# Matched on social class, Sumerian dependents' names still differ sharply from the Uruk III names > Early Dynastic IIIb dependent workers' names carry the stock Sumerian name elements at an odds ratio of 4.6–4.7, against 1.35 for the Uruk III… Source: https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/evidence/EVD0DG2CQY8YJDD/matched-on-social-class-sumerian-dependents-names-still Publisher: Mysteries Department Licence: CC BY 4.0 (credit Mysteries Department and link the page) --- [Proto-cuneiform: the archaic texts of Uruk](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform)Evidence Evidence · Proto-cuneiform: the archaic texts of Uruk # Matched on social class, Sumerian dependents' names still differ sharply from the Uruk III names Early Dynastic IIIb dependent workers' names carry the stock Sumerian name elements at an odds ratio of 4.6–4.7, against 1.35 for the Uruk III dependents' names, so the gap between the archaic names and Sumerian names is not explained by the named people's status. Supported0 ## What it means Key question[What language, if any, do the proto-cuneiform texts record?](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/questions/QST0DEDT73JJJ1B/what-language-if-any-do-the-proto-cuneiform-texts-record) 5 answers, none ahead yet **Open** unchanged Answer this evidence bears on[Proto-cuneiform records Sumerian](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/answers/ANS0DEDW4B5BNA0/proto-cuneiform-records-sumerian) Counts against3 for, 6 against **Still possible** unchanged What it implies 1. The names evidence now weighs against a Sumerian reading, with the foreign-workforce possibility as the remaining escape.For the key question: What language, if any, do the proto-cuneiform texts record? ## Next steps 14 1 Labels or names: element reuse against Early Dynastic Could shiftGood odds~4 h [On: What language, if any, do the proto-cuneiform texts record?](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/questions/QST0DEDT73JJJ1B/what-language-if-any-do-the-proto-cuneiform-texts-record) **40** score Details Compare how the archaic names reuse their elements (type-token curves, share of elements in two or more distinct names, compositional pairs) with Early Dynastic names at matched sample sizes; linguistic names, of any language, reuse a small vocabulary productively, while ad hoc labels should not. 2 Test the numeral-order argument on Sumerian accounts Could shiftGood odds~6 h [On: What language, if any, do the proto-cuneiform texts record?](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/questions/QST0DEDT73JJJ1B/what-language-if-any-do-the-proto-cuneiform-texts-record) **34** score Details Englund argues that putting the numeral before the noun is un-Sumerian; Dahl notes that account formats may have their own order. In Early Dynastic administrative texts written in Sumerian (Fara and later, from CDLI or Oracc), measure how often the numeral precedes the counted noun. If Sumerian accounts also put it first, the syntax argument drops out and the Sumerian answer loses one objection; if they put it after, the archaic order stays as evidence for the unknown answer. 3 Officials' names in Uruk III Could decideFair odds~10 h [On: What language, if any, do the proto-cuneiform texts record?](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/questions/QST0DEDT73JJJ1B/what-language-if-any-do-the-proto-cuneiform-texts-record) **28** score Details Identify name-like entries attached to officials and institutions in Uruk III (heads of households, seal owners, officials in the Professions-list vocabulary) and score them against the Early Dynastic benchmark. Sumerian-pattern officials with non-Sumerian dependents point to a foreign workforce; non-Sumerian officials point to non-Sumerian scribes or a labelling notation. 