Akkadian language

Not to be confused with Acadian French.
Akkadian
Babylonian or Assyrian
𒀝𒅗đ’ș𒌑(𒌝)
AkkadĂ»(m)
Akkadian language inscription on the obelisk of Manishtushu
RegionMesopotamia
Erac. 2600–500 BC; academic or liturgical use until AD 100[1]
Dialects
Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform
Official status
Official language in
Initially Akkad (central Mesopotamia); lingua franca of the Middle East and Egypt in the late Bronze and early Iron Ages.
Language codes
ISO 639-2akk
ISO 639-3akk
akk
Glottologakka1240
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Akkadian (/əˈkeÉȘdiən/ ə-KAY-dee-ən; Akkadian: 𒀝𒅗đ’ș𒌑(𒌝), romanized: AkkadĂ»(m))[7][8][9][10] is an extinct East Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia (Akkad, Assyria, Isin, Larsa, Babylonia and perhaps Dilmun) from the third millennium BC until its gradual replacement in common use by Old Aramaic among Assyrians and Babylonians from the 8th century BC.

Akkadian, which is the earliest documented Semitic language,[11] is named after the city of Akkad, a major centre of Mesopotamian civilization during the Akkadian Empire (c. 2334–2154 BC). It was written using the cuneiform script, originally used for Sumerian, but also used to write multiple languages in the region including Eblaite, Hurrian, Elamite, Old Persian and Hittite. The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian went beyond just the cuneiform script; owing to their close proximity, a lengthy span of contact and the prestige held by the former, Sumerian significantly impacted Akkadian phonology, vocabulary and syntax.[12] This mutual influence of Akkadian and Sumerian has also led scholars to describe the languages as a Sprachbund.[13]

Akkadian proper names are first attested in Sumerian texts in the mid-3rd millennium BC, and inscriptions ostensibly written in Sumerian but whose character order reveals that they were intended to be read in East Semitic (presumably early Akkadian) date back to as early as c. 2600 BC.[14] From about the 25th century BC, texts fully written in Akkadian begin to appear. By the 20th century BC, two variant dialectic forms of the same language were in use in Assyria and Babylonia, known as Assyrian and Babylonian respectively.[15] The bulk of preserved material is from this later period, corresponding to the Near Eastern Iron Age. In total, hundreds of thousands of texts and text fragments have been excavated, covering a vast textual tradition of religious and mythological narrative, legal texts, scientific works, personal correspondence, political, civil and military events, economic tracts and many other examples.

Centuries after the fall of the Akkadian Empire, Akkadian, in its Assyrian and Babylonian varieties, was the native language of the Mesopotamian empires (Old Assyrian Empire, Babylonia, Middle Assyrian Empire) throughout the later Bronze Age, and became the lingua franca of much of the Ancient Near East by the time of the Bronze Age collapse c. 1150 BC. However, its gradual decline began in the Iron Age, during the Neo-Assyrian Empire when in the mid-eighth century BC Tiglath-Pileser III introduced Imperial Aramaic as a lingua franca of the Assyrian empire. By the Hellenistic period, the language was largely confined to scholars and priests working in temples in Assyria and Babylonia. The last known Akkadian cuneiform document dates from the 1st century AD.[16]

Mandaic spoken by Mandean Gnostics and the dialects spoken by the extant Assyrians (Suret) are three extant Neo-Aramaic languages that retain Akkadian vocabulary and grammatical features, as well as personal and family names. These are spoken by Assyrians and Mandeans mainly in northern Iraq, southeast Turkey, northeast Syria, northwest Iran, the southern Caucasus and by communities in the Assyrian diaspora.[17]

Akkadian is a fusional language with grammatical case. Like all Semitic languages, Akkadian uses the system of consonantal roots. The KĂŒltepe texts, which were written in Old Assyrian, include Hittite loanwords and names, which constitute the oldest record of any Indo-European language.[18][19]

  1. ^ "Neo-Assyrian". Archived from the original on 11 August 2011. Retrieved 5 March 2024.
  2. ^ "Akkadian".
  3. ^ I.J. Gelb. "Old Akkadian writing and grammar" (PDF). uchicago.edu. Retrieved 25 June 2023.
  4. ^ "Babylonian dialect | Akkadian dialect | Britannica".
  5. ^ Shlomo Izre’el (2007). "Canaano-Akkadian" (PDF). tau.ac.il. Retrieved 25 June 2023.
  6. ^ von Dassow, Eva, "Canaanite in Cuneiform", Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 124, no. 4, pp. 641–74, 2004
  7. ^ Black, Jeremy A.; George, Andrew; Postgate, J. N. (1 January 2000). A Concise Dictionary of Akkadian. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 10. ISBN 9783447042642. Archived from the original on 11 May 2021. Retrieved 15 October 2020.
  8. ^ John Huehnergard & Christopher Woods, "Akkadian and Eblaite", The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages. Ed. Roger D. Woodard (2004, Cambridge) Pages 218–280
  9. ^ Huehnergard 2011: xxiii
  10. ^ George (2007: 31)
  11. ^ Woodard, Roger D. (10 April 2008). The Ancient Languages of Mesopotamia, Egypt and Aksum. Cambridge University Press. p. 83. ISBN 9780521684972.
  12. ^ Hasselbach-Andee, Rebecca (2020). A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Languages. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 132. ISBN 978-1-119-19380-7.
  13. ^ Deutscher, Guy (2007). Syntactic Change in Akkadian: The Evolution of Sentential Complementation. Oxford University Press US. pp. 20–21. ISBN 978-0-19-953222-3.
  14. ^ George (2007: 37)
  15. ^ Huehnergard, John (2011). A Grammar of Akkadian, 3rd edition. Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-1-57506-941-8.
  16. ^ Geller, Markham Judah (1997). "The Last Wedge". Zeitschrift fĂŒr Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische ArchĂ€ologie. 87 (1): 43–95. doi:10.1515/zava.1997.87.1.43. S2CID 161968187.
  17. ^ MĂŒller-Kessler, Christa (20 July 2009). "Mandaeans v. Mandaic Language". EncyclopĂŠdia Iranica (online 2012 ed.). Zeitschrift fĂŒr Assyriologie und vorderasitische ArchĂ€ologie 86 (1997): 43–95.
  18. ^ E. Bilgic and S. Bayram. Ankara Kultepe Tabletleri II. Turk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1995. ISBN 975-16-0246-7
  19. ^ Watkins, Calvert. "Hittite". In: The Ancient Languages of Asia Minor. Edited by Roger D. Woodard. Cambridge University Press. 2008. p. 6. ISBN 978-0-511-39353-2