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Akkadian, a Semitic language, gradually replaced Sumerian as the primary spoken language in the area c. 2000 BC (the exact date is debated), [5] but Sumerian continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary, and scientific language in Akkadian-speaking Mesopotamian states such as Assyria and Babylonia until the 1st century AD.
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 ...
Approximate historical distribution of the Semitic languages in the Ancient Near East.. Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples or Proto-Semitic people were speakers of Semitic languages who lived throughout the ancient Near East and North Africa, including the Levant, Mesopotamia, the Arabian Peninsula and Carthage from the 3rd millennium BC until the end of antiquity, with some, such as Arabs ...
The earliest language written in Mesopotamia was Sumerian, an agglutinative language isolate. Along with Sumerian, Semitic languages were also spoken in early Mesopotamia. [21] Subartuan, [22] a language of the Zagros possibly related to the Hurro-Urartuan language family, is attested in personal names, rivers and mountains and in various crafts.
The cuneiform lexical lists are a series of ancient Mesopotamian glossaries which preserve the semantics of Sumerograms, their phonetic value and their Akkadian or other language equivalents. [1] They are the oldest literary texts from Mesopotamia and one of the most widespread genres in the ancient Near East .
Map showing the extent of Mesopotamia. The Civilization of Mesopotamia ranges from the earliest human occupation in the Paleolithic period up to Late antiquity.This history is pieced together from evidence retrieved from archaeological excavations and, after the introduction of writing in the late 4th millennium BC, an increasing amount of historical sources.
The language was at first called Babylonian and/or Assyrian, but has now come to be known as Akkadian. [19] From 1850 onwards, there was a growing suspicion that the Semite inhabitants of Babylon and Assyria were not the inventors of cuneiform system of writing, and that they had instead borrowed it from some other language and culture.
East Semitic languages stand apart from other Semitic languages, which are traditionally called West Semitic, in a number of respects. Historically, it is believed that the linguistic situation came about as speakers of East Semitic languages wandered further east, settling in Mesopotamia during the 3rd millennium BC , as attested by Akkadian ...