Akkadian

**Akkadian** (/əˈkeɪdiən/ 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) (all in modern-day Iraq) from the third millennium BC until its gradual replacement by Akkadian-influenced Old Aramaic among Mesopotamians by the 8th century BC.

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 is named after the city of Akkad, a major centre of Mesopotamian civilization during the Akkadian Empire (c. 2334–2154 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 about the 25th or 24th century BC, texts fully written in Akkadian begin to appear. By the 10th century BC, two variant forms of the language were in use in Assyria and Babylonia, known as Assyrian and Babylonian respectively. The bulk of preserved material is from this later period, corresponding to the Near Eastern Iron Age. In total, hundreds of thousands of texts and text fragments have been excavated, covering a vast textual tradition of mythological narrative, legal texts, scientific works, correspondence, political and military events, and many other examples.

Akkadian (in its Assyrian and Babylonian varieties) was the native language of the Mesopotamian empires (Akkadian Empire, Old Assyrian Empire, Babylonia, Middle Assyrian Empire) throughout the later Bronze Age, and Akkadian became the lingua franca of much of the Ancient Near East by the time of the Bronze Age collapse. Its decline began in the Iron Age, during the Neo-Assyrian Empire, by about the 8th century BC (Tiglath-Pileser III), in favour of Old Aramaic. 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 1st century AD. Mandaic and Assyrian are two (Northwest Semitic) Neo-Aramaic languages that retain 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 Indo-European language.

## Phonetics and phonology

Because Akkadian as a spoken language is extinct and no contemporary descriptions of the pronunciation are known, little can be said with certainty about the phonetics and phonology of Akkadian. Some conclusions can be made, however, due to the relationship to the other Semitic languages and variant spellings of Akkadian words.

### Consonants

The following table gives the consonant sounds distinguished in the Akkadian use of cuneiform, with the presumed pronunciation in IPA transcription according to Huehnergard and Woods, which most closely corresponds to recent reconstructions of Proto-Semitic phonology. The parenthesised symbol following is the transcription used in the literature, in the cases where that symbol is different from the phonetic symbol. This transcription has been suggested for all Semitic languages by the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft (DMG), and is therefore known as *DMG-Umschrift*.

### Reconstruction

Akkadian emphatic consonants are typically reconstructed as ejectives, which are thought to be the oldest realization of emphatics across the Semitic languages. One piece of evidence for this is that Akkadian shows a development known as Geers' law, where one of two emphatic consonants dissimilates to the corresponding non-emphatic consonant. For the sibilants, traditionally /š/ has been held to be postalveolar Template:IPA, and /s/, /z/, /Template:Transl/ analyzed as fricatives; but attested assimilations in Akkadian suggest otherwise.Kogan, Leonid (2011). "Proto-Semitic Phonetics and Phonology". In Semitic languages: an international handbook, Stefan Weninger, ed. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. p. 68. For example, when the possessive suffix *-šu* is added to the root *awat* ('word'), it is written *awassu* ('his word') even though *šš* would be expected. The most straightforward interpretation of this shift from *tš* to *ss* is that /s, ṣ/ form a pair of voiceless alveolar affricates Template:IPA, \*š is a voiceless alveolar fricative Template:IPA, and \*z is a voiced alveolar affricate or fricative Template:IPA. The assimilation is then [awat+su] > Template:IPA. In this vein, an alternative transcription of \*š is \*s̠, with the macron below indicating a soft (lenis) articulation in Semitic transcription. Other interpretations are possible, however. Template:IPA could have been assimilated to the preceding Template:IPA, yielding Template:IPA, which would later have been simplified to Template:IPA.

The phoneme /r/ has traditionally been interpreted as a trill but its pattern of alternation with /Template:Transl/ suggests it was a velar (or uvular) fricative. In the Hellenistic period, Akkadian /r/ was transcribed using the Greek ρ, indicating it was pronounced similarly as an alveolar trill (though Greeks may also have perceived a uvular trill as ρ).

### Descent from Proto-Semitic

Several Proto-Semitic phonemes are lost in Akkadian. The Proto-Semitic glottal stop Template:Transl, Template:Transl 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 voiceless lateral fricatives (Template:Transl) merged with the sibilants as in Canaanite, leaving 19 consonantal phonemes. Old Akkadian preserved the /\*ś/ phoneme longest but it eventually merged with /\*š/, beginning in the Old Babylonian period. The following table shows Proto-Semitic phonemes and their correspondences among Akkadian, Modern Standard Arabic and Tiberian Hebrew:

Template:Reflist

### Vowels

Akkadian vowels

The existence of a back mid-vowel Template:IPA has been proposed, but the cuneiform writing gives no good proof for this. There is limited contrast between different u-signs in lexical texts, but this scribal differentiation may reflect the superimposition of the Sumerian phonological system (for which an /o/ phoneme has also been proposed), rather than a separate phoneme in Akkadian.

All consonants and vowels appear in long and short forms. Long consonants are represented in writing as double consonants, and long vowels are written with a macron (ā, ē, ī, ū). This distinction is phonemic, and is used in the grammar, for example *iprusu* ('that he decided') versus *iprusū* ('they decided').

### Stress

The stress patterns of Akkadian are disputed, with some authors claiming that nothing is known of the topic. There are however certain points of reference, such as the rule of vowel syncope, and some forms in the cuneiform that might represent the stressing of certain vowels; however, attempts at identifying a rule for stress have so far been unsuccessful.

Huenergard (2005:3-4) claims that stress in Akkadian is completely predictable. In his syllable typology there are three syllable weights: *light* (V, CV); *heavy* (CVC, CV̄, CV̂), and *superheavy* (CV̂C). If the last syllable is superheavy, it is stressed, otherwise the rightmost heavy non-final syllable is stressed. If a word contains only light syllables, the first syllable is stressed.

A rule of Akkadian phonology is that certain short (and probably unstressed) vowels are dropped. The rule is that the last vowel of a succession of syllables that end in a short vowel is dropped, for example the declinational root of the verbal adjective of a root PRS is *PaRiS-*. Thus the masculine singular nominative is *PaRS-um* (< *\*PaRiS-um*) but the feminine singular nominative is *PaRiStum* (< *\*PaRiS-at-um*). Additionally there is a general tendency of syncope of short vowels in the later stages of Akkadian.

1. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `:0`
2. ↑ Template:Cite web
3. ↑ Sabatino Moscati et al. "An Introduction to Comparative Grammar of Semitic Languages Phonology and Morphology". (section on vowels and semi-vowels)

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