Understanding Sumerian Standards: An Exploration of Ancient Distancing Discourse

The archaic Sumerian standards can be considered the first implementation of descriptive distancing discourse in written language. First and foremost, standards were designations of official titles; additionally, later Sumerian and Akkadian texts used the names of deities, rulers, regions, cities, et cetera in conjunction with standards [Sumerian 2]. The titles used are also enhanced through the use of modifiers; two such modifiers (seen with the titles Unkin and Ga) are Gal (which means great, chief, superior, and master) and Nun (which means prince, princely, and loft) [Sumerian 8]. The Egyptian status titles in Nubia were not quite as blunt as those in Sumer; while there was some parallelism in the form of titles such as “prince” or “godly” there were implementations that had heavy

The first major distinction with Nubian titles is their proximity to the palace, they could “inner palace,” “outer palace,” or have no relation to the palace at all [Nubian, 424-27]. Similarly to the length of titles in Sumer were those in Nubia. Titles of greater importance (closer to the palace) were generally longer (and had fewer substitutions), while those of less importance were either shorter or had alternatives (such as Overseer of district or Overseer of guild men) [Nubian 430]. Islam’s expansiveness was based in the religious aspects, rather than the governmental aspects (however, the two would merge very quickly.) A tenant of the Qur’an and the Islamic faith was the expanse of its dominion, or caliphate. Community and togetherness is very highly valued, and this is expressed through conquest. The enlargement if Islam is directly through the call for the enlargement of the empire [Islam 105].

Though not a true democracy, the