Akkadian Language Dialects Cuneiform Grammar Syntax

Akkadian was a language of the Semitic family spoken in ancient Mesopotamia, particularly by the Assyrians and Babylonians. It used the cuneiform writing system.

1 Dialects

Akkadian (lišānum akkaditum) is divided into dialects based on geography and time.

2 Cuneiform

Akkadian scribes wrote cuneiform using signs that represented Sumerian logograms, Sumerian syllables, Akkadian syllables, and phonetic complements. Cuneiform was in many ways unsuited to Akkadian: among its flaws were its inability to represent glottal stops, pharyngeal stops, and emphatic consonants, as well as a syllabic construction completely inappropriate for languages demonstrating the triconsonantal root . Sumerian cuneiform also distinguished between i and e; this distinction, however, though not originally present in Akkadian, was adopted rapidly as compensation for the disappearance of the original pharyngeals.

3 Grammar

Akkadian was an inflected language, possessing three cases ( nominative, accusative, and genitive), three numbers ( singular, dual, and pluralPlural is a grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the referent in the real world. In the English language, singular and plural are the only grammatical numbers. In English, nouns, pronouns, and demonstratives inflect for plurality.), and verbA verb is a part of speech that usually denotes action ("bring", "read"), occurrence ("to decompose" (itself), "to glitter"), or a state of being ("exist", "live", "soak", "stand"). Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many fact conjugationThe word conjugation has several meanings: Grammatical conjugation is the modification of a verb from its basic form. In biology, conjugation is sexual reproduction involving interchange of DNA between cells, rather than their fusion. Various forms of cons for first, second, and third personIn colloquial English, person is often synonymous with human''. However, in philosophy, there have been debates over the precise meaning and correct usage of the word, and what the criteria for personhood are. Are all persons human? Firstly, there is thes.

4 Syntax

Akkadian sentence order was subjectSee subject (grammar) for the linguistic definition of subject. In politics a subject is a person who is subordinate to the rule of a monarch or state. Compare with citizen. In philosophy, a subject is a being which has experiences or a relationship with, object, verb, which sets it apart from most other Semitic languages, apart from those of EthiopiaThe Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia Ityop'iya Amharic ) is a country of northeastern Africa. It has one of the most extensive known histories as an independent nation in the continent. Unique among African countries, the Ethiopian monarchy maintai. It has been hypothesized that this word order was a result of influence from the Sumerian language, which was also SOVSubject Object Verb (SOV) is a term used in linguistic typology to state the general order of words in a language's sentences: "Sam oranges ate". The SOV type is the most common type found in natural languages. It corresponds roughly to reverse Polish not. There is evidence that native speakers of both languages formed the same society for at least 500 years, so it is entirely likely that a sprachbundA Sprachbund (German for language union) is a group of languages that have become similar in some way because of geographical proximity. They may be genetically unrelated or only distantly related, but where genetic affiliations are unclear the Sprachbund could have formed. Further evidence of an original VSO or SVO ordering can be found in the fact that direct and indirect object pronouns are suffixed to the verb. Word order seems to have shifted to SVO/VSO late in the 1st millennium, possibly under the influence of Aramaic.

5 External Links

Akkadian Language Sample

Extinct languages Semitic languages Assyria

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