Akkadian language | Wikipedia audio article
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Date: 2018-11-26

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Akkadian language

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SUMMARY
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Akkadian ( akkadû, 𒀝𒅗𒁺𒌑 ak-ka-du-u2; logogram: 𒌵𒆠 URIKI) is an extinct East Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia (Akkad, Assyria, Isin, Larsa and Babylonia) from the 30th century BC until its gradual replacement by Akkadian-influenced Eastern Aramaic among Mesopotamians between the eighth century. 
It is the earliest attested Semitic language. It used the cuneiform script, which was originally used to write the unrelated, and also extinct, Sumerian (which is a language isolate). Akkadian was named after the city of Akkad, a major centre of Mesopotamian civilization during the Akkadian Empire (c. 2334–2154 BC), but the language itself precedes the founding of Akkad by many centuries, being first attested in the 29th century BC.
The mutual influence between Sumerian and Akkadian had led scholars to describe the languages as a Sprachbund.Akkadian proper names were first attested in Sumerian texts from around the mid 3rd-millennium BC. From the second half of the third millennium BC (c. 2500 BC), texts fully written in Akkadian begin to appear. Hundreds of thousands of texts and text fragments have been excavated to date, covering a vast textual tradition of mythological narrative, legal texts, scientific works, correspondence, political and military events, and many other examples. By the second millennium BC, two variant forms of the language were in use in Assyria and Babylonia, known as Assyrian and Babylonian respectively.
For centuries, Akkadian was the native language in Mesopotamian nations such as Assyria and Babylonia. Because of the might of various Mesopotamian empires, such as the Akkadian Empire, Old Assyrian Empire, Babylonia, and Middle Assyrian Empire, Akkadian became the lingua franca of much of the Ancient Near East. However, it began to decline during the Neo-Assyrian Empire around the 8th century BC, being marginalized by Aramaic during the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III. 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 first century AD. Neo-Mandaic spoken by the Mandaeans, and Assyrian Neo-Aramaic spoken by the Assyrian people, are two of the few modern Semitic languages that contain 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 language of the Indo-European languages.