Akkadian language

Akkadian is an ancient language that is no longer spoken. It belongs to the East Semitic language family and was used in places like Akkad, Assyria, Isin, Larsa, and Babylonia around the middle of the third millennium BC. It slowly disappeared and was replaced by Old Aramaic by the 8th century BC.

The language is named after the city of Akkad. This city was important during the Akkadian Empire, which lived from about 2334 to 2154 BC. People wrote Akkadian using a special writing style called cuneiform. This writing style was first made for the Sumerian language. Because Akkad and Sumer were close to each other for a long time, the two languages influenced each other in how they sounded, their words, and their grammar.

We know about Akkadian from hundreds of thousands of old writings. These writings talk about many things, like stories about gods and heroes, laws, science, letters between people, and events in the kingdoms. Even after the Akkadian Empire ended, Akkadian was still spoken in later empires like the Old Assyrian Empire and Babylonia. It was even used as a common language in many parts of the ancient Near East until around 1150 BC. But then, it started to be replaced by Old Aramaic. By the time of the Hellenistic period, only scholars and priests still used Akkadian. The last known writing in Akkadian cuneiform is from the 1st century AD. Some modern languages like Mandaic and Suret still keep a few words and grammar rules from Akkadian.

Classification

Akkadian is a type of East Semitic language. It is related to other languages like Eblaite.

Akkadian is different from many other Semitic languages because of how its words are ordered in a sentence.

Akkadian uses special words to show location and direction, like ina and ana. These words mean similar things to "in," "on," "with," "for," and "to" in English. Other Semitic languages, such as Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic, use different words for these ideas.

History and writing

Writing

Main article: Cuneiform

Old Akkadian is found on clay tablets from around 2500 BC. It was written using cuneiform, a way of writing with wedge-shaped marks pressed into wet clay. This writing style came from the Sumerians and could show Sumerian words, sounds, or Akkadian sounds. In Akkadian, this writing mostly showed sounds, even though some pictures were still used for common words like "god" and "temple".

One special thing about Akkadian writing is that many signs do not clearly show which sound they make. Some signs can show different vowel sounds without changing. Also, some sounds were shown by more than one sign, which made writing Akkadian tricky.

Development

Akkadian changed over time and had different forms based on where and when it was used:

• 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

One of the earliest Akkadian writings was on a bowl from Ur, made for a queen from Akkad. The Akkadian Empire, started by Sargon of Akkad, made Akkadian an important written language. During a time called the Middle Bronze Age, Akkadian mostly replaced Sumerian.

Old Akkadian was used until the end of the third millennium BC. By around 2100 BC, two main forms, Babylonian and Assyrian, became clear. Old Babylonian had some new ways of speaking that Old Assyrian did not. Assyrian also had its own special changes.

Old Babylonian was the language of Hammurabi and his famous set of laws. Old Assyrian was mainly a everyday language, so not many long writings from kings remain. But it was used in letters by traders in a place called Anatolia.

The Middle Babylonian time began around 1550 BC after invaders called the Kassites came to power. They spoke Akkadian but did not change the language much. Middle Babylonian became important for writing in many places.

From around 1000 BC, Akkadian started to share its place with another language called Aramaic. Over time, Aramaic became more common, especially in places ruled by strong empires. By the time of Greek rule, Akkadian was mostly only used for writing, while people spoke other languages.

Decipherment

The Akkadian language was rediscovered when a traveler named Carsten Niebuhr copied many writings in 1767. Scholars began to understand these writings, helped by texts that showed both Akkadian and Old Persian. Key figures like Edward Hincks and Sir Henry Rawlinson helped fully uncover the language in the 1800s.

Dialects

Some experts think the oldest form of Akkadian was not the direct ancestor of later forms, but a separate way of speaking that disappeared early on.

Eblaite, once thought to be a type of Akkadian, is now seen as its own East Semitic language.

Phonology

We cannot hear the Akkadian language anymore, so we do not know exactly how it sounded. But we can learn about its sounds by comparing it to other old languages and by looking at how Akkadian words were written.

Akkadian used special symbols for sounds called consonants. Some of these sounds were strong and sharp, called emphatic consonants. When adding a word ending to another word, some sounds changed to fit better. This helps us understand how the sounds might have been made.

Akkadian also had vowels, like "a" or "e". These vowels could be short or long, and this difference helped give words their meaning. The way stress, or which part of a word is said louder, followed patterns based on the sounds in the word.

