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In languages written in cuneiform, a phonetic complement was a sign used to resolve ambiguities. For example, the Sumerian word KUR could mean hill or country. In Akkadian, hill and country were different words. The Akkadian word for hill was pronounced šadú and the word for country was pronounced mātu, although both were written using the KUR sign adapted from Sumerian. To alert the reader as to which Akkadian word was intended, the phonetic complement -ú was written after KUR if hill was intended and written KUR-ú to indicate that the word should be pronounced šadú (sha-doo) in Akkadian. KUR without the phonetic complement was pronounced mātu in Akkadian and meant country.
Phonetic complements should not be confused with determinatives that indicated a category of the word it either precedes or follows. For example, the sign DINGIR often precedes names of gods, as LUGAL does for kings. It is not believed that determinatives were pronounced.
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