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A sign that is written and never said.
Also known as: Semantic classifier cuneiform, Determinative sign
The Mesopotamian sign placed beside a word to show what class of thing it names, and not pronounced.
Marks the following or preceding word as naming a god, a place, a person, a wooden object or another class.
Contexts: Language and transcription, History
Written but never spoken, so the text carries information for the eye that the ear never receives — a channel of meaning available only to the reader.
Contexts: Language and transcription, History
Resolves ambiguity in a script where one sign has many readings, which is the same problem furigana solves in Japanese by an opposite method: one adds sound, the other adds category.
Contexts: Language and transcription, History
A cluster of wedge-shaped strokes set immediately before or after the word it classifies, identical in figure to an ordinary sign but read as a category rather than as a sound.
Both resolve which reading of an ambiguous character is meant, one by supplying the sound and the other by supplying the category.