Babylonian vocalization

Okay kiddo, do you remember the time when you learned how to read and write? It was pretty hard, right? Now imagine that you lived a loooong time ago, before we had regular letters and sounds that we use in writing. This is what it was like for the people of Babylon.

The Babylonian people had their own way of writing things down called cuneiform. Instead of using letters like we do in our alphabet, they used little picture-like symbols. This made it really hard for them to know how to say things out loud because they didn't have symbols for every sound that we have today.

So, to help them out, they created something called vocalization. This is a system of adding little marks to their cuneiform symbols to show how they should be pronounced.

Think of it like this: Imagine you drew a picture of a cat, but you aren't sure how to say the word "cat" out loud. So you add some little lines and dots next to the picture to tell you how to say it. For example, if you add a line above the "a", it becomes "cayt" instead of "cat".

The Babylonians did the same thing with their cuneiform symbols. They added little marks to show things like vowel sounds and emphasis on certain syllables. This made it easier for them to read out loud and understand each other.

So, there you have it! Babylonian vocalization is a way for people who used a different type of writing to show how to say things out loud. It's like adding little marks to pictures to help you understand how to say the words correctly.