Talk:Elamite language

message: I have come across a number of references to the "Susian" language; are Susian and Elamite synonymous, or is Susian distinct, or does it represent a period of Elamite (i.e. late Elamite)? Tom Radulovich 19:34, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Elamite and Susian

message: Any information on Elamite Numerals? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.168.173.197 (talk • contribs).
: I knew 1 = ki, 2 = ma-ir before... If you look at List of numbers in various languages you'll see: 1 = kir, 2 = mar (these are other versions of "ki" and "ma-ir"), 3 = zit, 8 = liuli, 10 = rit; and on internet I found: 5 = tuku?, 80 = barba Böri (talk) 09:11, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Elamite Numerals?

message: There needs to be an explanation why it was adopted as an "official language" (?) by the Achaemenids. --Ghirla-трёп- 21:09, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I can tell you why - the Persian rulers, for the most part, were accommodating to their subjects; the southwest population spoke Elamite - ignoring that fact, or trying to force a new language upon tens of thousands of people - especially in those times - was not practical.  For government and satrapies to work in what was Elam, Elamite had to be recognized.HammerFilmFan (talk) 23:36, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Official language" 

message: The corresponding article in the German-language Wikipedia (Elamische Sprache)is much, much richer in information than this article. Those who feel strongly about making Elamite better known to the larger public might want to translate the German article into English. In any case, let this talk item be a directive to the German page. Jakob37 (talk) 03:27, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Paucity of Information 

message: I have never forgotten my former Persian professor (UCLA) Don Stilo's remarks in class one day in 1974 or 5 about Elamite being related to the Dravidian languages.  I wonder if anyone feels it worthy to note that the separatist Tamil groups currently fighting in Sri Lanka refer to themselves as the "Tigers of Elam"?  Perhaps there is a connection between Elamite and Tamil.  I am not in the linguistics field, but I thought it worthy to at least make a comment.  
Hats off to everyone for their thoughtful and critical efforts on here. Daniel Sparkman (talk) 21:41, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The proposed Elamite-Dravidian relationship is discussed in the article. (Tamil is a Dravidian language.) Eelam is the Tamil form of Lanka. --JWB (talk) 21:50, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

text: No relationship whatsoever - scholars and linguists identify Elamite as a language isolate. HammerFilmFan (talk) 16:31, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Elamite and Tamil; Relationship? 

message: I will paste in below recent exchange on this subject between myself and an anonymous correspondent on my personal Talk page and ask that others more knowledgeable than myself please make a decision on this issue. Here is the correspondence so far:
=== Llamids? ===
Hi,
what exactly did you mean by this? --Anonymous44 (talk) 12:47, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Ilamid is meant to begin with a capital "i" - not a capital "l" - the font used in the Wikipedia is, indeed, very confusing and should be changed so that capital forms of the letters can be easily distinguished from each other. "Ilamid" is a reasonably common alternative way of writing "Elamite." See, for example,  or . Hope that clears up any confusion. Cheers, John Hill (talk) 22:55, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, it makes more sense now (I had been wondering at first if a connection might be implied with Llamas or even Tibetan Lamas in some way :)), although I wonder how you came to encounter this version of the name in the first place. It's not really that common at all in my experience. Judging from the links you provided and other searches, "Ilamids" seems to be used in English by a few Iranian websites, for unclear reasons - perhaps they're using the Farsi (oops, Persian) form as a way of claiming their cultural heritage? A search for "Ilamids", "Ilamid language", as compared with "Elamites", "Elamite language", on either Google or Google books shows that "Ilamid" (apart from the names of some unrelated Muslim sultans) practically doesn't exist. (This includes the researcher cited by the Iranian news, who uses "Elamite" in his own writings ). A look-up in an English dictionary or encyclopedia also shows that "Ilamid" is not an English word. Of course, if there's much lobbying for it, "Political Correctness" may eventually claim another triumph. But for the time being, I think we shouldn't be giving the term a legitimacy that it doesn't have.--Anonymous44 (talk) 00:24, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

text: Reply: Sorry - I just quickly looked up a couple of references to Ilamids (i.e. with a capital "I" at the beginning) on the internet to give you links you could check (and I could find) quickly. I have seen it used in various papers but, unfortunately, I don't have any of them with me still (I was doing a lot of reading on that period a couple of years ago - but haven't been recently). You may be right, though, that it is only used in Iranian sources, and its use here is not justified. I have just had a further look on the internet and have found only a few references to it. One source that does use it in its papers, and which may indicate a wider acceptance, is the "Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies" which is connected with London University's prestigious School of Oriental and African Studies. However, I now discover as I tried to post it here for you to check, that their website has been blacklisted by the Wikipedia (for reasons unknown to me). I am, therefore, happy to leave it to other readers to decide whether it should be included in this article - I have no strong feelings either way. I will post all this correspondence on the Talk page to see what others think. Best wishes, John Hill (talk) 10:36, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: About the CAIS's blacklisting - I don't know why it was done, but I do have the vague impression that they pursue a nationalist agenda (I don't quite remember how I got it, it might have been in connection with the description of the Cyrus cylinder as a "charter of human rights", which is the only Iranian-related issue I recall having participated in anyway). They point out in their "About" page that they are not connected to the London School any more. Best, --Anonymous44 (talk) 12:59, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Should the variant "Ilamid" for "Elamite" be used on this page?

