Cuneiform Sign TAK₄

The language and surrounding signs decide its reading. In Sumerian, an ancient Mesopotamian language, tak₄/taka₄ can mean “leave, leave behind, abandon, or set aside”; kid₂ can mean “break off, pinch off, cut, or fell.” In Akkadian, another ancient Mesopotamian language, TAK₄ can also work as a Sumerogram—a Sumerian sign used to write an Akkadian word—with meanings glossed as “leave” or “open.” Cuneiform was pressed into clay with wedge-shaped marks, and one sign could carry different word or sound values.

The compound TAK₄.ALAN is attested in archaic Uruk lexical lists and administrative accounts, then in Early Dynastic records from Fara, Ebla, and Girsu and in Old Akkadian Nippur material. It names a craft profession involving wood and metal; later lexical texts give its Akkadian gloss as gurgurru, a craft worker. ALAN means “image” in Sumerian, but the compound is a professional name, not a phrase to translate word by word.

An older Early Dynastic sign, 𒓼 (LAK492), appears where later texts use TAK₄; after the Early Dynastic period, LAK492 disappears and its values are absorbed by TAK₄. One philological analysis also connects TAK₄’s structure with 𒋗 (ŠU) turned 90 degrees. That is a proposed account of the sign’s structure, not a reason to treat the two signs as interchangeable.

Why can one sign have several readings?

Cuneiform signs can carry different word or sound values. Scholarly transliterations such as tak₄ and kid₂ label readings; their subscripts distinguish homophones—different words that sound alike. A subscript is a reading label, not something pronounced as part of the word.

A sign can also do different work depending on its place in a text. Akkadian writers used Sumerian signs as word signs for Akkadian words; in TAK₄.ALAN, the second sign helps make a recorded professional name. Read the line or lexical entry before choosing a translation for 𒋺.