Grammar

Most words in the Akkadian language are made from three main sounds, but some words have four. These sounds can change with added parts to create new meanings. The middle sound can sometimes repeat, making the word stronger.

Akkadian has three ways to show if something is close or far away, and three ways to show if something is singular, dual, or plural. Adjectives usually match the number of the nouns they describe. In later times, some endings were lost, making it harder to tell these differences.

Akkadian nouns can change form depending on their role in a sentence. There are different forms for when a noun is the main subject, when it is describing something, and when it is part of a larger phrase. Verbs in Akkadian can change to show mood, like whether they are certain or wished-for actions. There are also many ways to form new verbs from root words.

The language also has special forms for nouns and adjectives that show qualities or actions. Pronouns can stand alone or attach to the end of words. Prepositions show relationships like location or direction. Numbers often change form based on the gender of the thing being counted, and sentences are usually structured with the subject first, followed by the object, and then the verb.

Morphology

Consonantal root

Most roots of the Akkadian language consist of three consonants, but some roots are composed of four consonants. The consonants are sometimes represented in upper-case letters, for example PRS (to decide). Between and around these consonants various infixes, suffixes and prefixes are inserted. The resulting consonant-vowel pattern differentiates the original meaning of the root. The middle consonant can be doubled, which is represented by a doubled consonant in transcription.

The consonants ʔ, w, j and n are termed "weak radicals" and roots containing these radicals give rise to irregular forms.

Case, number and gender

Formally, Akkadian has three numbers (singular, dual and plural) and three cases (nominative, accusative and genitive). However, even in the earlier stages of the language, the dual number is vestigial, and its use is largely confined to natural pairs (eyes, ears, etc.). Adjectives are never found in the dual.

Akkadian has only "sound" plurals formed by means of a plural ending. Broken plurals are not formed by changing the word stem. Some masculine nouns take the feminine plural ending -āt.

The nouns šarrum (king) and šarratum (queen) and the adjective dannum (strong) will serve to illustrate the case system of Akkadian.

In the later stages of Akkadian, the mimation and nunation that occurred at the end of most case endings disappeared, except in the locative. Later, the nominative and accusative singular of masculine nouns collapsed. As a result, case differentiation disappeared from all forms except masculine plural nouns. However, many texts continued the practice of writing the case endings, although often sporadically and incorrectly. As the most important contact language throughout this period was Aramaic, it is possible that Akkadian's loss of cases was an areal as well as phonological phenomenon.

Noun states and nominal sentences

The Antiochus cylinder, written by Antiochus I Soter, as great king of kings of Babylon, restorer of gods E-sagila and E-zida, c. 250 BCE. Written in traditional Akkadian.

As is also the case in other Semitic languages, Akkadian nouns may appear in a variety of "states" depending on their grammatical function in a sentence. The basic form of the noun is the status rectus. In addition to this, Akkadian has the status absolutus and the status constructus.

The status absolutus is characterised by the loss of a noun's case ending. The participle, which can be active or passive, is another verbal adjective and its meaning is similar to the English gerund^[specify]

The following table shows the conjugation of the G-stem verbs derived from the root PRS ("to decide") in the various verb aspects of Akkadian:

The table below shows the different affixes attached to the preterite aspect of the verb root PRS "to decide"; and as can be seen, the grammatical genders differ only in the second person singular and third person plural.

Verb moods

Akkadian verbs have three moods:

1. Indicative, used in independent clauses, is unmarked.
2. Subjunctive, used in dependent clauses, is marked in forms which do not end in a vowel by the suffix -u but is otherwise unmarked.
3. Venitive or allative, not a mood in the strictest sense, being a development of the first-person dative pronominal suffix -am/-m/-nim. With verbs of motion, it often indicates motion toward an object or person. However, this pattern is not consistent, and its use often appears to serve a stylistic rather than morphological or lexical function.

Verb patterns

Akkadian verbs have thirteen separate derived stems formed on each root. The basic, underived, stem is the G-stem. Causative or intensive forms are formed with the doubled D-stem. The Š-stem is formed by adding a prefix š-, and these forms are mostly causatives. The passive forms of the verb are in the N-stem, formed by adding a n- prefix.

Reflexive and iterative verbal stems can be derived from each of the basic stems. The reflexive stem is formed with an infix -ta, and the derived stems are therefore called Gt, Dt, Št and Nt. Iteratives are formed with the infix -tan-, giving the Gtn, Dtn, Štn and Ntn.

