Wikimedia Commons has media related to I (cuneiform).
The
cuneiformi sign is a common use vowel sign. It can be found in many languages, examples being the
Akkadian language of the Epic of Gilgamesh (hundreds of years, parts of millenniums) and the mid 14th-century BC
Amarna letters; also the
Hittite language-(see table of Hittite cuneiform signs below).
In the Epic of Gilgamesh it also has a minor usage as a
sumerogram, I. The usage numbers from the Epic are as follows: i-(698), I-(1).[2]
As i and one of the four vowels in Akkadian (there is no "o"),
scribes can easily use one sign (a vowel, or a syllable with a vowel) to substitute one vowel for another. In the
Amarna letters, the
segue adverb "now", or "now, at this time", Akkadian language 'enūma',[3] is seldom spelled with the 'e'; instead its spellings are typically: anūma, inūma, and sometimes enūma. In both the Amarna letters and the Epic of Gilgamesh another common use of the "i" sign is for the preposition, Akkadian language ina, spelled i-
na, for in, into, for, etc.. (There is an alternate cuneiform sign for
ina (cuneiform), a sub-variety use of
aš (cuneiform), the single, horizontal stroke.)
References
^Moran, William L. 1987, 1992, The Amarna Letters, letter EA 365, Furnishing Corvée Workers, p. 363
^Parpola, 1971. The Standard Babylonian
Epic of Gilgamesh, Sign List, pp. 155-165, no. 142, p. 158.
^Parpola, 1971. The Standard Babylonian
Epic of Gilgamesh, Glossary, pp. 119-145, enūma, p. 122.