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    Akkadian Language

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    Sashko Kolodiuk
    Akkadian was an extinct East Semitic language spoken in ancient Mesopotamia from the third millennium BC until the 8th century BC. It was the earliest attested Semitic language and was written using the cuneiform script adapted from Sumerian. Akkadian served as a lingua franca in the region during the Bronze Age but began declining in favor of Old Aramaic during the Iron Age. While largely extinct by the 1st century AD, aspects of Akkadian vocabulary and grammar remained in some Neo-Aramaic languages.

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    Akkadian Language

    Uploaded by

    Sashko Kolodiuk
    127 views14 pages
    Akkadian was an extinct East Semitic language spoken in ancient Mesopotamia from the third millennium BC until the 8th century BC. It was the earliest attested Semitic language and was written using the cuneiform script adapted from Sumerian. Akkadian served as a lingua franca in the region during the Bronze Age but began declining in favor of Old Aramaic during the Iron Age. While largely extinct by the 1st century AD, aspects of Akkadian vocabulary and grammar remained in some Neo-Aramaic languages.

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    Akkadian was an extinct East Semitic language spoken in ancient Mesopotamia from the third millennium BC until the 8th century BC. It was the earliest attested Semitic language and was written using the cuneiform script adapted from Sumerian. Akkadian served as a lingua franca in the region during the Bronze Age but began declining in favor of Old Aramaic during the Iron Age. While largely extinct by the 1st century AD, aspects of Akkadian vocabulary and grammar remained in some Neo-Aramaic languages.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    127 views14 pages

    Akkadian Language

    Uploaded by

    Sashko Kolodiuk
    Akkadian was an extinct East Semitic language spoken in ancient Mesopotamia from the third millennium BC until the 8th century BC. It was the earliest attested Semitic language and was written using the cuneiform script adapted from Sumerian. Akkadian served as a lingua franca in the region during the Bronze Age but began declining in favor of Old Aramaic during the Iron Age. While largely extinct by the 1st century AD, aspects of Akkadian vocabulary and grammar remained in some Neo-Aramaic languages.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    of 14

    𒀝𒅗𒁺𒌑

    (Akkadian language)
    Akkadian is an extinct East Semitic language that was spoken
    in ancient Mesopotamia (Akkad, Assyria, Isin, Larsa and
    Babylonia) from the third millennium BC until its gradual
    replacement by Akkadian-influenced Old Aramaic among
    Mesopotamians by the 8th century BC.

    It is the earliest attested Semitic language. It used the


    cuneiform script, which was originally used to write the
    unrelated, and also extinct, Sumerian. Akkadian is named
    after the city of Akkad, a major centre of Mesopotamian
    civilization during the Akkadian Empire (c. 2334–2154 BC).
    Akkadian (in its Assyrian and Babylonian varieties) was the native language of the Mesopotamian
    empires (Akkadian Empire, 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. Its decline began in the Iron Age, during the Neo-Assyrian Empire, by
    about the 8th century BC in favour of Old Aramaic. 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. Mandaic and Assyrian are two Neo-Aramaic
    languages that retain some Akkadian vocabulary and grammatical features.

    Akkadian is a fusional language with grammatical case; and like all Semitic languages, Akkadian uses
    the system of consonantal roots. The Kültepe texts, which were written in Old Assyrian, include Hittite
    loanwords and names, which constitute the oldest record of any Indo-European language.
    Classification
    Akkadian belongs with the other Semitic languages in the
    Near Eastern branch of the Afroasiatic languages, a family
    native to the Middle East, Arabian Peninsula, the Horn of
    Africa, parts of Anatolia, North Africa, Malta, Canary Islands
    and parts of West Africa (Hausa). Akkadian and its successor
    Aramaic, however, are only ever attested in Mesopotamia
    and the Near East.
    Within the Near Eastern Semitic languages, Akkadian forms
    an East Semitic subgroup (with Eblaite). This group
    distinguishes itself from the Northwest and South Semitic
    languages by its subject–object–verb word order, while the
    other Semitic languages usually have either a verb–subject–
    object or subject–verb–object order.

    Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform syllabary, used by


    early Akkadian rulers
    Classification
    Additionally Akkadian is the only Semitic
    language to use the prepositions ina and ana
    (locative case, English in/on/with, and dative-
    locative case, for/to, respectively). Other
    Semitic languages like Arabic, Hebrew and
    Aramaic have the prepositions bi/bə and li/lə
    (locative and dative, respectively). The origin of
    the Akkadian spatial prepositions is unknown.

