Anû: canonical, contested, and the false forms on record
Evidence dossier 022 — Anû. Every exhibit catalogued, every ruling stated with its grounds.
At a Glance
- Canonical form: Anû
- Original script: 𒀭𒀀𒉡
- Pantheon: Mesopotamian
- Convention: Assyriological transliteration — š, ṣ, ṭ, ḫ as the sign lists require
- False forms on record: 1
- Contested forms: none attested
- Series: The Canonical Register, No. 22 of 287
The Evidence
Exhibit 1 — the attestation. The attested form is 𒀭𒀀𒉡, from the tradition's own record. The canonical transliteration is Anû.
Exhibit 2 — the preserved marks. u → û (Circumflex: a visible question mark — the length of Anu's final vowel is discussable, not certain). Each is verifiable against the sources named in the attestation.
Exhibit 3 — the flattened form. The plain form anu is not false — it is a fallback, and the register is exact about what that means. In systems that cannot carry diacritics (legacy databases, older tooling, parts of the address-bar pipeline) the flattened form is the accepted vehicle, and the rulebook names it explicitly as the final rung of the fallback hierarchy: full restoration first, circumflex where attested, macron-only by the academic standard, an attested variant, and only then plain ASCII.
What the fallback status forbids is promotion: anu may carry the name where marks are impossible, but it may not represent the name where marks are possible. Every mark it drops — u → û — is a fact the sources recorded. A fallback is a vehicle, never the primary.
Exhibit 4 — struck from the record: Anu. Origin: the publisher compromise — older books and hurried websites that print the "English equivalent" as if it were the name itself. Grounds: every substitution here (û→u) is a romanization of convenience, not an attested spelling — it teaches the reader to guess, not to read.
Exhibit 5 — the physical record. Cuneiform tablets from Uruk, Nippur, and Assur attest Anû's supreme rank in god-lists and hymns. The Eanna precinct at Uruk preserves the monumental architecture of his cult, while the Epic of Gilgamesh places him at the cosmic court from which the Bull of Heaven is dispatched.
Exhibit 6 — the continuing record. The name Anu survives in cuneiform studies, Assyriology, and modern reconstructions of Mesopotamian religion. Restoring Anû in Unicode keeps visible the question of final-vowel length that distinguishes the Akkadian/Sumerian form from plain ASCII.
The Convention's Own History
Cuneiform writes a consonant inventory English does not have: š, ṣ, ṭ, ḫ mark sibilants and stops that Akkadian and Sumerian distinguished and meaning depends on — the difference between 'sun' and 'son' is exactly one ṣ. Assyriological transliteration (the sign lists of Borger and the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary) settled those marks over the last century and a half, and the register keeps them because dropping them merges gods, cities, and concepts that the tablets keep apart.
The Protocol's Position
Can the canonical form live in the address bar? Almost always, yes. IDNA 2008 admits every mark this register defends — the DNS stores them as `xn--` punycode and modern browsers render them natively. The real frictions are practical, not legal: some registrars stock only part of the IDN space, so a theoretically valid name can be temporarily unbuyable; and stacked combinations (an acute riding a macron) remain awkward to type on mobile keyboards even where the protocol accepts them.
The project's answer is a ranked ladder, not a compromise: the full restoration first, then attested fallbacks in descending order of completeness. The ladder's lowest rung, plain ASCII, is a vehicle for legacy systems — sanctioned, but never presented as the scholarly form.
The Verdict
Case closed on Anû: canonical, cited, and defended. The keyboard form anu rides as the sanctioned fallback — and stays in that lane. The register's files remain open: if a source surfaces that changes any line of this entry, the entry changes. Until then, the temple at /sites/anu/ holds the canonical form.
The docket for this ruling: 1 false form ruled against, Anu first on the docket; 1 preserved mark verified: u → û; no contested forms attested.
The Register Continues
Entry 22 of 287 in the Canonical Register. Around it: the temple's founding dispatch, the Restoration File on the marks themselves, the Resonance File on the archetype at work, and the Rulebook behind all of it.
Continue the register — previous entry: ꜥnḫ (read it) · next entry: ꜣnpw (read it).
The Canonical Register is written from the same canonical record as the lexicon itself. If a false form is missing from this page, it is because the evidence does not support calling it false — or because we have not seen it yet. Show us, with a citation, and the register will answer.