The final stem is the ŠD-stem, a form mostly attested only in poetic texts. It is formed with the Š prefix in addition to a doubled-middle radical.

There is mandatory congruence between the subject of the sentence and the verb. This is expressed by prefixes and suffixes.

The stems, their nomenclature and examples of the third-person masculine singular stative of the verb parāsum (root PRS: 'to decide, distinguish, separate') is shown below:

Stative

A very often appearing form which can be formed by nouns, adjectives as well as by verbal adjectives is the stative. The stative in Akkadian corresponds to the Egyptian pseudo-participle. Thus, the stative in Akkadian is used to convert simple stems into effective sentences. Hence, the stative is independent of time forms.

Derivation

Beside the already explained possibility of derivation of different verb stems, Akkadian has numerous nominal formations derived from verb roots. A very frequently encountered form is the maPRaS form. Examples for this are: maškanum (place, location) from ŠKN (set, place, put), mašraḫum (splendour) from ŠRḪ (be splendid), maṣṣarum (guards) from NṢR (guard), napḫarum (sum) from PḪR (summarize).

A very similar formation is the maPRaSt form. The suffix – ūt is used to derive abstract nouns. The suffix can be attached to nouns, adjectives and verbs, e.g. abūtum (paternity) from abum (father), rabûtum (size) from rabûm (large), waṣûtum (leaving) from WṢY (leave).

Pronouns

Personal pronouns

Independent personal pronouns

Independent personal pronouns in Akkadian are as follows:

Suffixed (or enclitic) pronouns

Suffixed (or enclitic) pronouns are as follows:

Demonstrative pronouns

Demonstrative pronouns in Akkadian differ from the Western Semitic variety.

Relative pronouns

Relative pronouns in Akkadian are shown in the following table:

Unlike plural relative pronouns, singular relative pronouns in Akkadian exhibit full declension for case. Only the form ša survived, while the other forms disappeared in time.

Interrogative pronouns

The following table shows the interrogative pronouns used in Akkadian:

Prepositions

Akkadian has prepositions which consist mainly of only one word. For example: ina (in, on, out, through, under), ana (to, for, after, approximately), adi (to), aššum (because of), eli (up, over), ištu/ultu (of, since), mala (in accordance with), itti (also, with).

Examples: ina bītim (in the house), ana dummuqim (to do good), itti šarrim (with the king).

Numerals

Since numerals are written mostly as a number sign in the cuneiform script, the transliteration of many numerals is not well ascertained yet. Along with the counted noun, the cardinal numerals are in the status absolutus. The numerals 1 and 2 as well as 21–29, 31–39, 41–49 correspond with the counted in the grammatical gender. The numerals 3–20, 30, 40 and 50 are characterized by polarity of gender.

The ordinals are formed by adding a case ending to the nominal form PaRuS.

Examples: erbē aššātum (four wives), meat ālānū (100 towns).

Syntax

Nominal phrases

Adjectives, relative clauses and appositions follow the noun. Numerals precede the counted noun.

Sentence syntax

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.

Vocabulary

The Akkadian vocabulary mostly came from the Semitic language family. But many of its basic words do not match well with other Semitic languages. For example, the word for "son" in Akkadian is mārum, while in other Semitic languages it is related to the word for "build".

Akkadian picked up many words from other languages it came into contact with, especially Sumerian and Aramaic. Sumerian words spread across all of Akkadian-speaking areas, while Aramaic words were mostly found in the northern and central parts of Mesopotamia during the early first millennium BC. Akkadian also borrowed words from Hurrian, Kassite, and Ugaritic.

The Akkadian language also influenced other Semitic languages. For example, the word biṣru meaning "onion" in Akkadian became the word for onion in Arabic and Hebrew.

In 2011, the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago finished a huge dictionary of the Akkadian language called the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary. It took 90 years to complete, with the first volume published in 1956.

Sample text

This is a law from Hammurabi, written a long time ago:

If a man buys silver, gold, or animals from another man or a slave without witnesses or a contract, or if he takes care of something for someone else without the same, then he is a thief and will have big problems.

Main article: Hammurabi law code

Akkadian literature

Main article: Akkadian literature

Akkadian literature includes famous stories and letters from ancient times. Important works are the Atrahasis Epic, the Enûma Elish, and the Amarna letters. Another well-known story is the Epic of Gilgamesh.