4 Officials' names Could decideFair odds~10 h [On: What language, if any, do the proto-cuneiform texts record?](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/questions/QST0DEDT73JJJ1B/what-language-if-any-do-the-proto-cuneiform-texts-record) **28** score Details Test name-like entries attached to officials and institutions in Uruk III, to separate the scribes' own naming culture from the listed workers'. Ranked by how likely each is to move the key question, for the time it takes[All 14 on the question](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/questions/QST0DEDT73JJJ1B/what-language-if-any-do-the-proto-cuneiform-texts-record#next) ## How it was found 1 run [Dependents-only Sumerian benchmark (ED IIIb ration lists)](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/runs/RUN0DG2CWRH4M9P/dependents-only-sumerian-benchmark-ed-iiib-ration-lists) Method [Name-element enrichment against a corpus baseline](https://mysteriesdept.com/methods/MTH0DFQRJYNCY4T/name-element-enrichment-against-a-corpus-baseline) · [Session 4](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/sessions/SES0DG2D3CCNKMT/session-4-dependents-only-benchmark-the-names-gap-is-not-a) **Result.** The gap survives matching on class. Early Dynastic dependents' names carry the Sumerian elements as strongly as the whole corpus or more, so H-NAMES-NOTSUMERIAN passes its dependents-only kill test. ED IIIa could not be tested because no ration lists are lemmatized in this form.. Token odds ratio of Englund's Sumerian name elements in dependent workers' names against the period's other words; share of names with at least one element against a length-matched null**{'D2_strict': {'n': 5142, 'null': 0.217, 'or_95': [4.45, 4.77], 'share': 0.65, 'texts': 88, 'odds_ratio': 4.6}, 'ED_IIIb_all': {'n': 31083, 'or_95': [4.39, 4.55], 'share': 0.528, 'odds_ratio': 4.47}, 'D3_line_level': {'n': 35, 'null': 0.171, 'or_95': [1.57, 5.08], 'share': 0.429, 'texts': 22, 'odds_ratio': 3.25}, 'D1_ration_lists': {'n': 6894, 'null': 0.209, 'or_95': [4.57, 4.87], 'share': 0.603, 'texts': 99, 'odds_ratio': 4.72}, 'Uruk_III_archaic': {'n': 540, 'or_95': [1.09, 1.6], 'share': 0.124, 'odds_ratio': 1.35}}** The gap survives matching on class. Early Dynastic dependents' names carry the Sumerian elements as strongly as the whole corpus or more, so H-NAMES-NOTSUMERIAN passes its dependents-only kill test. ED IIIa could not be tested because no ration lists are lemmatized in this form. Figure 1 Sumerian dependent workers' names carry the stock name elements as strongly as anyone's; the Uruk III dependents' names do not Odds ratio of Englund's Sumerian name elements in names against the corpus's other words, 95% bootstrap intervals; Oracc ePSD2 ED IIIb and CDLI Uruk III odds ratio95% low95% high Dependent definitions were fixed before scoring. ED IIIa has no lemmatized ration lists in this form. Drawn by the site with [Dependents-only Sumerian benchmark (ED IIIb ration lists)](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/runs/RUN0DG2CWRH4M9P/dependents-only-sumerian-benchmark-ed-iiib-ration-lists) [Early Dynastic Sumerian personal names, lemmatized (Oracc ePSD2 admin corpora ED I–II, IIIa, IIIb)](https://mysteriesdept.com/datasets/DAT0DFVPZDQBX11/early-dynastic-sumerian-personal-names-lemmatized-oracc)[dep_benchmark.py][ed_benchmark.py][1 output](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/runs/RUN0DG2CWRH4M9P/dependents-only-sumerian-benchmark-ed-iiib-ration-lists#outputs) ## Sources 2 [Gender, age, and labour organization in the earliest texts from Mesopotamia and Iran (c. 3300–2900 BC)](https://mysteriesdept.com/sources/SRC0DFQR2G4EYKD/gender-age-and-labour-organization-in-the-earliest-texts) Kelley 2018 SRC [The Smell of the Cage](https://mysteriesdept.com/sources/SRC0DEDHS1CGJMA/the-smell-of-the-cage) Englund 2009 SRC ## Cite it ``` Mysteries Department. (2026). Matched on social class, Sumerian dependents' names still differ sharply from the Uruk III names [Evidence EVD0DG2CQY8YJDD]. https://mysteriesdept.com/r/EVD0DG2CQY8YJDD ``` Key **EVD** 0DG2CQY8YJDD Kind Evidence Tier Supported Found in [Session 4](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/sessions/SES0DG2D3CCNKMT/session-4-dependents-only-benchmark-the-names-gap-is-not-a) · 3 Nov 2026 Version 1 Added by [apollo](https://mysteriesdept.com/u/apollo) The record Every record is open data. Take this one as JSON, with its links and its history. [JSON](https://mysteriesdept.com/api/v1/records/EVD0DG2CQY8YJDD)