readings. By itself, 𒉺 is a sign, not a complete translation.

Cuneiform writing took shape in Mesopotamia in the late 4th millennium BCE, as people pressed reed marks into wet clay. PA began as a picture of a branch or staff; over time, cuneiform signs also came to represent syllables and whole words. The script was later adapted to write Akkadian and Hittite.

Which reading of PA is correct?

Read PA with its language, neighbors, and transliteration.

In scholarly transliteration, uppercase PA names the sign or a logogram: a sign that stands for a word. Lowercase pa usually marks a sound value. In compound signs, 𒉺 combines with other signs as part of a larger written unit, whose reading is not always simply “pa.”

The visible sign varied across historical styles and still differs by font: Unicode identifies 𒉺, while the font supplies the drawing. If it appears as a box, the active font lacks this Cuneiform glyph.