Akkadian Language
Akkadian is an extinct Semitic language historically spoken by the ancient peoples of Mesopotamia, particularly in areas that are now part of modern-day Syria and Iraq. It is believed to have originated around the 29th century BCE, with its earliest written records appearing in the form of cuneiform inscriptions by 2500 BCE. Primarily associated with the Akkadian Empire, which thrived from approximately 2350 BCE to 2150 BCE, Akkadian served as a lingua franca across the region, facilitating communication among diverse cultures and peoples.
As the first known Semitic language, Akkadian evolved into distinct dialects, notably Old Babylonian and Old Assyrian, after the fall of the Akkadian Empire. Its prominence waned in the first millennium BCE as Aramaic began to dominate as the primary language of trade and administration. Despite its decline, Akkadian continued to be used in scholarly and religious contexts until around 500 CE. The extensive documentation of Akkadian through thousands of cuneiform texts provides invaluable insights into the political, cultural, and economic life of ancient Mesopotamia, helping scholars piece together the complexities of this historical civilization. The comprehensive compilation of Akkadian vocabulary, such as the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, underscores the enduring interest and research devoted to this ancient language.
Akkadian Language
Akkadian is an extinct language used by the ancient Mesopotamian peoples who lived in the region between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers in the present-day nations of Syria and Iraq. Most commonly associated with the Akkadian Empire, which existed from roughly 2350 BCE to 2150 BCE, the language is thought to date back to the twenty-ninth century BCE—a period during which Akkadian names first began to appear on historical record.
The term Akkadian is derived from the northern Babylonian city of Akkad, a lost civilization that historians believe was located somewhere east of the Tigris. Although principally the language of the Akkadian culture, Akkadian was regularly used by non-native speakers throughout the region as a common language, or lingua franca.
History and Classification
The Akkadian language has one of the longest and best-attested histories of any ancient language, having been documented from roughly 2800 BCE to 500 CE. It is considered to be the earliest known Semitic language, a related group of languages that are one of the six subsets of the Afro-Asiatic family of languages; this linguistic family includes most of the historical tongues of northern Africa and the Middle East, including modern Arabic and Hebrew.
The Semitic languages are generally categorized by location, with Akkadian found in the northeast, the Canaanite (including Hebrew, Phoenician, and Eblaite) and Aramaic languages located in the northwest, and the Arabic and Ethiopic dialects found in the southern division. Alternately, some scholars divide the Semitic languages as Eastern (Akkadian and Eblaite), Central (including Aramaic, Hebrew, and Arabic), and Southern (which incorporates all of the related dialects of the southern Arabian Peninsula and Horn of Africa).
In the third millennium, which is the period when the Semitic languages were thought to have first developed, Mesopotamia was divided between the city-states of Sumer and Akkad. The earliest known language from this area is Sumerian—a language with no known ancestors but which nonetheless strongly impacted the creation of Akkadian. Sumerian texts from the twenty-ninth century BCE provide the first known documentation of its sister language through regular notation of Akkadian proper names.
By 2500 BCE, the first written Akkadian texts appeared on historical record as cuneiforms on clay tablets (a written style borrowed from the Sumerians). Although heavily reliant on Sumerian cuneiform script as its point of origin, early written Akkadian adapted the logograms using its own methodologies. This eventually allowed Akkadian to become a syllabic written language with many inflections that used script similar to words rather than the mostly pictography-based system of the Sumerians.
The Akkadian language saw its greatest prominence during the era of the Akkadian Empire beginning in the twenty-fourth century BCE, when Sargon I stretched the boundaries of the Akkad city-state through a conquest of the neighboring city-states of the Sumerian kingdom, including his strongest rivals in Uruk, Ur, Lagash, and Umma. At its height, the Akkadian Empire encompassed an area stretching from modern-day Syria to the Persian Gulf. As a result of Sargon's administrative efficiency and ruthlessness, Akkadian became the most widely spoken language of the northern Middle East during this era.
A period of intense conflict and drought led to the fall of the Akkadian Empire in 2154 BCE. Despite the change in dominion, Akkadian remained the lingua franca of the region until roughly 1950 BCE, when Akkadian began to evolutionarily drift into two distinct dialects: Northern and Southern Akkadian. Eventually, these dialects became more distinct and divergent forms of Akkadian, developing into what linguists classify as Old Babylonian in the south and Old Assyrian in the north, named after the city-states that arose after the fall of Akkad. The Babylonian and Assyrian dialects of Akkadian are categorized as either Old, Middle, Neo, or Late.
The dates corresponding to the dialectal periods of Babylonian are Old Babylonian, 1950 BCE to 1530 BCE; Middle Babylonian, 1530 BCE to 1000 BCE; Neo-Babylonian, 1000 BCE to 625 BCE; and Late Babylonian, 625 BCE to the year 0. The corresponding dates for Assyrian Akkadian are Old Assyrian, 1950 BCE to 1750 BCE; Middle Assyrian, 1500 BCE to 1000 BCE; and Neo-Assyrian, 1000 BCE to 600 BCE, when the Assyrian Empire was destroyed.
As Babylonian power began to decline, Aramaic began to increasingly surpass Akkadian as the principal language of business and cross-cultural communication, leaving Akkadian solely as a traditional scholarly language. Even in this capacity, however, Akkadian was on the decline and was largely extinct by 500 CE.
Geographic Distribution and Modern Usage
Akkadian was used throughout the Mesopotamian region of the Middle East, eventually encompassing the fertile region that stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. Despite being used by much of Mesopotamia for twenty-five hundred years, the Akkadian language is primarily associated with the Akkadian, Assyrian, and Babylonian cultures.
As the language of cross-cultural communication, Akkadian was primarily relied upon by the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia for most governmental, cultural, and economic processes. Thousands of cuneiform texts written in Akkadian remain, detailing aspects of political treaties, mythology, law, religion, and administration. A modern understanding of this extinct language enables scholars to examine and gain greater insight into the ancient cultures of Mesopotamia.
Led by Egyptologist James Henry Breasted, researchers from the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago worked for more than five decades to produce a dictionary of the Akkadian language, The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (also called the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary) first published in 1956. Scholars contributed to the work from the early 1920s until 2011, compiling twenty-six volumes containing around 28,000 words.
Bibliography
"Akkadian." Yale University, nelc.yale.edu/languages/akkadian. Accessed 19 Nov. 2024.
Caplice, Richard. Introduction to Akkadian. 4th ed., Biblical Institute Press, 2002.
Deutscher, Guy. Syntactic Change in Akkadian: The Evolution of Sentential Complementation. Oxford UP, 2000.
Huehnergard, John, and Na’ama Pat-El. The Semitic Languages. 2nd ed., Routledge, 2019.
Lenzi, Alan. An Introduction to Akkadian Literature Contexts and Content. Pennsylvania State UP, 2021.
Ostler, Nicholas. Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World. HarperCollins, 2005, pp. 58–67.
Shaffer, Aaron. "Akkadian Language." Jewish Virtual Library, www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/akkadian-language. Accessed 19 Nov. 2024.
Shendge, Malati J. The Language of the Harappans: From Akkadian to Sanskrit. Abhinav, 1997.
Streck, Michael P. "Akkadian and Aramaic Language Contact." The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook, edited by Stefan Weninger, et al., De Gruyter Mouton, 2011, pp. 416–24.
Vita, Juan-Pablo. History of the Akkadian Language. Brill, 2021.
Weiss, Harvey. "Akkadian." Encyclopedia of Prehistory: South and Southwest Asia, vol. 8, edited by Peter N. Peregrine and Melvin Ember, Springer Science + Business, 2002, pp. 21–23.