|
|
|
|
Akkadian language
|
| |
|
| |
Akkadian (lišanum akkaditum) or Assyrian-Babylonian is a Semitic language (part of the greater Afro-Asiatic language family) that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate. The name of the language is derived from the city of Akkad, a major centre of Mesopotamian civilization.
Attested since the later 3rd millennium BCE and in continued use throughout the 2nd millennium BCE.
Discussion
Ask a question about 'Akkadian language' Start a new discussion about 'Akkadian language' Answer questions from other users |
Recent Posts
Encyclopedia
Akkadian (lišanum akkaditum) or Assyrian-Babylonian is a Semitic language (part of the greater Afro-Asiatic language family) that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate. The name of the language is derived from the city of Akkad, a major centre of Mesopotamian civilization.
Attested since the later 3rd millennium BCE and in continued use throughout the 2nd millennium BCE. The 2nd millennium forms of the language in use in Assyria and Babylonia are known as Assyrian and Babylonian respectively.
Akkadian began to decline around the 8th century BCE, marginalized by Aramaic; by the Hellenistic period the language was largely confined to scholars and priests working in temples. The last Akkadian cuneiform document dates to the first century CE.
History
Akkadian is divided into several varieties based on geography and historical period:
- Old Akkadian, 2500–1950 BCE
- Old Babylonian/Old Assyrian, 1950–1530 BCE
- Middle Babylonian/Middle Assyrian, 1530–1000 BCE
- Neo-Babylonian/Neo-Assyrian, 1000–600 BCE
- Late Babylonian, 600 BCE–100 CE
The Akkadian Empire established by Sargon I introduced the Akkadian language (the "language of Akkad") as a written language, adapting Sumerian cuneiform orthography for the purpose. During the Middle Bronze Age Old Assyrian and Old Babylonian period, the language virtually displaced Sumerian, which is assumed to have been extinct as a living language by the 18th century BCE.
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 when it was further marginalized by Koine Greek, although Neo-Assyrian cuneiform remained in use in literary tradition well into Parthian times. The latest known text in cuneiform Babylonian is an astronomical text dated to 75 CE.
After this, the language and its literary tradition was forgotten until the decipherment of cuneiform in the 1850s.
Writing system
Akkadian scribes wrote the language using cuneiform script, an earlier writing system devised by the Sumerians using wedge-shaped signs pressed in wet clay. As employed by Akkadian scribes the adapted cuneiform script could represent either (a) Sumerian logograms (i.e. picture-based characters representing entire words), (b) Sumerian syllables, (c) Akkadian syllables, or (d) phonetic complements. 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 minus any vowels).
Phonology
As far as can be told from the cuneiform orthography of Akkadian, several Proto-Semitic phonemes are lost in Akkadian. The Proto-Semitic glottal stop , are lost as consonants, either by sound change or orthographically, but they gave rise to the vowel quality e not exhibited in Proto-Semitic. The interdental and the voiceless lateral fricatives merged with the sibilants as in Canaanite,
leaving 19 consonantal phonemes:
- .
The nature of as postalveolar and of as fricatives is contested, due to attested assimilations of voiceless coronal affricates to . For example, the root 'word' when combined with the possessive suffix 'his' is often written 'his word'. There is no discernible basis for a cluster of consonants like to become . (Note that would be expected, but it is especially unlikely for to become when does not become outside of the context after which is under discussion.)
According to Patrick R. Bennett's "Comparative Semitic Linguistics: a manual", the was a Voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative rather than a postalveolar. In the pronunciation of a alveo-palatal, the tongue approximates the teeth more closely. This is more likely to produce in combination with coronals such as t.
An alternative approach to the phonology of these consonants is to treat as voiceless coronal affricates , *š as a voiceless coronal fricative and as a voiced coronal affricate or fricative . In this vein, an alternative transcription of is , with the macron below indicating a soft (lenis) articulation in Semitic transcription. The assimilation is then to , which is quite common across languages.
There are four vowel qualities, with distinctive vowel length:
-
Grammar
Akkadian is an inflected language, and as a Semitic language its grammatical features are highly similar to those found in Classical Arabic. It possesses two genders (masculine and feminine), distinguished in second person pronouns (you-masc., you-fem.) and in verb conjugations; three cases for nouns and adjectives (nominative, accusative, and genitive); three numbers: (singular, dual, and plural); and unique verb conjugations for each first, second, and third person pronoun.