    Seal of Akkadian Empire ruler Naram-Sin (reversed


    for readability), c. 2250 BC.
    Writing
    Old Akkadian is preserved on clay tablets dating back to
    c. 2500 BC. It was written using cuneiform, a script
    adopted from the Sumerians using wedge-shaped
    symbols pressed in wet clay. As employed by Akkadian
    scribes, the adapted cuneiform script could represent
    either (a) Sumerian logograms, (b) Sumerian syllables, (c)
    Akkadian syllables, or (d) phonetic complements.
    However, in Akkadian the script practically became a
    fully fledged syllabic script, and the original logographic
    nature of cuneiform became secondary, though
    logograms for frequent words such as 'god' and 'temple'
    continued to be used.
    Another peculiarity of Akkadian cuneiform is that many signs
    do not have a well-defined phonetic value. Certain signs do
    not distinguish between the different vowel qualities. Nor is
    there any coordination in the other direction.

    Cuneiform was in many ways unsuited to Akkadian: among


    its flaws was its inability to represent important phonemes in
    Semitic, including a glottal stop, pharyngeals, and emphatic
    consonants. In addition, cuneiform was a syllabary writing
    system—i.e., a consonant plus vowel comprised one writing
    unit—frequently inappropriate for a Semitic language made
    up of triconsonantal roots (i.e., three consonants plus any
    vowels).

    An Akkadian inscription
    Development

    Akkadian is divided into several varieties based on


    geography and historical period:

    ● Old Akkadian, 2500–1950 BC


    ● Old Babylonian and Old Assyrian, 1950–1530 BC
    ● Middle Babylonian and Middle Assyrian, 1530–
    1000 BC
    ● Neo-Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian, 1000–600 BC
    ● Late Babylonian, 600 BC–100 AD
    Old Akkadian, One of the earliest known Akkadian inscriptions was
    found on a bowl at Ur, addressed to the very early pre-
    2500–1950 BC Sargonic king Meskiagnunna of Ur (c. 2485–2450 BC)
    by his queen Gan-saman, who is thought to have been
    from Akkad. The Akkadian Empire, established by
    Sargon of Akkad, introduced the Akkadian language as a
    written language, adapting Sumerian cuneiform
    orthography for the purpose.

    Old Akkadian, which was used until the end of the 3rd
    millennium BC, differed from both Babylonian and
    Assyrian, and was displaced by these dialects. By the
    21st century BC Babylonian and Assyrian, which were
    to become the primary dialects, were easily
    distinguishable.
    Old Babylonian
    and Middle Assyrian
    Old Babylonian was the language of king Hammurabi and his code, which is one
    of the oldest collections of laws in the world. The Middle Babylonian (or Assyrian)
    period started in the 16th century BC. During this period, a large number of loan
    words were included in the language from Northwest Semitic languages and
    Hurrian; however, the use of these words was confined to the fringes of the
    Akkadian-speaking territory.

    Middle Assyrian served as a lingua franca in much of the Ancient Near East of the
    Late Bronze Age (Amarna Period). During the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Neo-Assyrian
    began to turn into a chancellery language, being marginalized by Old Aramaic.
    Under the Achaemenids, Aramaic continued to prosper, but Assyrian continued its
    decline. The language's final demise came about during the Hellenistic period
    even though Neo-Assyrian cuneiform remained in use in literary tradition well
    into Parthian times.
    The eventual decline…
    During the first millennium BC, Akkadian progressively lost its status as a lingua franca. In the
    beginning, from around 1000 BC, Akkadian and Aramaic were of equal status, as can be seen
    in the number of copied texts: clay tablets were written in Akkadian, while scribes writing on
    papyrus and leather used Aramaic. From this period on, one speaks of Neo-Babylonian and
    Neo-Assyrian. Neo-Assyrian received an upswing in popularity in the 10th century BC when
    the Assyrian kingdom became a major power with the Neo-Assyrian Empire, but texts written
    'exclusively' in Neo-Assyrian disappear within 10 years of Nineveh's destruction in 612 BC.

    After the end of the Mesopotamian kingdoms, which were conquered by the Persians,
    Akkadian (which existed solely in the form of Late Babylonian) disappeared as a popular
    language. However, the language was still used in its written form; and even after the Greek
    invasion under Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC, Akkadian was still a contender as a
    written language, but spoken Akkadian was likely extinct by this time, or at least rarely used.
    The last positively identified Akkadian text comes from the 1st century AD..
    Decipherment
    The Akkadian language began to be rediscovered when
    Carsten Niebuhr in 1767 was able to make extensive copies
    of cuneiform texts and published them in Denmark. The
    deciphering of the texts started immediately, and bilinguals,
    in particular Old Persian-Akkadian bilinguals, were of great
    help. Since the texts contained several royal names, isolated
    signs could be identified, and were presented in 1802 by
    Georg Friedrich Grotefend. By this time it was already
    evident that Akkadian was a Semitic language, and the final
    breakthrough in deciphering the language came from
    Edward Hincks, Henry Rawlinson and Jules Oppert in the
    middle of the 19th century. The Oriental Institute of the
    University of Chicago recently completed a 21-volume
    dictionary of the Akkadian language.

    Carsten Niebuhr in the attire of a


    distinguished Arab in Yemen
    Thank
    you

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