Sumerian messages in The Fourth Kind

Aleksi Sahala 2010
University of Helsinki (21.7.2010)

Background

After the release of The Fourth Kind, people on many Internet forums have been trying to decipher the aliens' Sumerian messages portrayed in the movie. Some of these decipheriments have been pure quesses, but few people have seemingly really tried to translate them by using various Sumerian lexicons found from the Internet. However most of these translations are in serious conflict with the Sumerian grammar.

There are two messages stated to be Sumerian, the first one can be heard in the scene where Abbey listens to her recorder, which was left recording during her encounter with the aliens (0:45:40). The second, shorter message, is found in the abduction scene (starting at 1:18:50). The abduction scene also includes a longer Sumerian message, which is partly translated but not latinized into Sumerian. I will skip it, because the alien voice is too distorted to make any speculation; even with the translation available I am not able to recognize, for example diĝir-me-en "I am god".

Problems

There are three problems translating the messages. The first one is, that as the writer knew Sumerian lexicon is yet imperfect, he may have used or invented some words that simply cannot be translated, or possibly added some unattested meanings for existing words. Of course there is also a possibility that no real message exists at all, but just few intriguing keywords as "creation", "examine" and "destroy" having gibberish between them.

The second problem is in the unindexed latinization (transliteration) of the messages. Indices are used in Sumerian transliteration to distininguish homophonic sounds from each other and to tell which cuneiform sign is used to write certain word. For example, plain GU is practically impossible to translate, as it can mean anything from "neck; voice; cord; net; bull; force; to eat; to square; my" etc. However, if we transliterate gu we will know immediately that the meaning is "cord" or "net"; gú "force; neck"; gù "voice"; gu₄ "bull"; gu₇ "to eat"; gu₁₀ "my" (possessive suffix) and so on.

The last problem is, that the latinized Sumerian messages seem not to correspond accurately with the spoken messages. For example, when the alien voice says clearly [i ae se], it is latinized A.E.SA.

The long message

This has only two credible translations: en-ene 'the masters' or 'the lords' (LORD+PLURAL) or e-ne-ne 'they'. The first suggestion would be better if we want to fit it into a context whith the second line.

This can be either me-na-àm 'when' or some compound word, such as me-na-am₆ 'divine man (of) the heaven', perhaps referring to the aliens themselves. The meaning of me is somewhat abstract, but can be understood as 'the divine power of gods that keeps up the cosmic activity'.

This is somewhat obvious, me-en-dè-en stands for 'we', or if this is regarded as an enclitic copula to ME.NA.AM, it can be translated 'we are'.

This is ki-úlutim 'the place of creation' or 'the birth place'.

This is a compound verb igi...kár 'to examine' in infinive form.

This line is really difficult. Very, very speculative translation could be a e₁₁ sá 'to fetch the offspring (and) to compare'. a 'water; semen; offspring'; e₁₁ (also èd) 'to descend; to rise; to bring up or down; fetch; remove'; sá 'to compare; equal'. The final SA could also be sa₄ 'to call by name'; or sa₁₀ 'to pay; sell; buy'; but none of these make this translation any better.

Another incredibly difficult line, at first because such words as IE or KAE do not exist. So these must be suffixed with ergative or locative/adessive /-e/ or present (participle) suffix /-e(d)/. Syllable /ka/ also has very limited meanings, most frequently attested being ka 'mouth' and ká 'gate'. Very speculative translation could be i-e ka_x-e 'taking away to KA (what ever that is)', where i-e would be regarded as a future infinitive /i-ed/ (the /d/ is dropped unless there is a vowel initial morpheme following).

This is again an infinive compound verb, sug-zag...gu₇ 'to destroy completely'.

Conclusion

Message is really difficult to translate, but with heavy speculation and some imagination it could be: en-e-ne me-na-am₆-me-en-dè-en; ki-úlutim igi-kár; a e₁₁ sá i-e ka_x-e sug-zag gu₇ 'We are the masters, "divine beings of the heavens"; to examine the place of creation; to fetch the offspring (and) to compare (it); taking (it) away to KA; to destroy (it) completely'.

The fancy thing is that the message does not have a single finite verb form, but only nominal sentences with timeless participles/infinitives and one future infinitive. In other words this is either very bad Sumerian, or then very archaic form of the language, perhaps made to look like tentative Proto-Sumerian [before 4000 BC] by omitting all verb affixation. For example "we examine the place of creation" should be ki-úlutim igi ìb-kár-kár(-re)-en-dè-en if finite verb with proper verbal affixes and stem reduplication (indicating present) were used.

The short message (ZI.MA.BU E.TER)

At first glange I would say this message is Akkadian (or better say Old Babylonian). Unfortunately, even though zimābu looks like flawless Babylonian word, it does not mean anything (unless it is taken as two words: zim ābi "the father's/ancestor's face/appereance"). The second word eţer can be translated as a singular second person imperative of verb eţēru 'to save; to take away' (lit. "save zimabu!" or "take zimabu away!"). Were it so or not, the actual problem is in zimābu as it should be in accusative, namely zimāba. Thus we must either abandon this translation or assume that the language is as bad as in the Sumerian message.

Many people on various forums have suggested numerous Sumerian translations for this message, to mention some: "Soon nothing will remain", "Help us" and "Kill everyone". Unfortunately all these are totally impossible.

If we try to translate this in Sumerian, we will face even worse problems than with Babylonian. E.TER has no satisfactory translations, tir (meaning "wood, mud, forest...") being closest possible syllable that exists in Sumerian. We could also try to break E.TER into ED.ER, èd "to ascend; to demolish; to be rabid; to rage; to go up/down" and èr 'tear; mourning; to weep; to cry", but that would not help us much.

ZI.MA.BU is not much easier, as ZI can mean "chirp; cut; destroy; erase; life; break; right; rise; dwell; live; dirt; gall bladder; flour", MA can mean "ship" or "to go; where" (in Emesal Sumerian). BU can be "flit; perfect; glow; tear; secret". So, having this many possible meanings, there is not much point trying to translate it by forging dozens of imaginary compound words like "secret ship of life; perfect ship of whatever" etc. especially when we have absolutely no clue of E.TER.

Conclusion

I judge ZI.MA.BU E.TER untranslatable if it is meant to be Sumerian. In Babylonian, only translations to be considered are zim ābi eţer "save the father's/ancestor's face/appereance" or zimābu eţer "save zimabu", of which the first does not correspond exactly to the movie, and second is grammatically incorrect and has one unattested word.