Akkadian nouns are declined according to gender, number and case. There are three genders; masculine, feminine and common. Only a very few nouns belong to the common gender. There are also three cases (nominative, accusative and genitive) and three numbers (singular, dual and plural). Adjectives are declined exactly like nouns.
Akkadian verbs have thirteen separate root stems. The three basic modifications of the simple stem (numbered I, or called the Grundstamm, G-Stamm) are doubling of the second root-letter (II or Doppelungsstamm, D-Stamm), š-prefix (III or Š-Stamm) or n-prefix (IV or N-Stamm). A second series is created by infixing the syllable ta between the first two root letters, creating a generally reflexive set of stems. These two sets of four stems each are the most commonly used in Akkadian. A third set is created by the infixation of the syllable tan between the first two root letters. The final stem uses both the š-prefix and doubling of the second root letter. The stems, their nomenclature and examples of the third-person masculine singular permansive of the verb parasum (root PRS: 'to decide, distinguish, separate') is shown below:
| I.1 | G | paris | the simple stem, used for transitive and intransitive verbs | corresponding to Arabic stem I (fa‘ala) and Hebrew qal | | II.1 | D | purrus | gemination of the second radical, indicating the intensive | corresponding to Arabic stem II (fa‘‘ala) and Hebrew pi‘el | | III.1 | Š | šuprus | š-preformative, indicating the causative | corresponding to Arabic stem IV (’af‘ala) and Hebrew hiph‘il | | IV.1 | N | naprus | n-preformative, indicating the reflexive/passive | corresponding to Arabic stem VII (infa‘ala) and Hebrew niph‘al | | I.2 | Gt | pitrus | simple stem with t-infix after first radical, indicating reciprocal or reflexive | corresponding to Arabic stem VIII (ifta‘ala) and Aramaic ’ithpe‘al (tG) | | II.2 | Dt | putarrus | doubled second radical preceded by infixed t, indicating intensive reflexive | corresponding to Arabic stem V (tafa‘‘ala) and Hebrew hithpa‘el (tD) | | III.2 | Št | šutaprus | š-preformative with t-infix, indicating reflexive causative | corresponding to Arabic stem X (istaf‘ala) and Aramaic ’ittaph‘al (tC) | | IV.2 | Nt | itaprus | | I.3 | Gtn | pitarrus | simple stem with tan-infix after first radical | | II.3 | Dtn | putarrus | doubled second radical preceded by tan-infix | | III.3 | Štn | | š-preformative with tan-infix | | IV.3 | Ntn | itaprus | n-preformative with tan-infix |
Akkadian verbs usually display the tri-consonantal root, though some roots with two- or four-consonant roots also exist. There are three tenses: present, preterite and permansive. Present tense indicates incomplete action and preterite tense indicates complete action, while permansive tense expresses a state or condition and usually takes a particle.
Akkadian, unlike Arabic, has mainly regular plurals (i.e. no broken plurals), although some masculine words take feminine plurals. In that respect, it is similar to Hebrew and Maltese.
Word order
Akkadian sentence order was Subject+Object+Verb (SOV), which sets it apart from most other ancient Semitic languages such as Arabic and Biblical Hebrew, which typically have a Verb-subject-object (VSO) word order. (Modern South Semitic languages in Ethiopia also have SOV order, but these developed within historical times from the classical Verb-subject-object (VSO) language Ge'ez.) It has been hypothesized that this word order was a result of influence from the Sumerian language, which was also SOV. There is evidence that native speakers of both languages were in intimate language contact, forming a single society for at least 500 years, so it is entirely likely that a sprachbund could have formed. Further evidence of an original VSO or SVO ordering can be found in the fact that direct and indirect object pronouns are suffixed to the verb. Word order seems to have shifted to SVO/VSO late in the 1st millennium BCE to the 1st millennium CE, possibly under the influence of Aramaic.
Literature
Further reading
- Cherry, A. (2003). A basic neo-Assyrian cuneiform syllabary. Toronto, Ont: Ashur Cherry, York University.
- Cherry, A. (2003). Basic individual logograms (Akkadian). Toronto, Ont: Ashur Cherry, York University.
- Gelb, I. J. (1961). Old Akkadian writing and grammar. Materials for the Assyrian dictionary, no. 2. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226623041
- Huehnergard, J. (2005). "A Grammar of Akkadian". Harvard Semitic Studies. Eisenbrauns.
- Huehnergard, J. (2005). "A Key to A Grammar of Akkadian". Harvard Semitic Studies. Eisenbrauns.
External links
|
| |
|
|