message: Hi,
what exactly did you mean by this? --Anonymous44 (talk) 12:47, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Ilamid is meant to begin with a capital "i" - not a capital "l" - the font used in the Wikipedia is, indeed, very confusing and should be changed so that capital forms of the letters can be easily distinguished from each other. "Ilamid" is a reasonably common alternative way of writing "Elamite." See, for example,  or . Hope that clears up any confusion. Cheers, John Hill (talk) 22:55, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, it makes more sense now (I had been wondering at first if a connection might be implied with Llamas or even Tibetan Lamas in some way :)), although I wonder how you came to encounter this version of the name in the first place. It's not really that common at all in my experience. Judging from the links you provided and other searches, "Ilamids" seems to be used in English by a few Iranian websites, for unclear reasons - perhaps they're using the Farsi (oops, Persian) form as a way of claiming their cultural heritage? A search for "Ilamids", "Ilamid language", as compared with "Elamites", "Elamite language", on either Google or Google books shows that "Ilamid" (apart from the names of some unrelated Muslim sultans) practically doesn't exist. (This includes the researcher cited by the Iranian news, who uses "Elamite" in his own writings ). A look-up in an English dictionary or encyclopedia also shows that "Ilamid" is not an English word. Of course, if there's much lobbying for it, "Political Correctness" may eventually claim another triumph. But for the time being, I think we shouldn't be giving the term a legitimacy that it doesn't have.--Anonymous44 (talk) 00:24, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

text: Reply: Sorry - I just quickly looked up a couple of references to Ilamids (i.e. with a capital "I" at the beginning) on the internet to give you links you could check (and I could find) quickly. I have seen it used in various papers but, unfortunately, I don't have any of them with me still (I was doing a lot of reading on that period a couple of years ago - but haven't been recently). You may be right, though, that it is only used in Iranian sources, and its use here is not justified. I have just had a further look on the internet and have found only a few references to it. One source that does use it in its papers, and which may indicate a wider acceptance, is the "Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies" which is connected with London University's prestigious School of Oriental and African Studies. However, I now discover as I tried to post it here for you to check, that their website has been blacklisted by the Wikipedia (for reasons unknown to me). I am, therefore, happy to leave it to other readers to decide whether it should be included in this article - I have no strong feelings either way. I will post all this correspondence on the Talk page to see what others think. Best wishes, John Hill (talk) 10:36, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: About the CAIS's blacklisting - I don't know why it was done, but I do have the vague impression that they pursue a nationalist agenda (I don't quite remember how I got it, it might have been in connection with the description of the Cyrus cylinder as a "charter of human rights", which is the only Iranian-related issue I recall having participated in anyway). They point out in their "About" page that they are not connected to the London School any more. Best, --Anonymous44 (talk) 12:59, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Llamids? 

message: Does anybody speak the language? No they don't so how do they know it is not Semitic/Indo European. Modern Persians(Iranians) speak Farsi. So switching from a language that is from a completely different family is a very dramatic change. Can tell why linguists don't think that Elamite is not a Semtic/Indo-European language?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.106.64.242 (talk) 16:28, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, scholars do have a sufficiently good idea of the Elamite language to tell such a thing. They know a great deal of the vocabulary and the grammar, so they can see that it has nothing to do with Indo-European. You may want to take a look at comparative linguistics if you are unsure how people can tell an IE language from a non-IE language. If you want to see what Elamite looks like and how it works, you can look at the sources in the external links (unfortunately, none is in English). --91.148.159.4 (talk) 22:59, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

text: I do hope you meant "... is not a Semitic OR an Indo-European language" above - Sumerian is not Indo-European, nor is it related to any other language.  It's a language isolate.  Dramatic changes in a spoken language in a particular territory have happened many times throughout history for a variety of reasons (conquest, immigration, adoption, etc.) and is not unusual in the least. HammerFilmFan (talk) 16:45, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  How do people know if it is/not Indo-European? 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Elamite language. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110513235032/http://www.ancientscripts.com/elamite.html to http://www.ancientscripts.com/elamite.html
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 20:51, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Elamite language. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110921032858/http://www.kavehfarrokh.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/elamitedravidian.pdf to http://www.kavehfarrokh.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/elamitedravidian.pdf
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 16:38, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: It would seem that by 2650 B.C. when an Elamite king is first attested IN Elamite, that the language would have been solidly formed. I am aware that the proto-Elamite script is still not decipherable - correct? - so we don't know if what is said is in the Elamite language. Are there sources which push the language back to 3100 B.C., etc.? 50.111.14.1 (talk) 23:44, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  proto-Elamite script vs. language