Cuneiform Sign Ub

There is no one-word translation; one Sumerian text glosses ub as “corner.”

Cuneiform signs can stand for whole words or spoken syllables, and their values can vary across languages and periods. In an Old Babylonian prayer for Rim-Sin, the transliteration ub is glossed as “corner.” That gloss belongs to that line; it does not automatically translate every 𒌒.

Where does the UB sign come from?

Its earliest known use is in Late Uruk administrative records.

The complete cuneiform system is first attested in Uruk IV (c. 3500–3200 BCE), when writing served growing cities’ needs to record goods, quantities, and offices. A Late Uruk UKKIN list includes UB among office entries. This is an early attested use, not an invention story: the sign belongs to a changing scribal system.

UB later appears in Jemdet Nasr colophons, notes at the ends of tablets. There, UB AB may mean “sanctuary of UB.” A separate proposal links early UB to the place-name UB-me, sometimes identified with the city Umma, but that link is disputed. These are proposed readings, not meanings you can get from the glyph alone.

How should I use 𒌒 in modern text?

Its source context decides the reading.

When reading a tablet, use its language, period, and neighboring signs to tell whether 𒌒 stands for a word, a syllable, an office entry, or part of a place name. On its own, the sign points to cuneiform but does not specify “corner.”

The encoded sign identifies a sign, not an individual tablet’s handwriting. Unicode’s charts use representative period styles; fonts designed for different historical periods can draw 𒌒 differently, so a digital glyph may not match a particular tablet photograph.