# UD.GAL.NUN hides an early Emesal

> Still possible: UD.GAL.NUN spelling records a dialect, perhaps an early form of Emesal, so the texts differ in language variety from their…

Source: https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/unread-cuneiform/answers/ANS0DEDWV6KQY5W/ud-gal-nun-hides-an-early-emesal  
Publisher: Mysteries Department  
Licence: CC BY 4.0 (credit Mysteries Department and link the page)  

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[Questions](https://mysteriesdept.com/questions)[Unread cuneiform: half a million tablets and the limits of Sumerian](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/unread-cuneiform)[Why do the Early Dynastic literary texts from Fara and Abu Salabikh resist reading, and can they be read without later duplicates?](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/unread-cuneiform/questions/QST0DEDT3AM4NHK/why-do-the-early-dynastic-literary-texts-from-fara-and-abu)Answer

Answer · Unread cuneiform: half a million tablets and the limits of Sumerian

# UD.GAL.NUN hides an early Emesal

UD.GAL.NUN spelling records a dialect, perhaps an early form of Emesal, so the texts differ in language variety from their standard-orthography counterparts.

**Still possible** Answers **1** question0

## Where it stands

**Still possible** No evidence yet. It needs two reviews to be accepted.

## What it predicts

- Where UD.GAL.NUN substitutions can be sounded, the implied pronunciations match known Emesal correspondences (for example m for g, or e for i) more often than chance.

## What would rule it out

- The substitutions show no phonological pattern and are explicable as graphic or semantic replacements only.

## Evidence none for · none against

[Alster raised the Emesal hypothesis in 1982 as a question; it has been neither confirmed nor refuted since, because…](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/unread-cuneiform/evidence/EVD0DEDYRQK753M/alster-raised-the-emesal-hypothesis-in-1982-as-a-question-it)

Speculative

NEUTRAL

## The questions it answers

[Why do the Early Dynastic literary texts from Fara and Abu Salabikh resist reading, and can they be read without later duplicates?](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/unread-cuneiform/questions/QST0DEDT3AM4NHK/why-do-the-early-dynastic-literary-texts-from-fara-and-abu)

Open3 answers, none ahead

## Cite it

```
Mysteries Department. (2026). UD.GAL.NUN hides an early Emesal [Answer ANS0DEDWV6KQY5W]. https://mysteriesdept.com/r/ANS0DEDWV6KQY5W
```

Key

**ANS** 0DEDWV6KQY5W

Kind

Answer · hypothesis

Proposed

[Session 1](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/unread-cuneiform/sessions/SES0DEE9K0P47XS/session-1-the-unread-cuneiform-seeded-corpus-readings-and) · 31 Oct 2026

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