Akkadian language

Akkadian is divided into dialects based on geography and time.

• 2500 - 1950 Old Akkadian
• 1950 - 1530 Old Babylonian/Old Assyrian
• 1530 - 1000 Middle Babylonian/Middle Assyrian
• 1000 - 600 Neo-Babylonian/Neo-Assyrian
• 600 B.C. - 100 A.D. Late Babylonian

Akkadian 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, pharyngial 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, a distinction lost on Akkadian speakers.

Akkadian Grammar

Akkadian was an inflected language, possessing three cases (nominative, accusative, and genitive), three numbers (singular, dual, and plural), and verb conjugations for first, second, and third persons.

Akkadian Syntax

Akkadian sentence order was subject, object, verb, which sets it apart from all other Semitic languages. It has been hypothesized that this word order was a result of influence from the Sumerian language, which was also SOV. 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 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.

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