I strongly believe the gist of it is a play on words between tavern and door somehow, that (because it is dark) he walks into the tavern/door and bumps his snout thus prompting with hindsight to open the door but I am no expert on ancient sumerian humor structure
for all we know it could be a pun that only works in the sumerian language. Like "Why did the doctor get mad?" "Because he was losing his patience." doesn't work in other languages. :grillman:
There are some cases where ancient languages have had the meanings of words deciphered, but the pronunciation of certain things is still up in the air. Especially with abjads and logographies, and logosyllabaries, where the rules are very context-sensitive. And so, in a situation like that, the pun might still a shaky thing. Also, idioms. "It's raining cats and dogs" "naked as a jaybird" etc. might be hard to make sense of millenia from now.
you might be transferring too much from english. its possible that whatever is translated as "walked into" can't mean both "entered" and "collided with"
I strongly believe the gist of it is a play on words between tavern and door somehow, that (because it is dark) he walks into the tavern/door and bumps his snout thus prompting with hindsight to open the door but I am no expert on ancient sumerian humor structure
for all we know it could be a pun that only works in the sumerian language. Like "Why did the doctor get mad?" "Because he was losing his patience." doesn't work in other languages. :grillman:
I feel like if it were a pun, it would be decipherable by people who study the language.
There are some cases where ancient languages have had the meanings of words deciphered, but the pronunciation of certain things is still up in the air. Especially with abjads and logographies, and logosyllabaries, where the rules are very context-sensitive. And so, in a situation like that, the pun might still a shaky thing. Also, idioms. "It's raining cats and dogs" "naked as a jaybird" etc. might be hard to make sense of millenia from now.
True, language really determines alot when it comes to these things it's still fun to speculate
Which is why poem translations are so fascinating
if your translated poems don't preserve the ancient sumerian double entendres, what are you even doing?
Liberal historiography
you might be transferring too much from english. its possible that whatever is translated as "walked into" can't mean both "entered" and "collided with"